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Ssd in late 2007 Macbook Pro?

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RestUnknown

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 25, 2011
179
91
Hi all

I have a Macbook Pro which turned 7 years in January. I'm planning on using this laptop till it's completely broken. But lately it has been quite slow with certain tasks (especially boot and starting an office app for the first time). I don't know if it's because of Yosemite asking a lot off the cpu and if it would help to revert back to a previous OS or that a ssd would cure my problems.

The current specs are 2.2ghz Core 2 Duo and 4gb of ram (the swap is never used).

I know the ssd won't use its full power because of the bandwith limit the interface would be able to handle, but am wondering if it would still be useful and I would be 'settled' for as long the laptop works or that the cpu is just getting too slow.

I use the laptop for normal day to day tasks as reading pdf's, surfing and music. I do not play any games.

Thanks
 
W

Woochoo

macrumors 6502a
Oct 12, 2014
548
505
If you put an SSD on it comming from a 5400rpm HDD, you'll really notice it. I don't know if your model has Sata 2 but mine has and it goes up to 250-260MB/s of read and writting, so any SSD cappable of that speeds will do (there's no need for one with 550MB/s on both, which might be more expensive).
Btw, do a backup, do a clean install of Yosemite if you didn't and then migrate your data. That's much better than upgrading from Mavericks.
 
R

RestUnknown

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 25, 2011
179
91
Thanks for your answers.

About this Mac says the protocol is Sata (there is no number behind it).
 
S

snaky69

macrumors 603
Mar 14, 2008
5,908
488
Woochoo said:
If you put an SSD on it comming from a 5400rpm HDD, you'll really notice it. I don't know if your model has Sata 2 but mine has and it goes up to 250-260MB/s of read and writting, so any SSD cappable of that speeds will do (there's no need for one with 550MB/s on both, which might be more expensive).
Btw, do a backup, do a clean install of Yosemite if you didn't and then migrate your data. That's much better than upgrading from Mavericks.
Click to expand...

SATA I only on that vintage.
 
S

Samuelsan2001

macrumors 604
Oct 24, 2013
7,729
2,153
Yes

RestUnknown said:
And what does this mean? Will I still get a decent enough performance increase?
Click to expand...

Not in the league of the PCIe SSD's on the new rMBP's but a good boot time, 15-20 secs, and much faster opening apps. It'll also feel much more fluid and reponsive.

However investing money in a 7 year old laptop can be a false economy at that age failure is quite often just round the corner. You could invest in an SSD that costs almost as much as the laptop is worth and then the logic board fails next week. Electronics wear out and you are reaching the end of your shelf life.

I'm not saying don't do it just making your aware of the pitfalls...
 
S

snaky69

macrumors 603
Mar 14, 2008
5,908
488
RestUnknown said:
And what does this mean? Will I still get a decent enough performance increase?
Click to expand...

SATA I, II, and III are speed standards for the SATA connection.

1.5Gbps, 3Gbps and 6Gbps respectively. Those speeds are in gigaBITS per second, to get gigaBYTES you need to divide by 8.

Your computer is old, it uses the SATA I standard. The theoretical maximum speed it can transfer data through the SATA port is 187,5MB/s. SATA II is double that and SATA III is quadruple that.

In short, you will notice a difference, most definitely, but it won't be nearly as big as it'd be in a more recent computer that uses SATA II or III.
 
arcite

arcite

macrumors 6502a
Sep 6, 2009
983
683
Cairo, trapped in a pyramid with my iphone
I just put in a ssd in my 2010 macbook pro, well worth the money.... yet for a 2007 macbook? Your battery must be on its last legs. The architecture of the processor is pre-historic. Not to mention, your non-LED, non-retina screen must be getting pretty dim.

IMO, best bet would be to sell it for what you can get for it ---before it completely dies, and put it toward a new machine. If you insist on keeping it going, put in the cheapest SSD possible. ;)
 
S

snaky69

macrumors 603
Mar 14, 2008
5,908
488
arcite said:
I just put in a ssd in my 2010 macbook pro, well worth the money.... yet for a 2007 macbook? Your battery must be on its last legs. The architecture of the processor is pre-historic. Not to mention, your non-LED, non-retina screen must be getting pretty dim.

IMO, best bet would be to sell it for what you can get for it ---before it completely dies, and put it toward a new machine. If you insist on keeping it going, put in the cheapest SSD possible. ;)
Click to expand...

Just FYI, MBP's have have LED screens from the get go, back in '06.
 
C

cltd

macrumors regular
May 22, 2014
137
32
RestUnknown said:
The current specs are 2.2ghz Core 2 Duo and 4gb of ram (the swap is never used).
Click to expand...

Add ram, if possible. I have MB Pro Penryn from 2007, maxed its ram to 6 GB and that killed beachball ;)

RestUnknown said:
I know the ssd won't use its full power because of the bandwith limit the interface would be able to handle, but am wondering if it would still be useful and I would be 'settled' for as long the laptop works or that the cpu is just getting too slow.

I use the laptop for normal day to day tasks as reading pdf's, surfing and music. I do not play any games.

Thanks
Click to expand...

For music, pdfs and surfing? Go for it. For other tasks CPU is showing its age. I put Sandisk 256 GB into my 8 years old MB Pro. BlackMagic says it's about 120 mb/s read speed, so slower than HDD 7200. But it's much snappier than bloody 5400 drive!
I haven't noticed any boot time or battery life improvements.
You can buy any cheap SSD, don't worry about specs because your Mac is so limited by SATA I. Only remember to get SSD with marvel driver.
 
S

Samuelsan2001

macrumors 604
Oct 24, 2013
7,729
2,153
Misunderstanding of SSD's

cltd said:
Add ram, if possible. I have MB Pro Penryn from 2007, maxed its ram to 6 GB and that killed beachball ;)



For music, pdfs and surfing? Go for it. For other tasks CPU is showing its age. I put Sandisk 256 GB into my 8 years old MB Pro. BlackMagic says it's about 120 mb/s read speed, so slower than HDD 7200. But it's much snappier than bloody 5400 drive!
I haven't noticed any boot time or battery life improvements.
You can buy any cheap SSD, don't worry about specs because your Mac is so limited by SATA I. Only remember to get SSD with marvel driver.
Click to expand...

Unless you are moving around big files sustained read/write speeds mean very little, it is very low I/O latency that is the real killer feature of SSD's...
 
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