Question Upgrading to SSD on MBP Junk

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Franklin_4

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Hi guys,

i have the worst MBP ever made. its the original aluminum cased one from 2009. its god awful slow. i cannot upgrade the processor (unfortunately), but that would be the first thing id change if i was able.

Instead, i doubled my RAM and i would like to put a SSD in there.

The hardware part doesnt bother me, unscrewing stuff is easy. however, the software part has me a little nervous. How do i install my OS on the SSD without losing all my stuff? Is it possible to have a SSD + HDD in these MBPs? if so, can ihave my OS installed on SSD and most other apps installed on HDD?

Can anyone suggest an affordable SSD for me (150$ or less) that is compatible with my Mac Book Pro?

heres my specs when i go to "about this mac"

2.26 ghz intel core 2 duo processor
4gb ram 1067
nvidia 9400m

pretty barebones, like i said...i wish i could put a quad core in here :(

any information greatly appreciated. any other suggestions besides RAM and SSD to upgrade the capabilites of my ancient MBP?

btw, all i really use it for is webbrowsing and music.
 
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McHenryB

McHenryB

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It's really not worth investing further in a computer that you describe as "junk". Sell it and buy a cheap modern laptop. You don't really need an SSD just for web browsing and music, so most any laptop will do the job.
 
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Franklin_4

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thats like...a totally terrible response mchenry. youre advising me to spend 600-700$ on a lower quality laptop when a 150-200$ upgrade could improve my current set up enough to make it do the simple jobs im asking it to do just fine. thanks for nothin ;)
 
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McHenryB

McHenryB

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I'm advisong you not to throw good money after bad. You described your laptop as "junk" and "the worst MBP ever made". That's not something that I would invest more money on - a couple of hundred dollars would buy you something better.

You asked for advice - I gave it. But it's your money to spend how you see fit.
 
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JustSomeJoe

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I'm not convinced you'd see much of a performance boost with an SSD, the SATA port speed would be a real bottle-neck; something like a 1TB Hybrid would be cheaper, give far more capacity and would (probably) give as much of a boost as you're going to get; just don't expect miracles ;-)
 
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JustSomeJoe

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If this is one of the MacbookPro's that support an Express Card (can't remember when they were dropped), that could be another option (if you can still get them), installing and booting the OS from one would give a pretty good speed boost.
 
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Franklin_4

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thanks a lot joe. i dont think my mac does support those, but im having trouble finding the answer to that....

from reviews ive read on the hybrids vs the SSDs though, i think i'll have a lot better luck getting improvements from a pure SSD (prolly like a 480GB one).

Im waiting to see a good sale on a reputable component.
 
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Mastermmm

Mastermmm

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Although I certainly don't agree with part of McHenry's response, I do feel it might be beneficial to simply by a new MBP Retina, where every part is upgraded. After taking a computer apart and/or replacing parts, in my experience, there is always room for more issues.

With that said, they are pretty pricey and you could theoretically replace certain parts of your MBP (depending on what model, I don't know from the description exactly), and make it run relatively quickly. Your best bet to save the information as well as your current OSX may be either backing up to an external HDD with a program such as Acronis True Image http://, or buying an adapter which allows your HDD to be plugged in and used via USB 3.0 (http://www.amazon.com/StarTech-SATA-Drive-Adapter-Cable/dp/B00HJZJI84/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1453332288&sr=1-1&keywords=hdd+to+usb+3.0+adapter). Of course, this depends on what type of HDD you have.

Good luck!
 
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BadAsAl

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I have done the SSD upgrade on many old MacBooks including an old 2008 and even that ran much, much better. It is easy and completely safe to do provided you take basic precautions. You can find guides all over but I like Ifixit.com a lot.

You have 2 choices:

1. Clone your existing hard drive to the new SSD - Get an external USB enclosure and attach the new SSD to your Mac. You can use Disk Utility to do the clone or use SuperDuper (my preferred). This will make an exact copy on the SSD and all you do is swap them and boot. It should boot and run appreciably faster. I always like to do a PRAM and SMC reset after using this method. I also like to run Repair Disk and Repair Permissions after as well.

2. Install the new SSD in the Mac, then do a clean install of whatever OSX you want. This method might require installation media (DVD or USB) if you cannot boot into the recovery environment. Once you have OSX running, attach your old hard drive to the Mac using the aforementioned USB method and use Migration Assistant to pull over your Applications and files.

Your current hard drive is probably 5400 rpm so will see read and write speeds around 50 Mbps. An SSD running on SATA II 3Gb/s (which is what you have) will get around 250 Mbps read write. It will make a big difference and will make that "junk" MacBook run great again. Of course that is provided everything else is working okay.
 
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Franklin_4

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unfortuntaely, i think my mbp is only reading one of my two sticks of ram, amplifying my problem :( so ive been holding off on this upgrade. i pretty much use it for nothing but spotify on shuffle anymore. even web browsing can be irritating.
 
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