Mumith wrote:
The fix is to install a new hard drive, which can be bought online and a relatively simple installation I’m told so I will look at one of those. I was shown one on amazon instore:
1 TB 2.5 Inch Internal Hard Drive (7 mm Form Factor, 128 MB Cache SATA 6 GB/s Up to 140 MB/s)
and I think I’ll go ahead with that one unless any recommendations on a better one? SSD is better I’m told but is a fair bit more expensive.
I can retrieve the data on my existing hard drive by bringing it in store and sitting there for 2-3 hours, or buying a hard drive adapter which will allow me to see the contents of my old hard drive, after installing the new one in, and dragging and dropping as need be.
The thing about your machine is that Apple considers it "vintage" and thus not subject to providing repair parts (outside of being in California or Turkey). But of course a SATA hard drive is a universally compatible commodity part that you should have no issue finding. Apple will likely look at it as they still have the diagnostic tools. They may have some of the repair parts that are in common with the oldest machines still supported with repair parts, but it's hard to get an answer whether or not they'll order them for a service.
Vintage and obsolete products - Apple Support
Vintage products are those that have not been manufactured for more than 5 and less than 7 years ago. Apple has discontinued hardware service for vintage products with the following exceptions:
- Mac products purchased in the country of Turkey. Owners of vintage Mac products may obtain service and parts from Apple service providers within the country of Turkey.
- Products purchased in the state of California, United States, as required by statute.
Owners of vintage Mac products may obtain service and parts from Apple service providers within the state of California, United States.
The other thing is that you should think about perhaps getting a solid-state drive. These come in the same "form factor" as hard drives but are considerably faster. Just the raw data speed is considerably higher, but they also don't have issues with "seek time" required with hard drives when they need to access data on different parts of a platter. A lot of users who have upgraded to an SSD will say that it's breathed new life into an old machine that seemed to be struggling with performance. I was about to give up on my mid-2012 MBP until I got an SSD.
The big caveat about an SSD is that the price is higher for a given capacity. However, the performance gains are about the same regardless of the capacity, as long as the operating system and applications are located on the SSD. Bulk storage could be on an external drive where it's not as timing critical. A 240-256 GB SSD might cost around $70. There are dozens of companies selling SSDs. I have a 512 GB SSD myself. It seemed like a good price point. This is the one I have (the 512 GB version is exclusive to Best Buy):
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/sandisk-ultra-512gb-internal-sata-solid-state-drive -for-laptops/5969506.p?skuId=5969506
