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Options to speed up my early 2010 MBP?

I

Indy Golfer

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 6, 2011
14
0
Indy
I bought a MBP in February 2010. I noticed that it has become quite a bit slower than it was when I bought it. It launches programs much slower, color pinwheels more often and even just day to day tasking seems to take longer. I really don't want to buy a new laptop since it is only 1 1/2 years old. I use it for school so I need speed and dependability.

Here are my specs:
2010 MBP
C2D 3.06
8 GB RAM

Any cost effective options? SSD? Upgrade processor?

Thanks,
Shane
 
SSD. 128GB drives are all in the $200 range. I put one in my mid 2010 and it made if FLY. Like crazy fast, fast. I went with a Vertex 3 and love it, my read/write speeds are 260/210. I've had no issues with anything, so that what I recommend.

You can't upgrade your processor, but for what you're doing you wouldn't really benefit. And if you're on 10.7, I would go back to 10.6; aside from all the other issues, I found it(even 10.7.2) much slower than 10.6.8.
 
It looks like you're saving your data in your HDD. If thats the case remove your data from your HDD and transfer it to an external HDD. If thats not the case then erase your HDD and reinstall the OS. Also, if you can add more memory it'll help.
 
Hamilton1963 said:
It looks like you're saving your data in your HDD. If thats the case remove your data from your HDD and transfer it to an external HDD. If thats not the case then erase your HDD and reinstall the OS. Also, if you can add more memory it'll help.
Click to expand...

What's a HDD there for if not to save data? And 8GB is more than enough RAM, even if he's running a VM 8GB should suffice.
 
Thanks!

Looks like an SSD is the best option, looks fairly easy to do as well.

Thanks again
 
Demosthenes X said:
64GB SSD and move the HDD to the optical bay. You'll need a $14 caddy from eBay. Problem solved.
Click to expand...

This. I would still go with a 120/128GB SSD for around $200, then whatever optibay you choose to go with(it sounds like the sub $20 ones work the same as the $100 MCE one; I'm still going to go with the OWC data doubler, but to each his own). Going this route give you the same storage as before, plus another 120GB, AND all the benefits of a SSD for under $250.

What the "best" SSD is is very subjective, 5 posts will probably have at least 3 different drives. I recommend the OCZ Vertex 3, I have one and it's a beast. I haven't had any reliability problems(yet, knock on wood), but people would like you to think I'm the only one w/o problems; the Samsung 470 had the reputation as being the most reliable(well, maybe after the last fen Intel X-25M which new egg started stocking again, which says something about demand for a last gen drive...). If you want performance, you want a SandForce controller based drive, if you want "reliabilty" you want either a Samsung 470 or Intel X-25(and to a slightly lesser extent, the Intel 320.)
 
You can't really update the processor, so either SSD or do a clean wipe and see whats happens. You never know what type of viruses, trojans, etc are slowing down your computer.
 
I concur...ssd is the easiest way to increase visible performance. However, just curious...are you running Lion or still using Snow Leopard? About half of my machines have been updated....and Lion, in some situations, seems a bit slower than SL. Especially starting up or shutting down my Airs (all ssd obviously).

If you are using Lion...give it another update for speed improvements. Should continue to improve. For many tasks Lion is quick...but there are some little quirks still to resolve

J
 
I have a less well spec'd 2009 MBP running lion and it's as quick as ever.

Go with the clean install option before you upgrade to SSD, your machine should be more than adequate for the stuff you do.
 
I am still running Snow Leopard, not ready to upgrade just yet. This may sound stupid, but since school started last week I'm a little scared to make any adjustments in case something goes wrong.

I will likely go with the SSD upgrade, seems to be a lot of bang for the buck. How do I know which SSD's are compatible with my MBP? Since I backup with Time Capsule, is it fairly simple to get all of my information back on my MBP after a clean install? It looks pretty simple to switch out the drive, just curious how long it will take to get it back up and running with all of the documents and settings back in their places.

Thanks again!
 
That's a Mid 2009 Macbook Pro.

It's possible it's slow due to a hardware problem. That model is notorious for having the hard drive cable go bad.
 
You can certainly save your data in a HDD however its not safe. HDD's can get damage and what if your computer is stolen? And if it does there goes your data. Also excess of data will slow down any computer. An external HDD is a better way to save your data, its not the safest way to save your data but, its safer than your computer's HDD. A HDD is like a room, if you have 2, 3 pieces of furniture in a room you'll have easy access to the room and it'll be easy to look for things you need. But, if you have 20 pieces of furniture in a room instead of only 2 or 3 it'll take you longer to go in and look for things you may need. Now in regards to memory, well, the more the better. Memory allows you to do different tasks at the same time and if you have more memory in your computer your computer can process those tasks faster. Right?

DWBurke811 said:
What's a HDD there for if not to save data? And 8GB is more than enough RAM, even if he's running a VM 8GB should suffice.
Click to expand...
 
Here we go again...

another macbook that worked fine at one time but slows down so people just throw money at it. I swear some of you guys get SSD kickbacks :D

OP: Just try a clean install of OSX first. Your specs are fine as is. The proof is your macbook worked perfectly fine at one time.
 
@OP: I'm using a '08 Alu. Unibody Macbook with inferior specs to yours, and outside of very intensive cpu/gpu tasks, it's pretty much as fast as when I first got it. I don't know how you're using your computer, or what your perception of "speed" is, but I would go with what others have suggested and try a clean install first. I've never had to do a clean install on this mac to get back "speed", but I have had to do on more bogged down macs in the past.

If the clean install doesn't work, it could be a hardware related problem. I'm not trying to discourage a SSD upgrade, but I would first try to identify why you're having this problem before making the purchase, since if it is indeed hardware related, than the SSD isn't going to do anything for you.

I swapped my base drive with a WD Scorpio Black, and keep my drive relatively clean (have a "NAS-esqe" device for mass storage). I also occasionally clean out caches, but I don't do anything special otherwise to keep my mac happy. The only slowdowns I encounter that aren't related to intensive cpu/gpu tasks, are page outs from massive memory leaks related to my browsing habits (15+ tabs open for weeks at a time, usually with something like flash on at least one of the tabs).
 
How much free hard drive space?

Another thing to check is how much free hard drive space you have left. If you are near or under 10GB free there's a good chance you will start to see a lot of beach-balling as the computer struggles to juggle virtual memory and the hibernation file, especially since you have 8GB of RAM (which means an 8GB hibernation file and lots of hard drive space used for virtual memory usage).

Before buying anything, I would check your free hard drive space. Work to get at LEAST 25GB free then make sure you've got a good recent Time Machine backup.

Then, I would do a clean install of Snow Leopard, use the 10.6.8 combo updater, then use Migration Assistant to transfer your data and applications. Provided you have a reasonable amount of free hard drive space left (at least 25GB), I would expect you'd see a reasonable speed increase.

If no speed increase, you might look further into a possible hardware error.

That said, yes, an SSD would almost certainly give you a speed increase, but it seems silly to throw money at the problem when there are likely other resolutions. But, if you have the money and it's no issue, an SSD would be super snappy! :)

Cheers.
 
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