Upgrade old 2009 MBP to just 6 GB (instead of 8 GB)?

[EugW]

I have a 2017 iMac and a 2017 MacBook, but I also have an old 2009 13" 2.26 GHz Core 2 Duo MacBookPro5,5 lying around here.

I don't want to invest too much into it, but I find even with light usage the 4 GB it currently has is limiting. Easily hits the swap, and even with the SSD I have in it, I get the spinning beachball every so often.

I could simply upgrade it to 8 GB, which would be ideal, but given that it's really just a guest machine now, I thought it could actually make sense to forego the dual-channel speedup for RAM, and just run it with 6 GB.

What do you think? Note that I eventually want to hack it to run High Sierra. Apparently, High Sierra runs perfectly on this model, which isn't a huge surprise, since High Sierra supports a later white MacBook that has the exact same internal specs. Damn you Apple for leaving this machine out of the Sierra/High Sierra love!

Mind you, if I really do just leave it as a guest machine, it may even be OK with 4 GB, assuming they just run Word plus Safari with a few tabs open and nothing else.
[doublepost=1499565951][/doublepost]Hmm... Strange.

I just checked OWC, and their memory upgrade is $31.99 + $4.45 shipping for 1 x 4 GB, and $59.99 + $2.67 shipping for 2 x 4 GB. So that means $36.44 for 4 GB and $62.66 for 8 GB. So, the difference in price is only $26.22.

 

[Audit13]

Why not look for used ram of possible and save yourself some funds?

Ddr3 1067 MHz shouldn't be too expensive since the memory in the machine is really no different than memory in a windows laptop.

I have used regular "windows" sodimms in 2008, 2009, and 2010 Macbook pros without issue. Just make to match the voltage (1.5) and frequency (1067) as much as possible.

 

[Sterkenburg]

For the small difference in price you mentioned in your post, I'd go with 8GB. I would definitely not spend a lot of money on a 2009 machine, but 60 bucks for an upgrade that will noticeably help performance are reasonable.