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Future-proofing a Santa Rosa MBP on a budget

iMpathetic

iMpathetic

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Oct 7, 2007
2,547
4
IMBY
So I recently got a 15" 2.4GHz MBP. Matte, 3GB/200GB 5400RPM/8600GT 256MB. I love the design of the pre-unibody models! I'm trying to figure out how to speed this thing up as much as possible without spending too much relative to the cost of the computer. I'm not gonna stick a $500 SSD in it if I only paid $650 for the computer!

As it stands now, I have $140 or so to do this with. I was thinking about getting a Momentus XT. I can get a 250GB XT for $70. Anyone have one of these drives installed in an older MBP? I was thinking about spending the same amount of $$$ and just slapping in a 500GB normal hard drive or something, but obviously, I need all the speed I can get.

Thanks for any advice!
 
miles01110 said:
Increase performance of what? A hard drive isn't going to help you if all you're doing is listening to music and checking your facebook wall.
Click to expand...
Agreed. What is it that is slow now?

I know you are not considering an SSD, but that is one thing that you might be able to leverage in your next system upgrade. It will give you a real boost too.
 
Last edited:
I agree. It doesn't seem like you need to upgrade anything. It just wont be worth it. Just use it now, and then when its too slow for your needs, then upgrade it. You can't really upgrade anything else beside the hard drive though. (ram is topped out at 3GB, right?)
 
Ram is actually upgradeable to 6GB.

It's not very slow in day to day use, but I can tell that the HDD is by far the bottleneck for what I'm doing. It's a crappy Fujitsu 5400RPM drive, and this is my main computer. The beach ball pops up sometimes when I'm waiting for it to catch up with everything else.

I use iTunes and Firefox with 5-6 tabs constantly. iChat, Office 2011, and I'm trying to learn Photoshop... my dad got CS4 so that's what I'll be using! :)
 
With $140, here's my reccomendation:

optibay Kit: $20 on ebay
move 200GB to optibay
Buy 4GB stick of DDR2 RAM - $50-60

Buy 30, 40 or 60GB SSD. Use that for OS and Apps.

If any cash is left over get a WD scorpio blue 320 or 500GB.

You end up with a 5GB RAM, fast SSD, and more storage than now.
 
If it was me, I'd just get a 120GB SSD for $200 and be done with it. I keep my system pretty lean though

OR do what prev poster suggested...didn't realize that the bay adaptor could be had for 20 bucks, thought it was more like 50 or 80. Def the way to go.
 
pkts said:
If it was me, I'd just get a 120GB SSD for $200 and be done with it. I keep my system pretty lean though

OR do what prev poster suggested...didn't realize that the bay adaptor could be had for 20 bucks, thought it was more like 50 or 80. Def the way to go.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I thought the optibay was like $100!
 
sbddude said:
With $140, here's my reccomendation:

optibay Kit: $20 on ebay
move 200GB to optibay
Buy 4GB stick of DDR2 RAM - $50-60

Buy 30, 40 or 60GB SSD. Use that for OS and Apps.
Click to expand...

where can one get a +/- $60.00 SSD of any size? And that doesn't include the one that's going on @ newegg for $40.00....that one is sold out :/
 
Eddyisgreat said:
where???
Click to expand...

Oh, sorry. I should have been more clear. If you troll around on forums and know people who fix computers for a living, you can find awesome deals! Not telling you where exactly this one comes from, 'cuz I have dibs. :D
 
I hope you are aware about the reliability, or lack thereof, of the 8600M. Apple replaced my Santa Rosa earlier this year with a unibody because of all the gpu issues it had. And I'm sure you noticed the longest thread ever about the subject. Not trying to scare you but...just be aware, that is all.
 
SolRayz said:
I hope you are aware about the reliability, or lack thereof, of the 8600M. Apple replaced my Santa Rosa earlier this year with a unibody because of all the gpu issues it had. And I'm sure you noticed the longest thread ever about the subject. Not trying to scare you but...just be aware, that is all.
Click to expand...

Thanks! Yeah, this actually used to be a 2.2GHz with a 128MB card, but now it's a 2.4GHz with a problem-free 256MB card. Apple replaced the logic board and GPU about a year ago.
 
iMpathetic said:
So I recently got a 15" 2.4GHz MBP. Matte, 3GB/200GB 5400RPM/8600GT 256MB. I love the design of the pre-unibody models! I'm trying to figure out how to speed this thing up as much as possible without spending too much relative to the cost of the computer. I'm not gonna stick a $500 SSD in it if I only paid $650 for the computer!

As it stands now, I have $140 or so to do this with. I was thinking about getting a Momentus XT. I can get a 250GB XT for $70. Anyone have one of these drives installed in an older MBP? I was thinking about spending the same amount of $$$ and just slapping in a 500GB normal hard drive or something, but obviously, I need all the speed I can get.

Thanks for any advice!
Click to expand...

Here, you think it's slow? You should try out my 2.2Ghz from the same family... So far it's still great for surfing and cooking breakfast (if you turn it over) :D Can even manage Photoshop CS5 (great for browning spuds ;))... which isn't bad at all considering it's age.
 
if you don't want to spend the money for an SSD, just get the biggest WD Scorpio Blue you can afford. down the road you can upgrade the RAM if you need to, or you can get an SSD, which will be cheaper by then.

going from that Fujitsu to just about any hard drive will be a big upgrade...
 
UltraNEO* said:
Here, you think it's slow? You should try out my 2.2Ghz from the same family... So far it's still great for surfing and cooking breakfast (if you turn it over) :D Can even manage Photoshop CS5 (great for browning spuds ;))... which isn't bad at all considering it's age.
Click to expand...

Haha, I don't want to sound like I'm being whiny or anything. I came from something very VERY slow (1.33GHz iBook) to something very VERY fast (series of C2Qs and i7s) to this thing. It's nice to be in the middle! I love being able to use Mac OS X on an actual Mac. It's almost worth the ridiculous price of entry.

toxic said:
if you don't want to spend the money for an SSD, just get the biggest WD Scorpio Blue you can afford. down the road you can upgrade the RAM if you need to, or you can get an SSD, which will be cheaper by then.
going from that Fujitsu to just about any hard drive will be a big upgrade...
Click to expand...

I did some eBay research, and it seems like the optibay replacement thingy runs about $10-20 including shipping. (although it's like two weeks to get here.) I'm probably gonna buy that SSD and stick it in the main HDD bay, then put the 200GB back in the optibay as a place to store things like music, videos, photos, etc.
 
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