New Larger Hard Drive on MacBook Pro I have a 500 GB hard drive, and I need more space - I want to go up to 1TB of space.  

Is it possible to swap out hard drives and carry all my installed software, documents, images, settings, etc. over to the new hard drive?
You can make an exact copy of your internal HD via Carbon Copy Cloner (edit: former freeware, now commercial but with a fully functional 30-day Demo). I recommend that you first check your MacBook Pro Model if you can use a standard 2,5" SATA HD. Then you just have to:


Buy an external 2,5" drive case in which you install the 1 TB HD first. (Or some other way to connect an internal drive to your computer's external ports, i.e. a USB to SATA adapter.)
Then connect it, start up Carbon Copy Cloner and transfer all the files (this will be slow - about 5 hours for 200 GB).
Physically switch the internal 500 GB Drive with the external 1 TB.
Start your MacBook Pro as usual.


For disassembling your MacBook Pro you should check out several model-specific Guides you can find f.e. at iFixit.com.