After about a year and a half with my 13" MacBook Pro, the time had come to upgrade the hard drive from the stock 120 GB disk that it shipped with.  I had done some research online and given the setup that I had I figured this would have been a fairly easy task.  However I did run into some snags and I thought I’d share for whoever tries this in the future.

New HD

While I still had about 10 GB free on my disk before upgrading, I wanted to make sure that I had enough room for future growth.  I decided to go with a 500 GB Western Digital hard drive.  Check out the link for Amazon below:

Western Digital Scorpio Blue 500 GB Bulk/OEM Hard Drive 2.5 Inch, 8 MB Cache, 5400 RPM SATA II WD5000BEVT

My initial thought was to upgrade to a 7200 RPM disk, but after reading online I heard stories of some users who complained about noise issues with a faster disk.  I had never had any issues with my previous 5400 RPM disk so I went the cheap route.  In the end the new HD only cost me $56.00, pretty good deal.  Ah, I remember the days when a hard drive upgrade would cost hundreds!

Backing Up

The backup process for me was pretty much non-existant.  I have a 1 TB Time Capsule that handles all of my backups for me.  From what I had read online,  I could install the new drive, boot using the installation DVD and point it at my Time Capsule and away we go.

As an aside, I would highly recommend anyone with a Mac to pickup a Time Capsule.  It’s a sweet Wifi router, and the peace of mind that comes with regular backups is really nice.

Installation

Installation of the new hard drive was a snap.  I simply followed this PDF that was provided on the Apple website.  It only took about 5 minutes.

Restore

Now here’s where things started to get frustrating!

After I installed the hard drive, I booted my MacBook with the installation disk that came with the system (more in this in a bit).  Once the installer came up, there was an option to restore from a Time Machine backup.  I made sure I had a fast ethernet connection to the Time Capsule, put in my password and chose my latest backup.  However my computer wasn’t recognizing the new hard disk in the menu to select disks to restore to.  Eeeek!

I shut down the machine, cracked it open and made sure that everything was connected properly and then tried again.  Still no dice.  After a quick Google search I realized that I needed to format the destination drive before proceeding.  So I opened Disk Utility, “Erased” the drive to a journaled filesystem and tried again.  Success!  My disk could be found and I started the restore process.

Initially, it informed me that the process was going to take about 44 (!) hours, but in the end it took about 12.  I have about 130 GB of data to be restored, but I was expecting it to go quite faster.

Once the restore completed, I restarted the machine and I was greeted with an awesome kernel panic message:

No matter how many times I restarted, the same message came up.  Now I was really starting to get worried!

Again, after some Googling I did eventually find out what my issue was.  When I restored the backup, I used my installation disk that I got with my computer.  The problem was that this was a Leopard install disk, when I was in fact running (and my latest backup) was from Snow Leopard.  Time to restore again!

I used the proper Snow Leopard disk to do the restore and this time it only took about 2-3 hours.  I’ve now got an upgraded hard disk with about 375 GB to spare!

Utilizing the Old HD

What’s even better is that the old hard drive I have won’t likely go to waste.  I’m planning on installing the old 120 GB drive into my PS3 to replace the 40 GB drive I have in that.  Win!

A few lessons learned for sure but in all a pretty painless process to upgrade the hard drive on a 13" MacBook Pro.

Dylan

A few years ago at my previous gig our entire team did the StrengthsFinder 2.0 test.  Basically it’s a series of questions that you answer in under 10 seconds, and based on these questions the online test can pick out your top five strengths.  The book then provides further detail on how to execute on these strengths.

Back then my top strengths were as follows:

• Adaptability - People who are especially talented in the Adaptability theme prefer to “go with the flow.” They tend to be “now” people who take things as they come and discover the future one day at a time.
• Discipline - People who are especially talented in the Discipline theme enjoy routine and structure. Their world is best described by the order they create.
• Empathy - People who are especially talented in the Empathy theme can sense the feelings of other people by imagining themselves in others’ lives or others’ situations.
• Harmony - People who are especially talented in the Harmony theme look for consensus. They don’t enjoy conflict; rather, they seek areas of agreement.
• Responsibility - People who are especially talented in the Responsibility theme take psychological ownership of what they say they will do. They are committed to stable values such as honesty and loyalty.

I found the experience really eye opening and I would agree with most of my strengths at the time.  Recently I moved into a new role at work which prompted me to read Strengths Based Leadership, which is based on the research that was done for the StrengthsFinder book.  The book came with another online test code, so I went ahead and did it again.  This time, my strengths were as follows:

• Achiever - People who are especially talented in the Achiever theme have a great deal of stamina and work hard. They take great satisfaction from being busy and productive.
• Consistency - People who are especially talented in the Consistency theme are keenly aware of the need to treat people the same. They try to treat everyone in the world with consistency by setting up clear rules and adhering to them.
• Discipline - People who are especially talented in the Discipline theme enjoy routine and structure. Their world is best described by the order they create.
• Analytical - People who are especially talented in the Analytical theme search for reasons and causes. They have the ability to think about all the factors that might affect a situation.
• Maximizer - People who are especially talented in the Maximizer theme focus on strengths as a way to stimulate personal and group excellence. They seek to transform something strong into something superb.

Quite the difference!  I was actually pretty surprised by the results of my latest test.  Some things that I found interesting:

• The only strength the carried over from my old test was Discipline.  I do pride myself in being very disciplined, but I was expecting at least a few more of my strengths to stay the same.
• I've succeeded in my carrer quite a bit since my last test, which could be why Achiever has now appeared in the list.
• Part of my success can be attributed to Consistency and an Analytical nature that I have, so I can see why they have now appeared in my list.
• In a new role as a Team Lead, I’m really stoked to find that Maximizer is one of my strengths.  A real challenge for me going forward will be finding the way to get the best out of my team.
• Adaptability, Consistency, Harmony and Responsibility are the items that weren’t on my list this time around.  Not to say that I’m not strong in these areas anymore, but I do believe that I’ve switched my focus as I’ve progressed in my career.

In all I found that doing the test again was a good exercise and I’m planning on doing it again in a few years.

Have you done StrengthsFinder multiple times?  Did you find that your strengths stayed the same, or did they change over time?

Dylan

Check out this sweet birthday cake Alyssa made today!

So awesome!

Dylan