Ethernet port to use it like usb 3 on 13 in Mid 2009 MacBook Pro?

[Jetzel]

Hi everyone!
I would like to use a SSD to improve my MacBook speed ( for music production and photoshop proposes). Anyways, I read that to have a full perfomance for an SSD you must have a USB 3 connection/port. My Mac doesn't have that one so I was wondering if I can use my Ethernet port to connect an ethernet-usb 3 adapter and have it working?

Thanks!!

 

[apiro]

@Jetzel, AFAIK you cannot, USB 3 -> Gigabit Ethernet adapters are one way, you cannot use them as Gigabit Ethernet -> USB 3 for numerous reasons.
On the other hand I wonder why you want to achieve having SSD performance this way? Your MBP has both internal 2.5" HDD you can substitute to a 2.5" SSD and internal optical drive which again you can substitute to a 2.5" SSD (though an adapting case will be necessary if I recall correctly - they're quite cheap so don't fear). If you substitute optical drive with an SSD you'd have performance and mobility (which you'd lose with external SSD).

See iFixit https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Installing+MacBook+Pro+13-Inch+Unibody+Mid+2009+Dual+Hard+Drive/8518 (you don't have to buy SSD from iFixit - they were not proprietary back in 2009 days so you will likely find a cheaper/better SSD elsewhere - but you'd need the caddy to put SSD instead of the optical drive which might be found elsewhere as well but I'm not sure it'll be much cheaper) and you will be even able to use optical drive externally (USB 2 performance for optical drive is more than enough) - see step 19 there.

 

[Jetzel]

@Jetzel, AFAIK you cannot, USB 3 -> Gigabit Ethernet adapters are one way, you cannot use them as Gigabit Ethernet -> USB 3 for numerous reasons.
On the other hand I wonder why you want to achieve having SSD performance this way? Your MBP has both internal 2.5" HDD you can substitute to a 2.5" SSD and internal optical drive which again you can substitute to a 2.5" SSD (though an adapting case will be necessary if I recall correctly - they're quite cheap so don't fear). If you substitute optical drive with an SSD you'd have performance and mobility (which you'd lose with external SSD).

See iFixit https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Installing+MacBook+Pro+13-Inch+Unibody+Mid+2009+Dual+Hard+Drive/8518 (you don't have to buy SSD from iFixit - they were not proprietary back in 2009 days so you will likely find a cheaper/better SSD elsewhere - but you'd need the caddy to put SSD instead of the optical drive which might be found elsewhere as well but I'm not sure it'll be much cheaper) and you will be even able to use optical drive externally (USB 2 performance for optical drive is more than enough) - see step 19 there.

Thankyou for your response! Will that improve exponentially the speed of my Mac? Also, can I transfer all the data like pictures, passwords, history and bookmarks (etc.)?

 

[DeltaMac]

Thankyou for your response! Will that improve exponentially the speed of my Mac? Also, can I transfer all the data like pictures, passwords, history and bookmarks (etc.)?

Yes, and Yes...

 

[jerryk]

Thankyou for your response! Will that improve exponentially the speed of my Mac? Also, can I transfer all the data like pictures, passwords, history and bookmarks (etc.)?

Speed improvement with an SSD will be massive. Cold boot times will drop to 15 seconds or so. Wake up from sleep will be a second or so. When you launch an application it will bounce once only. File transfers will improve from 40 MB/sec to 200-250 MB/sec

 

[snaky69]

Hi everyone!
I would like to use a SSD to improve my MacBook speed ( for music production and photoshop proposes). Anyways, I read that to have a full perfomance for an SSD you must have a USB 3 connection/port. My Mac doesn't have that one so I was wondering if I can use my Ethernet port to connect an ethernet-usb 3 adapter and have it working?

Thanks!!

You should be using the SSD internally to see improvements. You can clone the current drive to a SSD and simply plop it in and be on your way.

The SSD won't do much for you in terms of speed for photoshop or music production. You'll access data quicker but will still process it at the same speed.

Your computer is nearing the 10 year old mark, I'm not sure it's worth sinking money in it for a marginal performance increase.

 

[Jetzel]

You should be using the SSD internally to see improvements. You can clone the current drive to a SSD and simply plop it in and be on your way.

The SSD won't do much for you in terms of speed for photoshop or music production. You'll access data quicker but will still process it at the same speed.

Your computer is nearing the 10 year old mark, I'm not sure it's worth sinking money in it for a marginal performance increase.

It wont change the processing speed? Really?

 

[chrfr]

It wont change the processing speed? Really?

Disk speed does not affect processor speed in any way. The computer will still feel dramatically faster but anything that uses the processor heavily (encoding a video, for example) will take just as long as before.

 

[Jetzel]

Disk speed does not affect processor speed in any way. The computer will still feel dramatically faster but anything that uses the processor heavily (encoding a video, for example) will take just as long as before.

Well, is there any way to improve the processor speed then?

 

[Fishrrman]

"Well, is there any way to improve the processor speed then?"

Get a faster Mac.
Really, that's about it.

 

[snaky69]

Well, is there any way to improve the processor speed then?

No. It's a laptop, and as just about 99.9% of laptops built in the last 20 years, the processor is not upgradeable.