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White & Black MacBook Q&A
Update Published August 12, 2021
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How do you upgrade the hard drive in the "White and Black" MacBook?
It is just about as easy to upgrade the hard drive in the MacBook as it is to upgrade the RAM, and upgrading the RAM is pretty easy compared to some earlier Apple notebooks.
Apple has PDF instructions on how to replace the hard drive in the "White and Black" MacBook models that provide just about everything you need to replace the stock hard drive with a larger one.
The official instructions absolutely should be read in their entirety before one replaces the hard drive. However, the basic procedure is quite simple.
Simply shut down the notebook, disconnect cables, and let it cool; flip it over and remove the battery, discharge static electricity by touching a metal surface (or better yet, use a grounding wrist strap), unscrew the now visible "L bracket", grasp the internal hard drive by the white tab and gently slide it out, slide in the new hard drive, and finally reconnect the L bracket and re-install the battery.
The Apple provided instructions are helpful, but perhaps even better, YouTuber Jake Billing provides a helpful video of the process of upgrading the stock hard drive with a vastly faster SSD:
Site sponsor Other World Computing sells hard drives compatible with all MacBook models.
Can you upgrade the processor in the MacBook?
Based on a series of photographs of the internals of the MacBook housing from Kodawarisan, whom you increasingly can expect to tear apart any new Mac within days of its release, the processor is soldered to the logic board.
This may come as a disappointment to some, but the MacBook Pro has its processor soldered to the logic board as well, so it should not be unexpected. Given the design of both the MacBook and MacBook Pro, it is clear that Apple does not intend for the processor to be upgraded in either system.
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