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Macbook pro mid 2009 upgrade?

Talevski

Talevski

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 5, 2016
15
1
Macedonia
Hello, guys I am wondering, I have macbook pro mid 2009 2gb ram with core 2 duo (2,26ghz)
What i want to do is to place 8gb of ram and I want to upgrade to 10.10 or 10.11 OS? Any Idea can this mac work good with those OS or it will be slow? What is the maximum I can do with this kind of mac pro
 
airlied

airlied

macrumors 6502
Jul 8, 2011
382
59
it wont be slow if you swap the.memory to 4GB. In fact the processing power of modern computer is more than enough to deal with OS.
 
Talevski

Talevski

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 5, 2016
15
1
Macedonia
Thank you for the advice, so should I invest in this mid 2009 macbook pro or I should spend for newer, I don't know if is worth to upgrade it.
 
keysofanxiety

keysofanxiety

macrumors G3
Nov 23, 2011
9,539
25,302
Talevski said:
Thank you for the advice, so should I invest in this mid 2009 macbook pro or I should spend for newer, I don't know if is worth to upgrade it.
Click to expand...

An SSD & 8GB RAM would make it run like a new machine, for comparatively low cost. Much more economically viable than a replacement.
 
T5BRICK

T5BRICK

macrumors G3
Aug 3, 2006
8,313
2,387
Oregon
Talevski said:
What i want to do is to place 8gb of ram and I want to upgrade to 10.10 or 10.11 OS? Any Idea can this mac work good with those OS or it will be slow? What is the maximum I can do with this kind of mac pro
Click to expand...

It'll work fine if you upgrade the RAM and install a SSD. You could probably do both for under $200.

Make sure you buy 1067MHz or 1333MHz DDR3. The less expensive and more widely available 1600MHz DDR3 won't work in that model.

As for SSD, Samsung and Crucial make great drives. You can find 250GB models for less than $90 and 500GB models for less than $160.
[doublepost=1472223101][/doublepost]
Talevski said:
Thank you for the advice, so should I invest in this mid 2009 macbook pro or I should spend for newer, I don't know if is worth to upgrade it.
Click to expand...

Does your current Mac meet your needs? If the answer is yes, then upgrade the RAM and SSD and continue using it. If the answer is no, then get a new computer.
 
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Fishrrman

Fishrrman

macrumors Penryn
Feb 20, 2009
28,338
12,458
You'll want at least 4gb of RAM (8gb is better).

ANY SSD will do. You can get a 240gb for about $60 or so. Don't waste money on a "high end" SSD, just buy a basic model -- I suggest Sandisk Plus or perhaps Crucial.

You can find a drive-swapout tutorial at ifixit.com. I think you'll need a Phillips #00 driver and a TORX T-6 driver. BE SURE to use the right tools for the job. ANYONE can do this, even a ham-handed neanderthal like me.

You may have to "rationalize off" some stuff on your existing drive that you don't need to access often. Better yet, get an external USB3 enclosure (backward compatible with USB2), and put the old drive into it.
 
J

JTToft

macrumors 68040
Apr 27, 2010
3,447
796
Aarhus, Denmark
Do check the SATA tab in System Information in OS X before buying your SSD. If it says NVidia MCP79, not just "any SSD" will do as not all are compatible with that chipset. Some flat out won't work, and others will work at half their speed.
 
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S

Smoothie

macrumors 6502a
Jun 23, 2007
781
544
California
Talevski said:
Hello, guys I am wondering, I have macbook pro mid 2009 2gb ram with core 2 duo (2,26ghz)
What i want to do is to place 8gb of ram and I want to upgrade to 10.10 or 10.11 OS? Any Idea can this mac work good with those OS or it will be slow? What is the maximum I can do with this kind of mac pro
Click to expand...

I have a mid-2009 13-inch with the 2.53 GHz processor and 4 GB of RAM. The only thing I did performance-wise was to replace the hard drive with a Samsung 250 GB SSD. It made a huge difference. I did this several years ago, so the drive I installed was a Samsung 830. Newer Samsungs should work fine, too. I really like Samsung SSDs. I installed a 512 GB Samsung 850 Pro in a desktop computer that I built, and it's been great. You won't get the full SATA speed from these drives in your MBP, but they'll still be much faster than a mechanical hard drive.

My MBP is still capable of audio editing. I connect it to a 24-inch monitor. It's currently running El Capitan with no problems at all. I don't think mid-2009 MBPs are on the compatibility list for Sierra.

Since you only have 2 GB of RAM, I'd probably add more RAM in addition to replacing the hard drive.
 
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Count Blah

Count Blah

macrumors 68040
Jan 6, 2004
3,192
2,748
US of A
As long as you aren't playing games, or opening a lot of horribly graphic intensive browser tabs. You will be fine with the ram and SSD upgrades. The misses is using my old 2008 15" MBP with 8 gigs of RAM and an SSD, and whenever I get on there to do anything, it's very responsive.

It all boils down to - Do you want very reasonably usable? Or do you want gaming? An quite frankly, even the newest MBPs pale in comparison to most anything respectable on the PC side, when it comes to gaming.
 
Talevski

Talevski

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 5, 2016
15
1
Macedonia
Count Blah said:
As long as you aren't playing games, or opening a lot of horribly graphic intensive browser tabs. You will be fine with the ram and SSD upgrades. The misses is using my old 2008 15" MBP with 8 gigs of RAM and an SSD, and whenever I get on there to do anything, it's very responsive.

It all boils down to - Do you want very reasonably usable? Or do you want gaming? An quite frankly, even the newest MBPs pale in comparison to most anything respectable on the PC side, when it comes to gaming.
Click to expand...
Its just for web development not for gaming
[doublepost=1472401716][/doublepost]Because I am not much into the macbooks and I cant afford new mac, I want to get advice if its good to upgrade MPB mid 2009 or spend more for newer one :) just to run 10.10 or 10.11
 
Last edited:
ron1004

ron1004

macrumors 6502
Feb 6, 2010
335
33
Louisville, KY
My wife's 2009 17" MBP is running superb after installing 8GB RAM and a Samsung SSD, not as fast as my 2011 due to the 2009 being SATA II, but still well worth the upgrade.
Also using El Capitan.
 
Antares23

Antares23

macrumors regular
Aug 15, 2014
249
359
Chartres, France
I have a MacBook Pro Mid 2009 13" 2,26GHz model with 6Gb DDR3 1066MHz (the only ram that will work on this model: 1333MHz won't work, I already tried) and 240Gb Kingston SSDNow V300, it work really fine on Mavericks.
The most important upgrade is the SSD, trust me, I upgraded to the SSD, but only had 4Gb, it was really fast on El Capitan.
But, If battery life is important to you, stay on Mavericks, but DON'T upgrade to Yosemite or El Capitan.
My battery only lasted 1 hours under El Capitan, I "downgraded" to Mavericks, now it last 2 hours, but it still need a replacement.
So, my advice is:
Upgrade to at least 4Gb, 8Gb recommended, I recommend Crucial
Upgraded to SSD, don't pay too much, I recommend Crucial MX200 SSD (I didn't take it, because I got my SSD (free) from an dead OEM laptop)
Install El Capitan if your battery is new, or not important
Install Mavericks if your battery is pretty old (like me) and if it's important to you

Mavericks is still supported by lot of software, but not for too long, it's already 3 years old.
Hope this can help.
 
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