Installing a new hard drive SSD - how do I do?

What OS are you currently running on this laptop? In order to use a third party NVMe SSD, you must be running at least macOS 10.13+. In fact, if you want to use macOS 12.x Monterey, then you need to make sure that you install macOS 12.x Monterey while the original Apple SSD is still installed internally because macOS Monterey needs to install a system firmware update the first time Monterey is installed on a Mac.

If macOS 12.x Monterey has never been installed, then I recommend you install macOS 12.x Monterey while the original Apple SSD is still installed internally to save you some time. Just make sure to have a good backup before you attempt to upgrade to macOS Monterey just in case something goes wrong during the upgrade.

I highly recommend you create a bootable macOS 10.13+ USB installer now while you can so you have more options available in case Internet Recovery Mode does not work as expected. Use the instructions in this Apple article to create a bootable macOS 10.13+ USB installer:

How to create a bootable installer for macOS - Apple Support

You can try to install macOS from Internet Recovery Mode (Command + Option + R) to attempt to boot to the online macOS 12.x Monterey installer. However, sometimes Internet Recovery Mode will only boot the Mac to the OS which originally shipped with the Mac from the factory which is much too old for use with a third party NVMe SSD. If this happens, then you will need to use a bootable macOS 10.13+ USB installer.

With the new SSD installed internally in the laptop, you will need to properly erase the new SSD using Disk Utility while booted either into Internet Recovery Mode or from a bootable macOS 10.13+ USB installer. Within Disk Utility you may need to click "View" and select "Show All Devices" so that the physical drive appears on the left pane of Disk Utility. Erase the whole physical new SSD as GUID partition and APFS (top option). Quit Disk Utility and select the "Reinstall macOS" option.

During the first boot of the clean install of macOS on the new SSD you will be given an option to restore from a Time Machine backup or from an external drive if you install the original Apple SSD into an OWC Envoy Pro Enclosure which will migrate your user account(s) and even apps to the new install. Personally I would just migrate the user account(s) and manually reinstall the third party apps, but it is your choice.

FYI, using an OWC Aura SSD is the easiest upgrade option because it is made for an Apple laptop. Plus OWC has a USB Envoy Pro Enclosure for the original Apple SSD. Plus OWC has installation video instructions to assist you and they have great customer service support.

I highly recommend you keep the original Apple SSD just in case it is ever needed in the future either for upgrading macOS/firmware or for testing the laptop.

You should always have frequent and regular backups of your computer and all external media which contains important & unique data.

Hi omar.m,

If your MacBook Pro has a removable hard drive (2015 or earlier), you can pop in a compatible SATA SSD using the right tools. I'd recommend checking out the tutorials available from OWC or iFixit.

To get system info about your MacBook Pro, go to the top left corner of the screen, click the Apple logo, and select About This Mac.

Contact an authorized apple service center for any internal work. The Solid State Drive is not a user serviceable part.

Many external SSD drives work quite well.