I’have just bought a WD my passport (essencial) but it was a 8b8 is there anny possybility to put it in my mac book ? :s

I followed your instructions and was able to successfully remove the drive from my passport elite 500gb (R/N A7B).

I did break a couple of the clips, and if I had known more about the locking mechanism inside, I would’ve known that you want to pry the black section out and away from the grey, rather prying the grey up and away from the black (breaking clips in the process). Just in case you want to include it in your post.

Cheers,
Arya

Jason

According to an article at http://slickdeals.net/forums/showthread.php?sduid=0&t=1192095 if the drive is identified by “BBB” it has the updated USB port built-in. If it is identified as “A7B” or “B7B”, is should be usable within the context of this article. This identifier may be found on the exterior case of “My Passport” just after the S/N as the R/N.

Thanks for your work in putting this excellent tutorial together, Jason.

Definitely look for drives with 16MB cache or more. Generally speaking, those higher-cached drives are going to be much more responsive for basic computing tasks, and even for some hard-core operations like video editing, etc. Of course, 7,200RPM is going to be better than 5,400RPM. Typically battery life isn’t dramatically affected by a faster spinning drive – maybe a 10% reduction or so. If you can live with that, I’d go for a faster drive. If you still want to retain the most off-mains minutes, then stick to a 5,400RPM drive with as much cache as possible.

I hope that helps a little.

Jason

Thanks for the great instructions. Looking to change my 100Gb (toshiba mk1032gsx) drive for a larger one as it is full and can’t decide what drive to get. I had ordered a WD5000BEVT but I have just seen that it only has an 8Mb cache vs the 16Mb on that is in my machine now. Does this make a difference? I am not too fussed to move up to 7200rpm as I don’t want my machine to chew any more battery as it is pretty old already.

Any advice on what drive to choose? Thanks

Jason

I bought the Passport to rip it apart to put the HDD inside of my Wii actually (getting rid of the dvd drive… who uses those things these days?) and sadly it was all in one so going to take it back and buy an elite and I’ll let you know.

I’ll upload a picture here of the Passport Essential.

http://www.sockrocket.com/temp/passportBack.jpg
http://www.sockrocket.com/temp/passportFront.jpg

Yes, the 500GB WD drive you linked to is essentially the same hard drive as the one available at Costco. The only downside is the 5400RPM speed. Personally, I’m anxious for this 7200RPM 500GB drive to be available on Newegg:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148374

I still have 100GB free on my drive, so I don’t really need the 500GB version, but it just looks so awesome! It’s supposedly going to be available in late May or early June.

Considering either waiting for the ST 7.2K momentus 500GB, Getting the Newegg at $99 or doing this procedure by buying at local costco (as I can put my existing 320GB into the enclosure…) if it is equivalent to the WD5000BEVT

Many thanks !

There’s no trouble connecting a 7,200rpm laptop hard drive to the USB port of the MacBook Pro. So long as it’s a 2.5″ drive, there’s enough bus power to properly spin the drive. I have both 5,400rpm and 7,200rpm external drives that I use via USB. You can use external enclosures that are bus powered (like the one all the Western Digital Passport drives come in) or any powered enclosure. There’s no heat issue, either. The only thing you absolutely can’t run on bus power is a 3.5″ desktop drive – that would need a powered enclosure.

In my present MacBook Pro (unibody, 2008), I switch between two hard drives – a nice Hitachi 7,200rpm 320GB drive and the Western Digital 5,400rpm 500GB drive. Both are awesome, both work flawlessly with the MacBook and MacBook Pro.

I hope this info helps a little. =)

Those digital frames are pretty old – made in 2005/2006. Here are three resources:

http://www.engadget.com/2005/09/20/philips-7ff1aw-digital-photo-display-review/

http://www.refurbdepot.com/productdetails2.cfm?Product_ID=4726&&refererid=Nextag&site=www.nextag.com

http://www.amazon.com/Philips-Clear-Digital-Frame%252d-7FF1AW%252f37/dp/B000F7SSWA

Good luck!

I am looking for a Philips 7FF1Aw digital photo frame but am currently struggling to find one anywhere, or to find anywhere that has a good review. Do you know anywhere you can point me to that will provide one of these please?

Many thanks

Great instructions! I did this on a Toshiba laptop with XP on it. I formatted the Passport (to clear off the enclosed software on it), cloned my 250 gb hard drive to the 500 gb Passport and then did the switcheroo. No sweat! The only “problem” was that it was so easy, I didn’t get to really enjoy performing the surgery. I had the drives swapped in about 10 minutes! Worked like a charm! MANY THANKS for your explicit instructions and step-by-step photos! FANTASTIC!

Cheers~

Jaxon