Nice upgrades for my early 2008 MBP

[titatom]

I went shopping !

My early 2008 MBP (specs in my signature) was starting to show sings of slowing down (considerably). A month a go (just before my Applecare voided), my computer burned (famous 8600M GT problem I believe) and Apple put in a brand new logic board.
Now I decided to give it a new life by buying (and not yet installing) :

- KINGSTON 64Gb SSDNow V100 SERIES SSD (for obvious SSD benefits)

- PATA To SATA 2ND HDD caddy that fits my MBP model (to put my old 250GB 5400rpm drive in place of my optical drive for which I have no use...SSD will be for boot and apps). BTW, is it worth it to buy a bigger drive w/ 7200rpm or is PATA to slow anyway ? does that make sense ?

- 4GB 667 DDR2 (doubling my RAM won't hurt !)

- a screwdriver

Total was 185$ Canadian + shipping

I can't wait to pop these babies in my MBP. I feel it's really going to give it a new life and I wanted to share my joy !

What type of benchmarks should I run before I install everything so to see the effects of the upgrade ?

Cheers,

titatom

 

[megamanbnmaster]

It wouldn't really matter if you're using your old laptop drive as a storage. If you install everything on your boot drive then it's fine to keep a 5400 rpm drive.

I would recommend getting a better SSD though. Those kingston SSDs have trash speeds (compare to force controller SSDs) and in my opinion are not worth the 20-30 dollars in savings. But if you already bought it, then it'll still be a lot faster than your hard drive.

More or less Benchmarks won't increase that much, as many are CPU dependent. You'll notice an increase in bootup and startup time for every application though. Be sure to manually TRIM your SSD once in a while (as I don't think Apple supports TRIM on 3rd party SSDs).

 

[neenja]

you should be able to get 6gb of ram out of your mbp 4,1 (i have the same model)

dumped 6gb on it recently and it is running smooth.

im planning on going ssd on my main bay and throwing my hdd into the optibay. just dont know if 64gb is enough.. thinking of 128gb.

 

[head honcho 123]

if u run xbench ur disk scores will significantly improve due to ur SSD boot drive.

geekbench will prob not show u any improvements as geekbench tests the processor and ram... the ram scores will prob not improve bc it will be still 667 mhz as ur previous 2 GB ram.

i would recommend the 7200 rpm if u got the extra cash. i don't think u will need more space, but the faster rpm will give you some boost... though it might heat up the early '08 mbp a little more in the old optical area. no big deal.

once u install ur boot SSD drive, turn off the motion sensor via terminal command because u have no use for it... although u do have the HDD in the optical drive, i don't think enabling the motion senor will work with the 2ndary HDD in the optical bay.

google for some SSD optimizing terminal tricks... there's a few that are useful.

congrats on ur upgrade!

 

[neenja]

does turning off the motion sensor improve anything?

 

[titatom]

Thank you for all your replies !

I have another question concerning installation. When the SSD is in place as well as my old drive (with lion on it). Can I boot from a Lion USB, use disk utility from there to format the ssd and the original drive + install Lion on the ssd ?

Thank you !

 

[head honcho 123]

does turning off the motion sensor improve anything?

mmm....... not really. the motion sensor is basically not applicable on an SSD.

also the apple's motion sensing is implemented through the HDD's motion senors... once u take out the HDD and replace it with the SSD, the motion sensing is non-existent but still enabled... you can turn it off by the terminal.

fyi [source: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1934]
"Sudden Motion Sensor technology is built-in protection for the hard disk, designed to help prevent disk issues if the computer is dropped or if it senses unusually strong vibration. Apple has adjusted this feature carefully to provide the best balance between protecting the hard drive and preventing unwanted activation of the Sudden Motion Sensor. Most Apple portable owners never need to turn this feature off. Apple suggests that you not modify the settings unless absolutely necessary."

hope this helps.

----------

Thank you for all your replies !

I have another question concerning installation. When the SSD is in place as well as my old drive (with lion on it). Can I boot from a Lion USB, use disk utility from there to format the ssd and the original drive + install Lion on the ssd ?

Thank you !

are u saying:
1) new SSD installed in original HDD spot
2) old HDD installed in optical bay spot
3) boot from USB Lion install and format/install from USB lion install drive

answer is YES