mid 2009 2.26 ghz mb pro upgrades.

[gdeusthewhizkid]

anybody have this model? mines is slow lately even after upgrading to 500 gig hard drive and 8 gigs of ram....

any suggestions?

[treyjustice]

My girlfriend has this model. I threw in 8 gb ram and a samsung 830 it is plenty quick for her needs now

[gdeusthewhizkid]

is the samsung 830 ssd.. how big is it.. can it run logic pro ?

[treyjustice]

Originally Posted by gdeusthewhizkid

is the samsung 830 ssd.. how big is it.. can it run logic pro ?

It can run anything, it is just like a hard drive except it is flash storage instead of a spinning disc.

I got this one and put a hard drive where her cd drive was.

http://www.amazon.com/SAMSUNG-2-5-In...ds=samsung+830

So she has 128 gb flash storage and a 500 gb hard drive for extra room

[T5BRICK]

I've also got a 13" mid 2009 MBP. A few months ago I upgraded the RAM to 8GB 1333MHz and the HDD to a 256GB Crucial M4. It made a huge difference.

What do you mainly use your computer for? A fast SSD won't do any good if you're completely maxing out the CPU.

[yusukeaoki]

Get the Crucial M4.
Your MBP only supports SATAII so getting the fastest drive wont help.

But this will make your computer open apps faster, load them, and even make your boot time faster.

[treyjustice]

I'd go for sata III if you upgrade you macbook pro later you'll be able to keep the drive and speeds

[gdeusthewhizkid]

Originally Posted by T5BRICK

I've also got a 13" mid 2009 MBP. A few months ago I upgraded the RAM to 8GB 1333MHz and the HDD to a 256GB Crucial M4. It made a huge difference.

What do you mainly use your computer for? A fast SSD won't do any good if you're completely maxing out the CPU.

ripping movies.. making beats on logic pro, recording vocals on logic pro. light photo editing and converting aiffs to mp3. I definately am a big itunes purchaser....

[T5BRICK]

Originally Posted by gdeusthewhizkid

ripping movies.. making beats on logic pro, recording vocals on logic pro. light photo editing and converting aiffs to mp3. I definately am a big itunes purchaser....

Most of those activities are probably pushing your CPU pretty hard.

[snaky69]

Originally Posted by gdeusthewhizkid

ripping movies.. making beats on logic pro, recording vocals on logic pro. light photo editing and converting aiffs to mp3. I definately am a big itunes purchaser....

The size of the hard drive has very little to do with the performance of it. Upgrading to a 500GB hard drive hasn't made your computer any faster, I can tell you that much. Right now your bottleneck is most likely your aging processor, which really isn't quite up to snuff by today's standards.

[gdeusthewhizkid]

Originally Posted by snaky69

The size of the hard drive has very little to do with the performance of it. Upgrading to a 500GB hard drive hasn't made your computer any faster, I can tell you that much. Right now your bottleneck is most likely your aging processor, which really isn't quite up to snuff by today's standards.

would ssd help?

[Badrottie]

Originally Posted by gdeusthewhizkid

would ssd help?

yes but you won't see the difference.

[gdeusthewhizkid]

Originally Posted by Badrottie

yes but you won't see the difference.

so you guys are saying its time for a new macbook pro

[snaky69]

Originally Posted by gdeusthewhizkid

would ssd help?

It will speed up boot up times, and your programs will open faster, and that's about it. But you're still being held back by the processor which is what is doing all the work in logic, ripping movies and such. Once logic is open, the SSD will not make anything faster.

The real bottleneck for you is truly the processor, if you feel you're being held back by your machine, time for an upgrade. If you want to truly have gobs of power, give a 15" a try, two more processor cores makes quite a difference.

[JosephBergdoll]

I've got a late 2008 2.53ghz c2d MacBook Pro (before the 13" models were called Pros… ahh the days) that was one of the first of the Unibody line, removable battery and all. Until September, I had been running it in the stock configuration with a 320gb hdd and 4gb RAM… which, considering how much I use the full Adobe suite, wasn't cutting it. I'm not too keen on upgrading to a new laptop, as I'm really not digging the lack of upgradability of the new models with the soldered in RAM, "permanent" batteries, and proprietary HDDs and whatnot… blegh, no thanks. So, I overhauled the thing by taking out the optical drive, replacing it with a 128gb SSD for the OS and Applications, and replaced my 320gb HDD with a 1tb HDD for files. I also threw in the max 8gb RAM… it's like a whole new computer. Suddenly my machine is much more relevant and I don't plan on having to replace it any time soon. A few friends with similar age models have been doing the same (I'm doing all the installs for them) and they are all pleasantly surprised with how much speedier everything is. It's a bit of an investment, comes out to about $300 depending on what supplies you end up going with, but it's very much worth it.

Hope this helped.

[clyde2801]

Let's see....the 2008 cost $2499, which got you four years of productive use. Mac2sell.net lists its value at $720. Assuming you could sell it for that, it cost you $1799 to use the computer, which works out to $444 per year. This figure does not include sales tax, applecare, etc.

If the $300 update keeps you satisfied with using it for even just one more year, it's worth it. I also think the upgrades could increase the resale value of the machine, or at least would make it more likely to sell than in its original configuration.

If you can see yourself continuing to use it for two years or more with the upgrades, then it becomes a bargain.

[Saturn1217]

I have this exact machine.

I think what will help most is reinstalling the operating system from scratch (no migration assistant).

I do this with every new OS upgrade (SL > Lion > ML) and with the exception of Lion my MBP has always felt as zippy as the day I bought it.
I work in a biomedical lab btw and use this for work so I'm not just checking facebook and email.

So much so that when I upgraded to a ssd (samsung 830) I didn't notice that much of a speed increase like everyone else was saying. Because other than opening the occasional large program faster my mbp was already working nicely.

I know it can be a pain but it might be worth it if you don't want to get a new machine yet.

Also make sure you check disk permissions etc. in disk utility.

[JosephBergdoll]

Originally Posted by clyde2801

If you can see yourself continuing to use it for two years or more with the upgrades, then it becomes a bargain.

Yep, my thoughts exactly.