Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Injected some new life into my 2009 MBP

A

A4orce84

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Apr 17, 2012
433
46
Yo Guys,

Thought I'd make a 'fun' post for once, and not my usual posts with questions and help needed, and share some recent mods I did to my 2009 Macbook Pro:

Heart and Soul of my Macbook Removed (HD + Optical Drive):
C1CEF067-A9CA-4E4D-86F2-42F786EB5353_zpsbgljpri5.jpg


Old HD (Surprised Toshiba made drives for Apple back in the day):
4A4DAAF8-3761-49B7-9620-939887EFC97F_zpsinsxi9l4.jpg


New Parts 1:
A0C43EB9-C7F2-47BF-B003-4D3C534E3418_zpsot6b6a8p.jpg


New Parts 2:
4A70D18A-DA97-42C7-9E98-A62DADF01B31_zps1tbuzt48.jpg


Installed Drive:
932FF49C-004E-4E0E-8ACA-F5E6A1EB7C98_zps7gjzm7pl.jpg


All back together:
B8721271-CFF4-47D1-9CAE-E324ABB4F598_zpscdsct9j0.jpg


Fresh Install Time:
06B37069-A3D0-4886-BFD7-CDC28DFA976E_zps34itiixi.jpg


Some of the screws, especially for the optical drive were a BIT*H to get off, I think I actually ended up ruining one of my tools. I also got a new battery installed a few months ago, so hopefully my 2009 Macbook Pro will last me a bit longer with all the new stuff.

Anyway, just thought I'd share my recent weekend project. Hope everyone is having a good day so far! =)

Thanks,
Asif
 
Around $130 total ($100 for the HD, $30 for the Optibay bracket).

SSD is 120GB, and after completing the install I only used about 50GB total. So I still have some room to grow with apps, and OSX files.
 
I did this exact upgrade to my old 08 Aluminum MB except I put in a Crucial SATA II to save some money. Even with the old Duo CPU and nVidia 9400 it made that little guy a demon. Basically the only reason I would ever want to have the older MBP is for this purpose.
 
Sweet. I landed an almost mint 2009 MBP a few months back for cheap and thought about keeping it and doing some upgrades to it. However, the downfall is the display. Comparing the display side by side to even the 2012 MBP was like night and day; no, not retina. The old display seemed washed out and not as vivid. Even after a calibration. I ended up just reselling it for a profit. That is why I purchased it anyway.

The old C2D Pro's still have a lot of life left. They can still do just about anything you ask of them.

Nice job.
 
I was wanting to do that exact upgrade on my MacBook late 2009 only upgrading the hdd to a faster 7200rpm, but I ended up with the seagate momentus xt. Is there a reason for putting the hdd in the super drive caddy? Is there a difference in speed?
 
Jacksonc said:
I was wanting to do that exact upgrade on my MacBook late 2009 only upgrading the hdd to a faster 7200rpm, but I ended up with the seagate momentus xt. Is there a reason for putting the hdd in the super drive caddy? Is there a difference in speed?
Click to expand...

The first issue I think would be that OSX wants to boot from the Harddrive slot, I'm sure it's possible to change that, but still. It's easiest to simple put the faster drive in the traditional space.
I believe the Optical cable and hence the port it's plugged into on the Logicboard have a limited equivalent to SATA II speeds, compared to the HD space which could be SATA II, III or higher.
You could put SSD's in both spaces and you'd probably see a big difference, but one is usually only used for Apps and OSX while the other for storage. Spinning HDDs if nothing unexpected happens have a technically longer working life than an SSD, but I'd put that into question these days.
 
Looks good, OP! I put some new life into my mid-2009 13" with Mavericks and a new battery. No SSD, but it runs much better now than it did with the original battery and SL. I also repaired permissions on my HDD, and it runs much better than before.
 
Barney63 said:
What have you based that on?

Barney
Click to expand...

Based off the common knowledge that constantly writing and deleting information off of an SSD will degrade the hardware much more than it would an HDD?
I'm aware that this is changing as SSD's become common place, it was certainly a fact not so long ago, about the time the OP's MBP would have been made.
I'm not sure what model that Samsung, perhaps it falls under that category, perhaps not.
 
