Mac Book Pro Early 2008 Upgrade Advice

[Jambalaya]

A friend recently upgraded to El Capitan their 15" MBP Early 2008 and its suffering. Spec below only 2GB RAM and a nearly full 200GB HDD. So what upgrades are cost effective, she is on a budget. Advice and reommendations please. Thanks in advance and Happy New Year.

RAM - Apple suggests 4GB max however I know more is sometimes possible. Also its DDR2 667mhz, is this easy to find or do I put in faster, will 1 4GB chip in one slot work ? Is second hand memory available (in France or UK)

Harddrive, given she has a requirement for 250GB do we go with a 7200rpm Western Digital HDD (the one in my Mini is great) or stretch to an SSD ? Is this a SATA2 machine ?

I've upgraded RAM and HDD is a couple of machines before so have some experience

 

[snaky69]

A friend recently upgraded to El Capitan their 15" MBP Early 2008 and its suffering. Spec below only 2GB RAM and a nearly full 200GB HDD. So what upgrades are cost effective, she is on a budget. Advice and reommendations please. Thanks in advance and Happy New Year.




RAM - Apple suggests 4GB max however I know more is sometimes possible. Also its DDR2 667mhz, is this easy to find or do I put in faster, will 1 4GB chip in one slot work ? Is second hand memory available (in France or UK)

Harddrive, given she has a requirement for 250GB do we go with a 7200rpm Western Digital HDD (the one in my Mini is great) or stretch to an SSD ? Is this a SATA2 machine ?

I've upgraded RAM and HDD is a couple of machines before so have some experience

The machine will take 6GB. One stick of 2GB and another of 4GB. That is the maximum. You need to match RAM specs DDR2 667MHz, or it will not boot. You should be able to find compatible RAM here:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&IsNodeId=1&N=100007609 600006176


The machine is SATA I, it would still benefit from the performance of a SSD. The SSD is much, much much faster at random I/O than a hard drive, don't just look at continuous read/write.

If it were me though, at this point, I wouldn't chuck a single cent at a computer that is nearly 8 years old.

 

[Jambalaya]

Thanks, she doesn't have the budget for a better machine so its upgrades or leave it as is and its very sluggish post OSX upgrade. My 2009 Mini is still going strong after RAM and HDD upgrades.

 

[BrianBaughn]

The 6GB of RAM and an SSD with size adequate for her needs will make that machine run nicely. Worked for this 2007 MBP.

I put the SanDisk SSD Plus model in this one.

 

[CoastalOR]

The most inexpensive route is increase RAM (6 Gb) and a larger spinner HDD. A SSD would be nice, but costs more. I would recommend at least 500Gb since she has a almost full 200 Gb.

 

[Jambalaya]

Update: owner went for 4gb and 250 ssd and the machine is now running very sweetly. I did recommend 500gb hdd as ssd was too pricey but she preferred ssd speed and to stick with her various external drives plus uploading photo library to web for backup. 6gm ram (4+2) was more than double the price of 4gb

Also put a 500ssd into wife's 2012 mbp and that too is of course much better