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Question from Markus: Hi, Rick. I recently bought a new laptop that came with a 1 year manufacturer’s warranty, but I paid extra for a 3 year extended warranty.
I’d really like to swap out its 1TB hard drive for an SSD (as you often recommend).
I have not read anything anywhere about potential consequences if one does this. Could this possibly be considered an “unauthorized” activity and therefore void either the laptop manufacturer’s warranty or the extended warranty that I purchased?
I guess I’m just afraid they could easily use this as a convenient excuse to refuse responsibility for the repairs if anything should ever happen to the machine
Rick’s answer: Markus, the answer to your question is most likely no. Simply removing the laptop’s hard drive and installing an SSD in its place should not void the computer’s warranty.
It can get a little tricky if you’re dealing with a MacBook that’s covered by AppleCare, but even then it isn’t usually a problem as long as you use supported hardware for the upgrade and don’t cause any damage while you’re making the upgrade.
Note: The fact that your new laptop came with a hard drive instead of SSD storage indicates that it probably isn’t a MacBook, which likely makes the above a moot point in your case.
Of course all of the above being said, if you damage any part of the machine while performing the upgrade the manufacturer might well refuse to repair the damage you caused under the warranty. And the SSD you installed won’t be covered by the laptop’s warranty in any case.
The jist of my answer is you’ll probably be just fine if you make the swap but you can always contact the laptop manufacturer’s Customer Service or Tech Support folks and just ask them directly. That way you’ll know for sure what their policy is.
If you believe you have the skills required to safely make the swap (and it won’t void your laptop’s warranty) I strongly recommend that you go ahead and do it because the speed increase you’ll enjoy by switching out the spinning hard drive with an SSD will be substantial. Just be extremely careful and make sure you don’t cause any damage to the machine while you’re performing the upgrade.
If you decide to go ahead with the upgrade you have a couple of options available to you:
1 – Simply install the SSD into an empty drive bay (if there is one of course) and leave the original hard drive installed as a secondary drive. Then clone the contents of the hard drive onto the SSD and change the bootup options to boot from it instead of the hard drive.
2 – Clone the contents of the hard drive onto the SSD, then remove the hard drive and store it safely on a shelf somewhere in case you ever need to have any kind of warranty work done on the machine.
If the computer ever needs to be repaired under warranty and you chose option 1, simply remove the SSD before taking or sending the machine to the service center.
If you chose option 2, just swap the drives back out again.
Either way, the manufacturer won’t claim that your SSD upgrade caused the problem and deny the warranty coverage. In fact, they won’t even know you ever made such an upgrade as long as you didn’t damage anything during the upgrade procedure.
I hope this helps, Markus. Good luck!
Update from Marcus: Thanks for the info. I did the swap and my boots up a LOT faster now!