Early MBP 08: Best OS?

[legaleye3000]

I put Mountain Lion on and it takes forever to boot and seems kinda slow... Would you downgrade to Lion or even Snow Leopard? Which one will make it run better?

 

[alphaod]

Snow Leopard is pretty fast. Get more RAM or perhaps replace your optical drive with an SSD as I recommended in your other thread.

 

[legaleye3000]

I already upgraded to a 7200 rpm hd. Is ssd that much faster? Also, I don't need a lot of space, so I would probably just replace my 7200 hd with a ssd if its worth it.

Regarding the OS, you think I'll get better performance downgrading to snow leopard? Thanks.

 

[blueroom]

An SSD will make it seem like new. If you need space the 750GB Seagate Momentus XT isn't bad.

 

[legaleye3000]

150gb would probably be fine... What should I look for when looking for a ssd? Does snow leopard support ssd? Thanks.

 

[alphaod]

A SSD is a lot faster. Think of the HDD as taking a slow tractor and the SSD as a high speed train.

150gb would probably be fine... What should I look for when looking for a ssd? Does snow leopard support ssd? Thanks.

With your computer, I would suggest a Samsung 470. It's a good SSD.

 

[mrsir2009]

150gb would probably be fine... What should I look for when looking for a ssd? Does snow leopard support ssd? Thanks.

Just remember that all SSDs have different speeds, which means you might find one that costs hundreds of dollars more than another when they both have the same amount of storage capacity - But even one of the slower SSDs would still be a big improvement over a regular HDD

 

[ibd]

I would heavily suggest snow leopard. It's a very slim os, my favourite os x to date, less bloated than ML. Runs really well on an early '08 MBP.

The only downside is maybe that ssd support is worse than on newer systems.

 

[legaleye3000]

So if I downgrade to snow leopard, am I going to have a problem with a ssd?

 

[snaky69]

I put Mountain Lion on and it takes forever to boot and seems kinda slow... Would you downgrade to Lion or even Snow Leopard? Which one will make it run better?

Snow Leopard was the best performer on mine in my opinion.

Edit: No you will not have any problem with an SSD. You could stick an SSD in a 10 year old computer and it'd work fine. It's just a regular old hard drive, simply faster.

 

[legaleye3000]

Snow Leopard was the best performer on mine in my opinion.

Edit: No you will not have any problem with an SSD. You could stick an SSD in a 10 year old computer and it'd work fine. It's just a regular old hard drive, simply faster.

I heard that you need Trim support for better performance and maybe snow leopard doesn't support it...?

 

[Krazy Bill]

Regarding the OS, you think I'll get better performance downgrading to snow leopard? Thanks.

Yes. I use it on the last MBP model that allowed it (Early 2011). Prior to that it was on a 2008 whitebook. Even on newer machines Mountain Lion is crap IMO.

My SSD gives me an 11 second boot with Snow Leopard. While most will say just "sleep" the machine I need every millivolt of juice I can get between stops during the day. (Speaking of which, I can get 7 hours + using SL and only 5 if I'm lucky in ML).

I know SL is terminal and will die one day but until my machine craps out I'll stay with it.

 

[snaky69]

I heard that you need Trim support for better performance and maybe snow leopard doesn't support it...?

TRIM isn't an absolute necessity, especially since most SSD's controllers now do quite a decent job at garbage collection.