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Late '08 Unibody MBP: OptiBay & general upgrade advice needed !!

mgpg89

mgpg89

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Aug 31, 2008
970
16
Belgium
I currently own a late '08 Unibody MBP with the following specs:
- 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
- 4GB 1067 MHz DDR3 RAM memory
- 320GB 720rpm HDD

Now I want to upgrade my machine:
- 8GB 1067 MHz DDR3 RAM memory = $70 from OWC
- Mercury 6G SSD 120GB = $200 from OWC
- OptiBay enclosure (and use my current HDD as a 2nd SATA HDD for storage) = $100 from MCE

So for about $370 I have a system that's insanely fast, right? Well, at least compared to my current system.

I still have a few questions before actually doing the upgrade though:

(1) First and foremost: would you recommend this upgrade? Are there things you would do differently?

(2) How difficult is it to perform an OptiBay installation?

(3) Is 120GB large enough for the main drive? What will need to be on there for me to get the most out of the SSD speeds? (just the OS and the apps, or anything else?)

(4) What are the things I can put on the second (slower) drive? I assume music, photos, movies and stuff like that, right?

(5) I intend to wipe my current HDD and 'start over' on the SSD. Will I need one of those OS X Lion USB keys then? Mind you: I already bought Lion through the App Store. (But lost my Snow Leopard DVD so would have to buy that again ...)


Thanks in advance!
 
mgpg89 said:
I currently own a late '08 Unibody MBP with the following specs:
- 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
- 4GB 1067 MHz DDR3 RAM memory
- 320GB 720rpm HDD

Now I want to upgrade my machine:
- 8GB 1067 MHz DDR3 RAM memory = $70 from OWC
- Mercury 6G SSD 120GB = $200 from OWC
- OptiBay enclosure (and use my current HDD as a 2nd SATA HDD for storage) = $100 from MCE

So for about $370 I have a system that's insanely fast, right? Well, at least compared to my current system.

I still have a few questions before actually doing the upgrade though:

(1) First and foremost: would you recommend this upgrade? Are there things you would do differently?

(2) How difficult is it to perform an OptiBay installation?

(3) Is 120GB large enough for the main drive? What will need to be on there for me to get the most out of the SSD speeds? (just the OS and the apps, or anything else?)

(4) What are the things I can put on the second (slower) drive? I assume music, photos, movies and stuff like that, right?

(5) I intend to wipe my current HDD and 'start over' on the SSD. Will I need one of those OS X Lion USB keys then? Mind you: I already bought Lion through the App Store. (But lost my Snow Leopard DVD so would have to buy that again ...)


Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...

1. Yeah for sure, I did the same to my 2.4GHz MBP but with dual 7200rpm drives so I could use one for saving Logic files

2. Easy as piss, I recommend buying a cheap one off eBay, thats what I did

3. Yep OS and Apps

4.yeah all that + if you use programs that transfer a lot of data then all those files too. Pretty much anything that isn't integral to the running of comp

5. not sure, but good call on starting fresh
 
Just came across the OWC Data Doubler, as an alternative for the Optibay.
Out of the two, which one would you prefer?
 
Hmm not sure tbh, in all honesty the $12USD one I got off eBay works totally fine. I think the OWC etc ones will have better mounting points but it sits snugly anyway
 
you can get the OptiBay enclosure from OWC with your SSD purchase, a while back they had a discount if you purchased them together, you should look into that. :apple:
 
I just went through this setup and posted my experience here. Let me know if you have any questions. You'll notice the speed increase and will never go back to traditional hard drives. :D

James Blake FTW.
 
I just bought the 8GB kit from OWC to upgrade from my 4GBs on my Late 2008 MBP 2.66GHz.

The speed increase is phenomenal. I am blown away by the increase in speed!
 
I reckon the biggest increase in snappiness comes from a clean install of OS X, I do that every 1.5 years or so and it goes back to new computer speeds. I just transfer iTunes library, firefox settings and network settings then start everything else from scratch (important files I just dump in a folder on the desktop)
 
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