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MacBook Pro 13" Upgrades

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bollocks2007

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 2, 2009
2
0
Hi there,
I have my heart and wallet set on purchasing a MacBook Pro 13" and have a few questions. Has anybody installed 8Gb ram and what is the performance like (mainly use photoshop and aperture). How easy is it to change the hard drive, thinking of a 500Gb 7200rpm seagate, and can another hard drive be installed in place of the optical drive.
Appreciate any feedback.
 
I can't speak on the 8GB (still too many $$$ for me) or the optical drive switch, but swapping the HD was extremely simple and took no time at all. The most difficult thing was finding where I put my screwdriver and then keeping track of the very small screws.
 
HD change over shouldn't take more than 10 minutes tops. If you search on google you'll find guides.

You can probably also find reviews of the MBP's with 8GB ram installed- there won't be many people with 8GB ram installed due to the relatively high cost compared to 4GB which is fine for most user needs
 
Could anyone who's been running the MBP 13" with a 7200 HDD comment if there are differences in heat and battery issues as opposed to a 5400 HDD?
 
Is the hard drive under the top left side of the keyboard? I ask this because when I play COD4 or Quake Wars that area get very HOT and I sometimes have to stop playing because my fingers get tooo hot (to walk around keys are W,A,S,D)
 
Thanks. I can only play a game for 20mins because it gets so hot!!! If im just on the internet or itunes etc there is no problem
 
bollocks2007 said:
Hi there,
I have my heart and wallet set on purchasing a MacBook Pro 13" and have a few questions. Has anybody installed 8Gb ram and what is the performance like (mainly use photoshop and aperture). How easy is it to change the hard drive, thinking of a 500Gb 7200rpm seagate, and can another hard drive be installed in place of the optical drive.
Appreciate any feedback.
Click to expand...

I saw a picture on MR somewhere where they removed the optical drive and put in another HDD, so it is possible.
 
bollocks2007 said:
Hi there,
I have my heart and wallet set on purchasing a MacBook Pro 13" and have a few questions. Has anybody installed 8Gb ram and what is the performance like (mainly use photoshop and aperture). How easy is it to change the hard drive, thinking of a 500Gb 7200rpm seagate, and can another hard drive be installed in place of the optical drive.
Appreciate any feedback.
Click to expand...

I just upgraded my HDD and RAM last night on my new MacBook Pro. Getting the screws out is the hardest only because they are so small and I have fat fingers. Before I even turned on my computer for the first time, I took the back off, installed the new RAM and HDD, then turned it on and inserted the installation disk and in less than an hour I was able to start using it.
 
First day on this forum, thanks for all the replies, much appreciated. What about SSD, are they worth the cost? And what are the best SSD's if i was to get one.
 
I'd suggest doing a search on here about posts relating to SSDs. There have been many. In fact there are probably multiple threads on the same topic on the front page of the MBP/PB forum right now...

It all depends on what you use Photoshop for, if going to 8GB will help. If you work with large files and lots of layers and lots of open files at once. There are pretty clear performance advantages to increasing RAM in Photoshop all the way to 32GB (and beyond, if you could install that much RAM in a computer), as long as the material with which you work needs it.

Honestly, I'd venture to say that if you really needed the 8GB of RAM, you know you'd need it. In other words, if you have to ask, you don't need it. And also if you really needed the performance benefits from 8GB of RAM, spending the money for it would not be an issue (i.e. your income heavily depends on massive amounts of photoshop work).

Ruahrc
 
Replacing the RAM and HD is very easy if you can use a screwdriver. In fact the hardest part is finding a torx 6 driver if you don't own one. You'll need that to remove the HD screws.

I put 4GB RAM in mine. 8GB isn't really cost effective at this point. I also put in an SSD and love it for all the reasons given to love them. In fact now I hate to use my other computers b/c hard drives seem slower than ever now...the true bottleneck.
 
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