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Memory + HDD upgrade last 13" C2D MacBook Pro

iancapable

iancapable

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 4, 2006
279
0
London, United Kingdom
Hi all,

Since installing mountain lion on my wifes little 13" macbook pro (I think it's a mid 2010, I'm not near it at the moment, so can't confirm), I would like some advice on upgrading the old 320GB 5400rpm disk. I already know how much 8GB of ram will cost me from crucial (£33.00), but I am torn between sticking in a hybrid drive like the seagate 750GB momentus XT (£100), a 256GB crucial SSD, or a bog standard 7200rpm drive (also around 750GB).

I am quite keen on a SSD, but I am not sure what benifit she would get from it, especially since I am reducing the storage (keep in mind that comment is specifically because it's on an older SATA standard). I am also quite keen on the seagate, but I am not entirely sure if it will work nicely on her macbook?

Any ideas?
 
Orlandoech.com said:
Id get the Hybrid HDD or SSD. Dont get a 7200RPM HDD.
Click to expand...

Yeah I'm going in that direction. I found out that my wife's computer is a mid-2010, with a 250GB 5400rpm disk. I knew it had only 4GB of ram. IT IS SO SLOW, to the point of being painful.

I'll toss a coin over "more space, less speed" to "less space, more speed"

The only way I think it could be this slow, is that she leaves facebook running in chrome all day long, with all those flash instances (that's all she does)...
 
Get a 256GB SSD and install a optibay with 1TB HDD.
Also upgrade to 8GB.
This is the max upgrade you can do to that machine.
 
iancapable said:
Hi all,

Since installing mountain lion on my wifes little 13" macbook pro (I think it's a mid 2010, I'm not near it at the moment, so can't confirm), I would like some advice on upgrading the old 320GB 5400rpm disk. I already know how much 8GB of ram will cost me from crucial (£33.00), but I am torn between sticking in a hybrid drive like the seagate 750GB momentus XT (£100), a 256GB crucial SSD, or a bog standard 7200rpm drive (also around 750GB).

I am quite keen on a SSD, but I am not sure what benifit she would get from it, especially since I am reducing the storage (keep in mind that comment is specifically because it's on an older SATA standard). I am also quite keen on the seagate, but I am not entirely sure if it will work nicely on her macbook?

Any ideas?
Click to expand...
I have the momentus XT on my MBP and its been in there for about a year, I like the drive and I havent had any problems with it, you will see a change in the boot up but not as much as an SSD would give you. I just bought an 80GB SSD and will be deleting my disk drive and putting in my XT in that slot. I am also running 8GB of ram.
 
jcastillo20059 said:
I have the momentus XT on my MBP and its been in there for about a year, I like the drive and I havent had any problems with it, you will see a change in the boot up but not as much as an SSD would give you. I just bought an 80GB SSD and will be deleting my disk drive and putting in my XT in that slot. I am also running 8GB of ram.
Click to expand...

I'm heavily considering the SSD, however... I am not the one using it and my wife pretty much uses it for facebook, email and photos of the kids
 
iancapable said:
I'm heavily considering the SSD, however... I am not the one using it and my wife pretty much uses it for facebook, email and photos of the kids
Click to expand...

IF thats the case you can snag a 256GB SSD for less than $200 now.


http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Elect...F8&qid=1354991803&sr=1-1&keywords=samsung+840

http://www.amazon.com/OCZ-Technolog...1354991821&sr=1-1&keywords=ocz+vertex+4+256gb

http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-2-5-I...=1354991783&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=crucisal+m4


A huge list of 240-256GB SSDs less than $200

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...312604,19348:288934,19348:312602,19348:337908
 
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
 
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
I went with the 256GB M4 for my mid 2009 13" MBP. It's probably the most noticeable upgrade I've ever done. Shortly after I upgraded my MBP, I bought another SSD to install in my PC.
 
If your wife doesn't need more than 250GB, I'd go with an SSD. The smaller ones are quite reasonable these days. Even though you are running SATA II, a decent SATA III drive will be cheaper and give better performance than trying to hunt down a decent SATA II SSD these days (apparently the Crucial V4 is garbage). The 2010 cMPB should run a SATA III drive just fine at 3GB/s max (not so the 2011 cMBP), and that will still be MUCH faster than a normal HDD.

If she does need more than 250GB, then you may wish to consider an alternative as 512GB drives are still pricey enough that putting them in a pre-SandyBridge machine doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Two leading alternatives are...

1. The Seagate Momentus XT hybrid - this is what I did and it works beautifully. You do get near SSD performance for your most commonly used stuff and 7200rpm performance for the stuff you don't use as much. It's a HUGE step up over a normal HDD, with 750GB of storage at what'll likely be right around 75 quid or so.

2. DIY FUD - this is what I would do if we didn't actually use the Superdrives in our laptops. For just a few pounds more than the MoXT, you should be able to get a 128GB SSD and optibay caddy. Combine that with your current 320GB HDD (or get a cheap bigger one) and create your own Fusion Drive. This is actually pretty much the same concept as the MoXT, but with 15x the flash storage.
 
NewishMacGuy said:
If your wife doesn't need more than 250GB, I'd go with an SSD. The smaller ones are quite reasonable these days. Even though you are running SATA II, a decent SATA III drive will be cheaper and give better performance than trying to hunt down a decent SATA II SSD these days (apparently the Crucial V4 is garbage). The 2010 cMPB should run a SATA III drive just fine at 3GB/s max (not so the 2011 cMBP), and that will still be MUCH faster than a normal HDD.

If she does need more than 250GB, then you may wish to consider an alternative as 512GB drives are still pricey enough that putting them in a pre-SandyBridge machine doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Two leading alternatives are...

1. The Seagate Momentus XT hybrid - this is what I did and it works beautifully. You do get near SSD performance for your most commonly used stuff and 7200rpm performance for the stuff you don't use as much. It's a HUGE step up over a normal HDD, with 750GB of storage at what'll likely be right around 75 quid or so.

2. DIY FUD - this is what I would do if we didn't actually use the Superdrives in our laptops. For just a few pounds more than the MoXT, you should be able to get a 128GB SSD and optibay caddy. Combine that with your current 320GB HDD (or get a cheap bigger one) and create your own Fusion Drive. This is actually pretty much the same concept as the MoXT, but with 15x the flash storage.
Click to expand...

I could very well consider doing that actually. I am very heavily leaning towards the SSD, it will make the laptop last a couple more years. I am still a tiny bit torn that I am overengineering the solution to the problem. At the end of the day she is only a heavy user of Facebook on chrome...

Edit: Just just to add; I am probably in one of those weird computer enthusiasts heaven, where (apart from the RAM) I am doing a pointless upgrade of the HDD because I can...
 
iancapable said:
I'm heavily considering the SSD, however... I am not the one using it and my wife pretty much uses it for facebook, email and photos of the kids
Click to expand...

Forget about HDDs, SSD is all you need to put in: 128 or 256GB non-Sandforce based one. I'd put my vote down for Samsung 830 or 840;)
 
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