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Level 3

540 points

When to buy new Mac?

I have several year old Macbook Pro w/ a paltry 125G hard drive that is about 9G away from being full. It's time to upgrade. I am a Mobile Me hold over and have been holding off moving to the cloud until I get a new computer. My question is, when do folks think the Macbook Pro and iMac refreshes for 2012 are coming? Should I buy now or wait? If the refresh is not going to be until June, is it possible for me move everything to the cloud on my current Macbook now before the June 30 deadline for the evaporation of Mobile Me?

Posted on Apr 15, 2012 6:59 PM

23 replies

steve359

Level 6

17,169 points

Apr 15, 2012 8:58 PM in response to Bluesygirl

I looked at the video. Looks easy enough if you just do not lose track of all of the screws.

Kappy posted two "blue" links in his response. One of them takes you to OWC's video.

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Apr 15, 2012 9:11 PM in response to Bluesygirl

You need a SATA drive from this page. The tutorials here are good for your model.

They are the OWC pages for drives and the tutorial that is usable with your model (not exactly the same identifier, but they are essentially similar.)

If you don't feel capable then don't try. You can wait to buy something new or even send your computer to OWC where they will do the work for a flat $99.00 plus the hard drive.

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Apr 15, 2012 9:13 PM in response to steve359

Yes, it's not too difficult, although with the early MBP models it's not exactly trivial. I've done it several times without a problem, but then I'm very hardware savvy and mechanically competent. For a noob it's something you do with care.

steve359

Level 6

17,169 points

Apr 15, 2012 9:19 PM in response to Kappy

I have built 3 tower PCs from MBs and boxed CPUs, and I have learned from that that everything even marginally physically close to a motherboard is "something you do with care". Even with a simple procedure caution is key.

Bluesygirl Author

Level 3

540 points

Apr 15, 2012 9:20 PM in response to Kappy

OK I saw the video. That looks like my model. This is way beyond what I'm comfortable or competent to do. So....do I just buy the hard drive separately and show up at the genius bar or....?

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Apr 16, 2012 9:42 AM in response to Bluesygirl

Most Apple stores don't do this sort of work so you would have to ask if they would or if they can recommend an Apple certified technician in your area who would do the work. Or you can do as I suggested earlier - arrange to send your computer to OWC who will do the work for you at a reasonable cost. More information would be at their website.

Bluesygirl Author

Level 3

540 points

Apr 18, 2012 4:40 PM in response to Kappy

Hi Kappy,

Thank you very much for this information. As a result of your helpful post, I was able to do move my Itunes library to my external drive and was able to update my system to Lion.

However, I have run into a problem. After ungrading, I cannot get my iTunes library to show up when iTunes is launched. (I verified it was fine before the upgrade). Now when I launch iTunes, all I see is about 25 songs in my library and none of my saved playists, etc on the LH side. I verified that the paths of the songs on my external drive are pointing to it. However, they don't show up in my library. Is it something simple like a plist? What can I do? Thanks.

Bluesygirl Author

Level 3

540 points

Apr 18, 2012 5:08 PM in response to Bluesygirl

UPDATE: Problem re itunes library solved. 🙂 I searched elswhere in these forums and found out about holding down the option key while starting up iTunes in order to choose the library location.

Thanks everyone for all your help here. Now I just have to do the switch from Mobile Me to iCloud.

When to buy new Mac?