Late 2009 Unibody White Macbook & macOS Sierra

[brdeveloper]

Anyone would like to share impressions? Is it worth upgrading?

P.S.: My wMB has a SSD and 8GB RAM on it.

 

[elf69]

do it!

I did massive battery gain (upto 1.5 hours extra).
I can get upto 6 hours at work on wifi with firefox open (this site) and chrome open with 5 tabs for work as we use google docs for work.

Has made no change in overal speed but the battery life alone is worth it.
just expect first few hours to be little choppy as it will reindex files, well my machine did anyway.

I too have 240GB SSD and 8GB ram.

 

[brdeveloper]

do it!

I did massive battery gain (upto 1.5 hours extra).
I can get upto 6 hours at work on wifi with firefox open (this site) and chrome open with 5 tabs for work as we use google docs for work.

Has made no change in overal speed but the battery life alone is worth it.
just expect first few hours to be little choppy as it will reindex files, well my machine did anyway.

I too have 240GB SSD and 8GB ram.

I get up to 4 hours in the following scenario: OSX El Capitan, ~50% brightness, Wi-Fi on, reading PDFs and doing basic browsing with Safari (Wikipedia, dowloading a PDF here and there). It's impressive that you're getting up to 6 hours with Firefox and Chrome opened.

 

[elf69]

with 50% battery I have 2 hours 50mins remaining.

I'm using battery health 2 from app store.
Got it set to show remaining time on menu bar.

It is dynamic as well so time changes depending how machine is being used.

It does need one or two battery cycles to be run to get a more accurate reading.
Also after booting takes about 5 mins to give a proper reading while everything starts up and settles in background.

As on boot it said I have 45 mins but once settled told me over 2 hours.
My screen brightness is quite high too. at about 80% and bluetooth almost never on.

Also siri is off on my machine.

On an average day I get 4-5 hours but can get upto 6 or little over when use machine at home as only firefox open and maybe itunes.

Hope this helps you make a decision.
I made a time machine backup first just in case I did not like it or it went wrong.

These unibody mac are pretty amazing they getting bit old but keep on kicking!

 

[elf69]

Here is my machine at moment:

From dock can see what apps I have open.
I love how this machine works for me.

As on menu bar can see remaining battery and age of battery on monitor app.
Apple make great batteries.

My favorite new option is to keep folder at top when sorting by name, just like windows.

 

[jojobach]

Hi!

Can you let me know how do you have 8 GB of RAM in the MacBook White Unibody Late 2009? According to the info from Apple, that system only supports 4 GB of RAM. And when I run Crucial's advisory tool on my wife's MB that's exactly what it tells me.

Thanks,
jojobach

Anyone would like to share impressions? Is it worth upgrading?

P.S.: My wMB has a SSD and 8GB RAM on it.

 

[brdeveloper]

Hi!

Can you let me know how do you have 8 GB of RAM in the MacBook White Unibody Late 2009? According to the info from Apple, that system only supports 4 GB of RAM. And when I run Crucial's advisory tool on my wife's MB that's exactly what it tells me.

Thanks,
jojobach

It actually supports up to 8GB (perhaps even more, like 10GB, but there isn't enough documentation to assure this). Previous white Macbooks from 2009 (non-Unibody) support up to 6GB, and the last white Macbook (2010) supports up to 16GB. I have a Macmini (which shares the same specs of a 2010 Macbook) equipped with 16GB. You have to take care when buying memory sticks. The 1066MHz with CAS latency 7 ones are preferable, although it is possible to "convert" a 1333MHz stick to 1066MHz with a Windows (paid) app called Thaiphoon Burner.

Now that we have 16GB sticks available, perhaps it could be possible to install 32GB on a 2010 Mini or a 2010 Macbook, but it will be hard to find anyone able to spend the money just for testing purposes or at the risk of not working.

 

[elf69]

I have one 1066MHz ddr3 4gb stick and one 1333MHz 4gb stick.

please note 1066 is supported and the 1333 will clock down if a 1066 is installed.
with two 1333 sticks it will not boot.
I have late 2009 unibody mackbook A1342 model with 2.26GHz CPU.

 

[jojobach]

Thank you so much. Very helpfull!

BTW, what SSD do you use in the MB? What are the specs?

Thank,
Jojobach

It actually supports up to 8GB (perhaps even more, like 10GB, but there isn't enough documentation to assure this). Previous white Macbooks from 2009 (non-Unibody) support up to 6GB, and the last white Macbook (2010) supports up to 16GB. I have a Macmini (which shares the same specs of a 2010 Macbook) equipped with 16GB. You have to take care when buying memory sticks. The 1066MHz with CAS latency 7 ones are preferable, although it is possible to "convert" a 1333MHz stick to 1066MHz with a Windows (paid) app called Thaiphoon Burner.

Now that we have 16GB sticks available, perhaps it could be possible to install 32GB on a 2010 Mini or a 2010 Macbook, but it will be hard to find anyone able to spend the money just for testing purposes or at the risk of not working.

 

[elf69]

I have an ADATA premier sp550 240GB, has read 560 and write 510.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/ADATA-Premier-Superior-to560MB-ASP550SS3-240GM-C/dp/B013J7Q338

awesome drive for the money.
Going buy another for my 2007 imac soon.

 

[Macinboss]

Anyone would like to share impressions? Is it worth upgrading?

P.S.: My wMB has a SSD and 8GB RAM on it.

I did it and it works GREAT

 

[brdeveloper]

Thank you so much. Very helpfull!

BTW, what SSD do you use in the MB? What are the specs?

Thank,
Jojobach

That is a good question, since not all SATA-III SSDs run at SATA-II speeds. For example, I have a PNY XLR8 which is SATA-III, but downrates to SATA-I on SATA-II enclosures.

The following SATA-III SSDs worked at full SATA-II bandwidth on my 2010 Mini and my Late-2009 Macbook:
- Samsung 840 EVO, 250GB;
- Crucial M500 480GB.

There are other SATA-III models which runs at full SATA-II speed, though.
[doublepost=1476651887][/doublepost]

I have one 1066MHz ddr3 4gb stick and one 1333MHz 4gb stick.

please note 1066 is supported and the 1333 will clock down if a 1066 is installed.
with two 1333 sticks it will not boot.
I have late 2009 unibody mackbook A1342 model with 2.26GHz CPU.

Yes, this solution works great once you have at least one 1066MHz stick. But at the time I decided to install 16GB on my Macmini, it was hard to find affordable 8GB 1066GHz sticks. I preferred converting one 1333MHz stick to 1066.

 

[Macinboss]

Thank you so much. Very helpfull!

BTW, what SSD do you use in the MB? What are the specs?

Thank,
Jojobach

I like Samsung drives. I used the Samsung EVO 750 which is a littler cheaper than the Samsung EVO 850. Both are insanely reliable drives.

Review is here:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/10258...20gb-250gb-ssd-review-a-return-to-planar-nand