Gadgetory

what's up guys is Lou from unbox therapy and we are continuing the super macbook pro project as you can see I got my work space set up here for the upgrade I'm actually using an official unbox therapy t-shirt in order to make the surface a little softer when I flip the macbook pro over I don't want to get scratched or anything like that and you can actually buy your very own official unbox therapy t-shirt now we have a store set up we don't have too many of them so if you want one click the link down in the description and check out the store we've also got sticker packs if you want to check those out those are a little bit cheaper anyways this video is about this upgrade we're going to do to turn this macbook pro into an absolute beast you can see here I've got some RAM options from Corsair the one on the left is the Mac memory we'll be using that one first and foremost but you can actually use even higher performance memory which I'll be testing in a future video but for the purpose of this particular upgrade we're going to be using the Mac memory 16 gigabytes worth that's not nearly as exciting as all this SSD storage right here these are two neutrons ETX SSDs 480 gigabytes each for almost one terabyte of SSD storage I'll be installing those in a raid configuration for ultimate performance you're not gonna want to miss it now the way that that's possible is by removing the optical drive within the system and replacing it with this bracket right here which essentially turns a standard optical drive slot into a slot capable of taking another two and a half inch drive in this case another SSD and then I'll be setting up the raid in the software when we get to that point when we get to the software installation process now you're going to need some screwdrivers obviously in order to get this job done this is a Phillips zero screwdriver you'll need this one as well as a Torx t6 I will link a kit down in the description that has both so you're ready to go and everybody really needs a good precision set of screwdrivers anyway so check out the link in the description if you want to pick that up and be sure that you've got the right screwdrivers to do this job you want to remove all the Phillips screws from the bottom of the case now they're all pretty much the same least rlphillips three of them are a little bit longer on the back edge you can see along top so just keep that in mind so you don't forget when you go to put it all back together on the inside you can see where the RAM is you see what the battery is you can also see where the battery is connected now before we start working the very first thing you want to do is disconnect the battery you don't want power going through to the logic board while you're working so that's the very first thing to do there's a number of other steps involved for the sake of this particular video we'll be removing the RAM at this point and then I will go ahead and remove the standard the traditional hard drive since I got this MacBook Pro stock because I knew I was going to be replacing everything this is just a 500 gig drive and it's really easy to remove actually this tutorial would work even if you just wanted to replace the stock hard drive with an SSD of your choice you just remove two screws from a holding bracket lift up the drive and then remove the actual SATA connector and power connector from the back you're going to want to be gentle because the ribbon is relatively fragile the only other thing you've got to do is remove the four screws from each of the slots on the hard drive I'll be doing that in a moment but obviously I've got to open up the first of our two SSDs in order to you know install those screws into the new one you have a bracket included for adapting the 2.5 inch disc to 3.5 if you're going to use this SSD as a boot drive in a desktop computer if you're interested in the specifications on this upgrade you know if you want to know pricing and availability on any of the items that we're using I will link every single item down in the description so that you can replicate this build if you want to or possibly pick and choose a couple of components that you know will work from this particular build so after removing the Torx t6 screws I don't know if I mentioned that but these screws are Torx t6 so you'll need a different screw driver for this particular objective so you want to remove them from the old drive put them onto your new SSD you also want to glue on the little tab to help you pull out the SSD in case you ever need to then you reattach the SATA connector and you maneuver the drive back into the location that the traditional hard drive was in you take your mounting bracket with the little rubber feet on it and then you will secure that back down using the standard Phillips screwdriver one thing I want to mention at this point guys don't over tighten anything that's never a good idea especially when you're tightening down plastic components they can crack you can strip the screws just don't do it just nice and snug and then be done with it next thing we need to do is remove the optical drive because we're not going to need it anymore there's a couple of cables that have to be removed be gentle with these as well trust me you can do it this looks intimidating it's not just be really really gentle you want to remove all three of these ribbon cables I don't know if the first one was technically a ribbon cable anyways all three of these cables in sequence after you're done that you can start to undo the optical drive it uses Torx t6 screws as well so you'll be using the same specialized screwdriver unlike the Phillips tip and there are three Torx t6 holding down the optical drive as well as a couple of Phillips screws that are holding down this top portion here I've seen some people take shortcuts and not actually remove this and then be able to slide the drive out I recommend taking this out as well so you have more room to work with and you're not really forcing anything now there is one more Torx t6 connected on this particular one in the top corner so I'll remove that and that should completely loosen up the optical drive so I can go ahead and remove it but we're not completely done with the optical drive at this point you need to remove a couple components from the backside you have the SATA cable which just slides out and then you've also got a tiny little bracket with two Phillips screws which helps to secure the drive down to the logic board so both of those need to be removed and they need to be placed onto this mounting bracket that we're going to be replacing the optical drive with first I'm going to slide in our second nutron GTX SSD once again these are four hundred and 80 gigabytes this is going to be insane performance when these things are in raid zero the bracket that I'm using has the mounting screws on the outside so it's screws in that way some mounting brackets I've seen actually screw into the bottom holes on an SSD you know you can obviously figure this out depending on the bracket you're using many nine point five millimeter adapters actually end up working and Amazon has a bunch of selection you will pay a lot for this particular adapter they started like 10 bucks once again refer to the description I'll link everything you need down in there so you don't miss out and you buy the right stuff so fitting everything back in is actually pretty easy you just go in reverse of how you took everything out so you want to maneuver this bracket along with your SSD back into the location that the optical drive came from you want to tighten down those three Torx t6 screws followed by the Phillips screws make sure that your cables are all back in the correct location and that they are connected because you don't want to have to come back in here if something doesn't function so double check make sure that they are clicked in each of the three different ones on this particular section here lastly we have the RAM which I'm putting in last you don't have to put this in last but that's just the way that I did it it's actually pretty simple you just angle it in there make sure it's fully inserted and then you clip it down you will actually hear a click and that's how you know that you've installed it correctly after this you want to re insert the battery connector because you want some power now and since you're not going to be playing with anything on the logic board anymore it is safe to re insert the battery cable at this point then you zip up the bottom plate using the same screws that were removed remember that the three on the right hand side on the back of the laptop are the longer ones and all the rest are the same shorter style screws don't over tighten these ones as well they can be stripped fairly easily especially if you're using a cheap screwdriver so just touch tighten make sure that they are flush and then you are ready to go the next thing to do is to boot up the MacBook make sure that you're getting a screen and a chime this is what you should see because there's no operating system on this MacBook right now they're two blank drives so you see the folder icon in the next video I will be taking the stock MacBook Pro hard drive that came in here and I will be installing it into an external enclosure at which point I will boot into the recovery I will put the two drives into software raid and then I will install the OS and do some benchmarks and show you guys just how this thing performs I didn't want to make a video that's way too long so I'll make a playlist when this thing is over but expect the next video to be coming up shortly and we'll actually see what this thing can do anyway guys thanks as always for watching if you're enjoying this content make sure to leave a thumbs up down below and I will catch guys on the next video later