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Junebugapril

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 11, 2012
21
0
I want to get a solid state drive. I have a Macbook Pro, 15 inch, mid-2010. It has a 320gb spinning drive. The drives I have been looking at on Crucial.com are only 500gb.

Since my Mac is 5 years old already, is it worth the bother and money to put in a new drive? It's in great shape besides running hot.

Or.. instead of upgrading to a 500gb solid state drive, could I use an external drive? Or would that just slow everything down to a crawl?
 

MacInTO

macrumors 65816
Apr 25, 2005
1,195
216
Canada, eh!
Get the Crucial 500gb SSD. It will give your Mac a second life. It will run way faster. The boot up time with the SSD will be about 15 seconds.

You can put your existing drive into an external enclosure.

I'd also recommend doing a clean install with the OS, apps and data. You can only load what you need and it will be cleaner.
 

bookwormsy

macrumors 6502
Jul 7, 2010
281
172
Get the SSD if you can't afford a new machine. You're not going to want to use an external drive for anything other than files. And that wouldn't really speed things up anyways.
 

JacobBenjamin

macrumors newbie
Apr 22, 2015
1
0
Hampstead, London.
I would definitely go for the new SSD, it will give you unbelievable results and you will just sit smiling at your speedy Macbook!! :)

There are some cheap SSDs out on the market now and as long as you can find the right size for the Macbook, you will not be disappointed. :) Good luck!
 

Junebugapril

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 11, 2012
21
0
Interesting! So if I do a clean install, do I have to reinstall programs like PhotoShop and Microsoft Office from the original discs?

Crucial said the same thing about putting my old hard drive into an enclosure. I didn't understand why I should do that. Isn't it pretty worn out after five years? I also don't understand how that would work. Do I use both drives together?
 

MacInTO

macrumors 65816
Apr 25, 2005
1,195
216
Canada, eh!
Yes, install apps from the original discs/media. Putting the original drive in an enclosure will make transferring your data over easier.

Afrer that's done, you can reformat the drive and use it as secondary storage. It should last longer than five years, but if you're not feeling good about it, you can retire it.
 

Junebugapril

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 11, 2012
21
0
I have a bootable backup of my Mac on an external drive. So I can use that. I wonder if Microsoft Office and PhotoShop will let me reinstall... their license stuff. Well, I don't use Office much anyways, but I do use PhotoShop.

I get it, so I will have an extra 320gb storage device. I have a 1TB spinning external drive, but that's old too, and I was thinking I should replace it. Should I replace that with a SSD external drive? Or is it okay to keep.
 

apolloa

Suspended
Oct 21, 2008
12,318
7,802
Time, because it rules EVERYTHING!
I want to get a solid state drive. I have a Macbook Pro, 15 inch, mid-2010. It has a 320gb spinning drive. The drives I have been looking at on Crucial.com are only 500gb.

Since my Mac is 5 years old already, is it worth the bother and money to put in a new drive? It's in great shape besides running hot.

Or.. instead of upgrading to a 500gb solid state drive, could I use an external drive? Or would that just slow everything down to a crawl?

Absolutely do it! I have a maxed out 2010 15" MB Pro, I gave it the maximum 8GB ram with a Crucial kit and a Samsung 512GB SSD drive, it will give your computer a new lease of life as others have said.
 

flur

macrumors 68020
Nov 12, 2012
2,371
1,160
I wonder if Microsoft Office and PhotoShop will let me reinstall... their license stuff.

If you still have the license keys somewhere, you can reinstall. I did this with quite a bit of old software when I got each of my macs.

A general tip - Whenever I buy software that has a license key, I put the installer files on an external drive in a folder, and add a text file to folder with all my license key info (the key, the name or email address associated with the key, etc.), so even if I'm reinstalling years later, I don't have to hunt for the key.
 

Eithanius

macrumors 68000
Nov 19, 2005
1,541
412
Another maxed out 2010 15" MBP here with 8GB RAM and Crucial M500 480GB SSD...

No money for a new machine, and certainly not willing to splurge on a machine that defaults on the crappy Yosemite...
 

Junebugapril

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 11, 2012
21
0
If you still have the license keys somewhere, you can reinstall. I did this with quite a bit of old software when I got each of my macs.

A general tip - Whenever I buy software that has a license key, I put the installer files on an external drive in a folder, and add a text file to folder with all my license key info (the key, the name or email address associated with the key, etc.), so even if I'm reinstalling years later, I don't have to hunt for the key.

Ahh. I have the license keys for MS Office, but it was one of these things where you can have up to five computers use separate keys. I think I used all the keys.
 

Junebugapril

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 11, 2012
21
0
I am guessing I can get $650 for my 15 inch Mac. I have 8gb memory, it's a mid-2010 A1286. I have the original box. It looks brand new except for a small dent. But it's only 2.4GHz. It's i5, not i7.

Crucial has the 500gb SSD for $200. Just in case I decide to get a new computer in the next year or so, and I sell it, is it worth $200 more than it is now?

Speaking of Yosemite, I recently installed it. Fooey. I may go back to Mavericks ;)
 

flur

macrumors 68020
Nov 12, 2012
2,371
1,160
Ahh. I have the license keys for MS Office, but it was one of these things where you can have up to five computers use separate keys. I think I used all the keys.

You could try to re-use one of the older keys (a key associated with a machine you're no longer using, or with the installation that you're replacing). MS knows that people replace machines, and they've never given me a hard time about re-using a key. A somewhat different situation, but - when I first got my MBA, I had a hard time deciding how to set up the Windows side of the machine, and installed Win7 (single license) twice before finally removing the bootcamp partition and installing Win7 a third time in VM. Then when I got my MBP, I was having trouble with my VM with Win10, so I installed Win7 (same license on another machine) to do some troubleshooting, and still didn't get dinged. I've also used the same single license of Office on 4 different machines (all mine, I was having a bit of machine ADD) without issues.
 
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