I wanted to update to replace the hard drive on my Early 2011 Macbook Pro. Since I have had my computer for over a year, my drive was getting bottled down, and I only had about 40GB left. Most of the space was filled with videos from my GoPro, pictures, and my extensive music colleciton, and I wasn’t willing to part with any of it.
I decided to go with the Western Digital 320 GB Scorpio Black SATA Notebook Hard Drive – WD3200BEKT
There are plenty of guides on how to replace the hard drive on an early 2011 Macbook pro online. My problem came when I was reinstalling OS X. The version of Snow Leopard I was installing was 10.6.7. When I went to boot from the DVD, my Macbook was emanating 3 POST beeps. The 3 beeps indicate an issue with the memory (RAM), which I had recently upgraded by purchasing 2x 4GB RAM chips. However, I hadn’t touched the RAM, and it was working perfectly fine before I touched the hard drive. Upon further research, the 3 Beeps on start up on my Macbook Pro from early 2011 indicated that I was using an install DVD that was not supported on my Machine. I ended up digging out the box that I got back in early 2011 and pulled out the install DVD that came with the computer. It was version 10.6.6, and after booting into that by holding Command + C at startup, it went right into the installation process. The installation took about 50 minutes, and my Macbook was running just like new, if not faster (due to the upgraded RAM and a fresh HDD).
The great thing about my MacBook Pro is that I can still boot into my original hard drive. I picked up a Macally PHRS-250CC FireWire 400/USB2.0 External Storage Enclosure for 2.5″ SATA HDD