Nice job, I did the same for my 2009 Mini and 2010 MBP and found the SSD speed increase to be really beneficial :)
 
Have you thought about upgrading the RAM as well? Or is it already maxed out at 2x4.
 
Yeah my memory is maxed out already at 8GB. One of the first mods I did to my macbook!

At this point, I think I've maxed everything I can, unless there is a way to upgrade the processor that I don't know about. =)


Thanks for all the comments so far!
 
I don't think you can do that. You could however replace the thermal paste, which is rather more advanced and noticeable improvements will differ depending on the condition of the current paste.
 
I did this last year, with a bump to 256GB SSD and 8GB RAM, plus the 500GB HDD. Cost about $200 total. It has kept me content for an extra year, and I am only now looking to get a new MacBook Pro. Although, my current one is still very quick.

I believe their is a minor speed advantage to placing the SSD in the HDD spot.
The only issues I have had, is that screws on the base plate seem to come loose every month or so, and need to be retightened and one or twice after a sharp drop (like tripping) the SATA connector to the HDD in the optical bay came loose. So I would recommend you be comfortable with DIY if you want to do this upgrade.
 
Commy1 said:
Based off the common knowledge that constantly writing and deleting information off of an SSD will degrade the hardware much more than it would an HDD?
I'm aware that this is changing as SSD's become common place, it was certainly a fact not so long ago, about the time the OP's MBP would have been made.
I'm not sure what model that Samsung, perhaps it falls under that category, perhaps not.
Click to expand...
Toshiba have done some calculations and a 256GB SSD ends up having a life expectancy of approx 80 years on an average daily write of just over 5GB/day.
http://www.toshiba.com/taec/news/media_resources/docs/SSDmyths.pdf
An HDD is unlikely to last that long.

Barney
 
Nice work!


My niece has a MB 7,1 mid 2010, the last of the whitebooks. I already upgraded it to 8GB of memory. I wonder if going to 16GB would make a difference. The most intensive task she will do is use LR to edit apps.

The next step is replace her HD with a Samsung Evo 840 SSD. That should breathe a little life into it.
 
Looks good! I just did 12GB RAM and am putting in the SSD now.

If anyone can help me out here I would really appreciate it, I have never had this much (or any for that matter) getting a new drive to work.

BTW, I am ditching the current drive so I will only have the SSD

Could you tell me exactly how you setup your USB bootable drive? I've read through articles and tried at least 4 methods and all give me an error at some point in the install. Typically when I get to 18 minutes left in the Mavericks installation it stops because it can't create a recovery drive...

I have a newer technologies voyager I use for all my HDD clones using Carbon Copy Cloner and I cloned my momentus (current drive) to 4 different HDD's but when I put the SSD in I get an error when it tries to create a recovery drive, and hangs up if I skip that step.

I'm not at all new to this and I'm getting ready to smash this thing :eek:

Any help would be grateful!

photo_zpsa1ccd58b.jpg




just tried again, 18 minutes in

photo_zpsdd1cab9c.jpg
 
Last edited:
zwodubber said:
Looks good! I just did 12GB RAM and am putting in the SSD now.

If anyone can help me out here I would really appreciate it, I have never had this much (or any for that matter) getting a new drive to work.

BTW, I am ditching the current drive so I will only have the SSD

Could you tell me exactly how you setup your USB bootable drive? I've read through articles and tried at least 4 methods and all give me an error at some point in the install. Typically when I get to 18 minutes left in the Mavericks installation it stops because it can't create a recovery drive...

I have a newer technologies voyager I use for all my HDD clones using Carbon Copy Cloner and I cloned my momentus (current drive) to 4 different HDD's but when I put the SSD in I get an error when it tries to create a recovery drive, and hangs up if I skip that step.

I'm not at all new to this and I'm getting ready to smash this thing :eek:

Any help would be grateful!

Image

just tried again, 18 minutes in

Image
Click to expand...

Maybe you should start a new thread targeted around your issue specifically so more people will see it?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back