My macbook pro is starting to show its age, wanting to upgrade, need recommendations.

[gc15]

So i have a standard base model 2011 macbook pro, which has been a very good laptop; however its starting to slowwww down. What i want to do is take out my superdrive and replace it with a ssd and make a time machine back up and place everything onto the ssd to make the computer feel brand new. Plus i can finally update to the latest os, still on mavericks. My question is what do i exactly need to do this experiment. While i am in there I'm wanting to upgrade my ram as well because why not.

http://www.amazon.com/Drive-Unibody...805&sr=8-1&keywords=ssd+bay+caddy+macbook+pro

Is this all i need? Also what brand of ssd would be best?

 

[simonsi]

You only need to replace the Supadrive if you want two drives as I have. If you don't need the space then simply replace the existing HDD with your new SSD (I've used Crucial SSD's with zero issues over 3yrs). If you don't have a backup (Time Machine works great), then make one using a separate external drive first. I would use Carbon Copy Cloner to move your data to the SSD using a temporary drive caddy that attaches via USB:

1. Make a backup
2. Attach the SSD via the external caddy
3. Use CCC to clone your internal drive to the SSD
4. Boot off the SSD while external in the caddy, check all is well
5. Physically swap the SSD into the HDD drive bay
6. Boot from the SSD internally

If you want two drives then:

1. Make a backup
2. Mount the SSD into the Optical Bay Adapter
3. Use CCC to clone your internal drive to the SSD
4. Boot off the SSD
5. Check via System Info that the SATA "Negotiated Link speed" is "6G" or "6 Gigabit", if it is "3G" or "3 Gigabit" then physically swap over the SSD and HDD and reboot and recheck. Some 2011 models won't rune the SSD at full SATA3 speed in the optical bay but if it can/does then you are better that way as you then get shock sensing on the HDD in the normal drive bay.

 

[kokhoong0624]

You only need to replace the Supadrive if you want two drives as I have. If you don't need the space then simply replace the existing HDD with your new SSD (I've used Crucial SSD's with zero issues over 3yrs). If you don't have a backup (Time Machine works great), then make one using a separate external drive first. I would use Carbon Copy Cloner to move your data to the SSD using a temporary drive caddy that attaches via USB:

1. Make a backup
2. Attach the SSD via the external caddy
3. Use CCC to clone your internal drive to the SSD
4. Boot off the SSD while external in the caddy, check all is well
5. Physically swap the SSD into the HDD drive bay
6. Boot from the SSD internally

If you want two drives then:

1. Make a backup
2. Mount the SSD into the Optical Bay Adapter
3. Use CCC to clone your internal drive to the SSD
4. Boot off the SSD
5. Check via System Info that the SATA "Negotiated Link speed" is "6G" or "6 Gigabit", if it is "3G" or "3 Gigabit" then physically swap over the SSD and HDD and reboot and recheck. Some 2011 models won't rune the SSD at full SATA3 speed in the optical bay but if it can/does then you are better that way as you then get shock sensing on the HDD in the normal drive bay.

I am also planning for an upgrade...I just want to ask is that if can I just put a blank SSD without copying anything into it and install OSX from fresh?

 

[simonsi]

You can install a blank SSD and install OSX but you will need something to boot from, either a Time Machine backup or a bootable USB stick made with DiskmakerX, make either or both of these and test you can boot from them before you swap the SSD in...