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Optimal OS for MacBookPro5,2 mid 2009

T

TheBigearedOne

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 21, 2016
10
1
Dublin
Hi
I use my MacBookPro5,2 everyday for internet and email and sometimes for audio and video work - basic stuff nothing fancy.

I was using 10.6.8 for years and then upgraded for free to Yosemite and am now running 10.10.5 (14F1605

I find the machine really slow and am seriously thinking of erasing the disk and installing 10.8.5

My question to you all is what have you found is the optimal operating system to run on this computer?

I have maxed out the ram to 8 gig and I have a Samsung SSD running the OS. I might install a data doubler with another SSD and am looking for an expresscard 34 USB 3 solution too.

What annoys me is that Apple keeps telling me to upgrade the OS in little pop up windows while the machine is so slow sometimes that I actually thought the trackpad was dying. (I know the mousepad/trackpad isnt dying because in these moments of waiting for the machine to respond even the arrow keys on the keyboard wouldnt repond!). I just feel that the OS is too much for the processor and ram.

Im sure there must be an optimal OS to be running for each machine if the hardware options are as has fast as they can be?

I dont have a lot of cash to spend on a new machine and I like the matt screen which is 17 inches on this laptop!

I feel its a bit unethical on Apple's part to be so pushy about upgrading my OS when it should know damn well that Im not going to have a good experience on the machine if I upgrade to the latest OS!!! I dont see a way to turn these notifications to update the OS off. The only 2 options are "Install now" or "Remind me later"

The "Turn these notifications off forever" option just isnt there!! :)

Is this Apple's way of forcing people into buying new hardware and dumping their current machine?
 
Mavericks.

I have the 17" early 2009 MacBookPro5,2 with an SSHD in lieu of the original HDD.
 
GUI of Yosemite: I was amongst the complainers.

GUI aside: I view Mavericks as nicely mature. Not entirely bug-free, but very pleasant.
 
I'm surprised Yosemite is giving you such a problem. I have El Capitan installed on a 2010 11" MacBook Air with 4GB of RAM and it runs perfectly smooth. Granted it is one year newer, but your 2009 machine should be a lot more powerful than my 2010 MBA. If you are thinking of wiping the drive and doing a clean install anyway, why not give El Capitan a try? Otherwise I'd second Mavericks, I found it to be a very stable release overall on all of my Macs, including a 2009 mini.
 
Acronyc said:
… surprised Yosemite is giving you such a problem …
Click to expand...

Good point.

Optimising file system metadata with HFS Plus

TheBigearedOne said:
… ram to 8 gig … SSD … slow …
Click to expand...

Use Yosemite Recovery OS Disk Utility to verify (not repair) the OS X startup volume.

If that volume appears to be OK, then:
  1. ensure the OS X startup volume is unmounted
  2. make a written note of the device identifier of that HFS Plus volume (maybe /dev/disk14s2 or /dev/disk15 … something like that)
  3. quit Disk Utility
  4. launch Terminal
  5. run the three commands exemplified below –
/sbin/fsck_hfs -d -Rc /dev/disk14s2

/sbin/fsck_hfs -d -Ra /dev/disk14s2

/sbin/fsck_hfs -d -Re /dev/disk14s2

– those examples assume that the OS X startup volume is at /dev/disk14s2 … use whatever was written for your use case.

Manual page for fsck_hfs(8)
 
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