I needed to upgrade my MacBook 2009 and was considering a MacBook Pro or an SSD drive. I chose the SSD drive (OWC). I'd heard how much faster they were, but I can hardly believe how much of a difference it's made. It feels like a completely different computer. In fact, now my Mac Pro early 2008 seems kind of slow (at least in terms of responsiveness). The Macbook boots up in like 20 seconds. It's almost faster booting up than it was waking up from sleep before the SSD. Best $300 I've spent on a computer. Now I'm thinking of getting an SSD for a boot drive on my Mac Pro.
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Just put an SSD in my MacBook: WOW!
- Thread starter badlydrawnboy
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Faster than waking up from sleep? I understand it's an exxageration but my macbook wakes up from sleep and is connected to wifi in 6 seconds...
But thanks for the insight, I plan on buying more RAM and doing a HD upgrade. I think it's smarter than buying a new laptop. Not sure if I wanna blow big bucks on a SSD though...I'm thinking 4GB of RAM from 1GB and like a 320GB or 500GB HD from a 120 will be a big improvement.
But thanks for the insight, I plan on buying more RAM and doing a HD upgrade. I think it's smarter than buying a new laptop. Not sure if I wanna blow big bucks on a SSD though...I'm thinking 4GB of RAM from 1GB and like a 320GB or 500GB HD from a 120 will be a big improvement.
Yes, exaggeration but honestly not by that much. The 120 GB SSD is <$300 at OWC, and since my MB isn't my main computer, I don't need a lot of hard drive space.
your mackbook sounds quit old, so the ssd would be a waist as your limited to 1.5gb transfer speed. 4gb ram and a larger 7200rmp drive/snowleopard will give it some life!
also check if u can upgrade to 4gb, not all macbooks can.
The OP said it was from 2009. That's not that old... I don't think fully utilizing a 1.5Gbps transfer rate would be a waste.
Transfer rate is good, but the SSD really shines in the kind of thing that starting up an OS does: lots of random, small reads in succession. I tested the stock 250GB drive my 2010 MBP came with and got <1 MB/s on 4k random reads. The SSD (the 240 GB from OWC) clears almost 20 MB/s; granted, still a significant drop from it's peak of 240MB/s+, but it makes a HUGE difference to startup time.
The OP isn't the one that posted what darre replied to.
And, yes I agree, it's not a waste to put an SSD on a 1.5 Gbps channel because even most 7200rpm drives can't saturate that.
...the whitebooks from 2009 didn't suffer from the 1.5Gbps controller, we got lucky with the 3Gbps SATAII
You can get them from just about any computer parts store (NewEgg, OWC, etc). They're in the same case as a normal magnetic HDD so they're just as easy to install.