Which method?
 

I am getting a new 500gb hard drive to replace my 160gb drive in my MacBook Pro and I was confused on which method I should use to clone my current drive. Should I clone to an external (1Tb) drive, swap internal laptop hard drives, and the copy the clone back to the new 500gb hard drive in my laptop? Or would it be better to put the new 500gb hard drive into an external enclosure and clone my current internal (160gb) drive directly to that one and then install that drive into the MBP? Are there any benefits to doing one way over the other? Thanks for the help!

Michael

Either way will work. The second has one fewer step, of course.

Make sure you properly partition the drive (as "GUID") before you copy, and I'd name it the same as the original after you've done the copy before you swap.