2010 17" MBP upgrade advice

[andrv1126]

Heya, I'm a uni student in the UK and I'm thinking of upgrading my 2010 MBP (2.5GHz i5, 4GB RAM, 500GB 5400RPM HDD). It has served me well over time but it has really slowed down since the days of Snow Leopard - I hate how long the boot times have gotten and how slow some applications are to open. I've been getting some beachballs and pageouts as well.

Anyway, I'm using it mostly for Photoshop, heavy Office use (I, quite often, need to run Photoshop with 5-6 Office documents and Safari open at the least), some Unity 3D and the occasional Logic Pro. I also run Visual Studio on Win7 and do some light Windows gaming from time to time.

My budget is quite limited(in the £100 area), so I'm looking to get the most bang for my buck. So far, the options I've thought of are:
1. Seagate Momentus XT 500GB (yes, the old one) + 8GB Crucial RAM
2. Seagate Momentus XT 750GB (the newer one) + 8GB Crucial RAM
3. SSD (most likely OCZ Agility 3; also, I'd need 240+GB)

If I choose the second option, I won't be able to get both at the moment, so please, if you recommend this one recommend what to buy first as well. (Same goes for the SSD, I'd have to wait it out a bit before I save up the extra for it)

Is the performance gap between the 1st and 2nd gen Momentus XT big enough for me to shell out the extra cash (I don't need the extra space)?
Is an SSD really worth it on my MBP's SATA II interface?

Sorry for the long post and thanks for your time

 

[andrv1126]

Well, I bit the bullet and got a Kingston SSDNow V200 240GB for £85 off Amazon (Lightning deal + a gift voucher I had), it'll be arriving next week.

Did I do good?

 

[zackkmac]

That's great as long as you feel that's enough storage for your usage. You may want to consider the option of using your optical drive bay for a second hard drive, your original one even. Did you save enough money to get your RAM kit? I think a jump to 16GB wouldn't be much of a price difference.

Your SSD will really speed up your MBP. Good choice!

 

[andrv1126]

Capacity seems fair, considering that I haven't used that much of the current drive. Besides, I'll probably be moving my iTunes, iPhoto, etc. libraries to an external drive.

I'll probably be getting the RAM upgrade in December. I know 16GB would be even better, but 8GB is the max my MacBook can support