Macbook Pro 3,1 - SSD Upgrade

[John Doe 57]

I have a late 2008 Santa Rosa 17" MacBook Pro 3,1 that I'd like to upgrade.

Goal:
240GB SSD

Current Specs:
OS X 10.8.4
2.6GHz Core 2 Duo
Hitachi 200GB, 1.5 Gigabit, 7200-rpm

I am aware that 6Gbps is a waste of money since my model can only achieve 1.5Gbps. So I'm looking at 3Gbps SSD.

I am looking at the OWC Mercury Electra 3G SSD. Smart? Stupid? Alternatives?

Thanks.

 

[infernoguy]

Do it! Makes a huge difference and will add a few extra years of life to a great machine.

 

[johnnnw]

Yeah, do it.

Makes a big difference, I know from experience

 

[jav6454]

It'll make a nice difference, although always remember, never buy an SSD based on sequential reads/writes as real world potential is always measured in random read/writes.

Random file transfer hasn't really saturated SATA I yet.

 

[John Doe 57]

Thank you all! Bought the SSD along with a toolkit... and some more RAM. Gonna max this old guy out with 6GB. This is exciting!

 

[jav6454]

Thank you all! Bought the SSD along with a toolkit... and some more RAM. Gonna max this old guy out with 6GB. This is exciting!

There is a speed loss by using mismatching RAM modules. How much does it affect you? Well, depends on your application type.

 

[John Doe 57]

There is a speed loss by using mismatching RAM modules. How much does it affect you? Well, depends on your application type.

Well I've read that I'll lose Dual Channel capabilities but that more RAM outweighs losing Dual Channel. I may not even notice all that much of a change under OS X but it should change under virtual machines. We'll see what happens I guess.

 

[jav6454]

Theoretically speaking, a Virtual Machine shouldn't care much.

 

[John Doe 57]

Theoretically speaking, a Virtual Machine shouldn't care much.

Hmm, well it's still comforting to know that I'll have more RAM now haha

 

[jav6454]

Hmm, well it's still comforting to know that I'll have more RAM now haha

True, but some applications do require that extra bandwidth to perform extra nice. Video encoding for instance.

 

[John Doe 57]

True, but some applications do require that extra bandwidth to perform extra nice. Video encoding for instance.

You're worrying me now haha. I did some searching and found this. Hopefully, I'll have similar results.

http://www.barefeats.com/mbpp11.html