Upgrade memory and hard drive or buy new?

[Jeremy06]

I have an A1226 15" MacBook pro with 2GB of RAM and 120GB hard drive. I'm busting at the seams! It's running very slow, with 110GB of hard drive used up. I need more hard drive for photos, etc. and more memory for speed. I'd rather not spend the money for an iMac, so I'm considering upgrading this MacBook Pro with 500GB hard drive and 2GB more RAM (total 4GB). Can anyone tell me the pros and cons? Am I fooling myself to think this is going to come close in performance to a new iMac with 4GB RAM and 500GB hard drive?
Thanks.

 

[applebook]

Your MBP is up-to-date enough (LED, decent graphics compared to integrated) that I would just upgrade the HDD to 500Gb.

Get 4Gb RAM too. Your computer will love you for it.

 

[warrena]

I would upgrade the hard drive to a 500GB and memory to 4GB. You didn't mention any really processor intensive apps so you should see a good improvement. Lot cheaper than a new machine.

 

[aeboi]

upgrade +1

 

[alust2013]

Get the HDD and RAM, and save yourself the $1000 extra that you would spend on the iMac. You will get considerably better performance, especially if you go with a 7200 RPM drive, and I don't believe you would see a $1000 difference in performance if you went with the iMac.

 

[panzer06]

I have an A1226 15" MacBook pro with 2GB of RAM and 120GB hard drive. I'm busting at the seams! It's running very slow, with 110GB of hard drive used up. I need more hard drive for photos, etc. and more memory for speed. I'd rather not spend the money for an iMac, so I'm considering upgrading this MacBook Pro with 500GB hard drive and 2GB more RAM (total 4GB). Can anyone tell me the pros and cons? Am I fooling myself to think this is going to come close in performance to a new iMac with 4GB RAM and 500GB hard drive?
Thanks.

Even though Apple just extended the nvidia 8600 warranty to 4 years I'd sell it and replace it with something that is free of that GPU timebomb.

Even with the problems associated with these Macs, they are still sell moderately well.

Cheers,

 

[thisisapromise]

I have an A1226 15" MacBook pro with 2GB of RAM and 120GB hard drive. I'm busting at the seams! It's running very slow, with 110GB of hard drive used up. I need more hard drive for photos, etc. and more memory for speed. I'd rather not spend the money for an iMac, so I'm considering upgrading this MacBook Pro with 500GB hard drive and 2GB more RAM (total 4GB). Can anyone tell me the pros and cons? Am I fooling myself to think this is going to come close in performance to a new iMac with 4GB RAM and 500GB hard drive?
Thanks.

I had a similar question and, as you can see in this thread, the response is overwhelmingly positive for the upgrading!
I personally am upgrading to 8gb RAM and adding a 1tb 5200rpm HDD for music production as well as video editing on the go. (I do some multimedia dj stuff for fun)
So needless to say, as one who is going through the same thing at the moment, I fully encourage the upgrade!
Even more so if you're doing it yourself; you'll appreciate your machine 10x better afterwards, trust me!

 

[Jeremy06]

Wow. Pretty overwhelming response to upgrade vs buying new.
OK, any suggestions on where to buy? I saw "MacbookMedic" as one option. The RAM looks pretty easy to replace, but I'm sometimes all thumbs with these kind of things, so I was thinking of having someone else do it. Does anyone know if this will void any warranty on the MacBook Pro or Apple Care?
Thanks all.

 

[aeboi]

Wow. Pretty overwhelming response to upgrade vs buying new.
OK, any suggestions on where to buy? I saw "MacbookMedic" as one option. The RAM looks pretty easy to replace, but I'm sometimes all thumbs with these kind of things, so I was thinking of having someone else do it. Does anyone know if this will void any warranty on the MacBook Pro or Apple Care?
Thanks all.

changing your hard drive and ram will not void your warranty

simply pop out and replace with the new ram, easy

sample instruction video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBYDKgwiOS4

 

[Jeremy06]

I've been looking online for a site to buy from.
Other World Computing has "toolkits" for do it yourselfers. I'm usually all thumbs, but this doesn't look too complicated to do myself. I can get a 500GB 7200RPM drive plus 4.0GB RAM, with a toolkit to install them for about $200.

OWC Express 2.5" SATA Enclosure Kit
with 500GB Seagate Momentus 7200RPM Drive and 5 piece toolkit.

4.0GB (2GB + 2GB Module Set) Upgrade kit for Apple MacBook, MacBook Pro, iMac, Mac Mini 2.0GHz, 2.1GHz, 2.2GHz, 2.4GHz, 2.5GHz, 2.6GHz, & 2.8GHz Core 2 Duo Models. PC5300 DDR2 667MHz 200 Pin. New, Lifetime Advance Replacement Warranty.

Has anyone had experience with OWC, or have any thoughts about the price, or doing it myself?

Thanks.

 

[Troon]

I had been wondering about this too.

Thanks.

Can anyone tell me how much this would cost in £’s please?