My 2009 Macbook Pro needs a new battery and has slowed down over the years even while using disk utility frequently. I have been reading threads and debating on upgrading this to a SSD and new battery or just replacing with a newer model. I am not a heavy user as mainly just web and Office stuff with some use of Itunes. Really need to go to a Best Buy and try a new one out to see if the speed difference is that evident. Has anyone else been in a similar situation and how did it turn out?
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Upgrade or replace?
- Thread starter daviddsims
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Do you know how much it would cost you to get a new battery and the SSD in the size you want?
Looks to be about $250 bucks for the upgrade. I already have 8gb ram upgrade I did a few years ago.
The speed of the newer machines is very evident and you would most definitely tell a huge difference. I'd say get a new machine if your budget allows. If you sell your old machine, and put that with the money you were going to spend on upgrading it, you would have a large chunk towards a new one.
If your are wanting to stay with the Pro line, there are some great sales going on right now as well as the refurb store having some great deals.
It all depends how much disposable income you have. It sounds like your laptop is very usable for you. Is it worth it to you to spend $1300++ for the gains you will see?
I have a 2010 MBP that I put an SSD in and it still works fine. Do I want a new MBP.... YES, do I need it.... probably not, especially with the price the new 15" are going for.
I have a 2010 MBP that I put an SSD in and it still works fine. Do I want a new MBP.... YES, do I need it.... probably not, especially with the price the new 15" are going for.
I had upgraded my 13" 2009 MBP with a 256GB SSD and 8GB RAM. It was a HUGE improvement for day to day usability. Unfortunately I was playing a lot of Diablo3 and Minecraft any the time and the GPUand/or CPU just weren't cutting it. In the end I gave the computer to my parents and I've gone without a laptop since then.
Anyway, for the kind of usage you're describing, I'd just upgrade to a SSD and replace your battery.
Anyway, for the kind of usage you're describing, I'd just upgrade to a SSD and replace your battery.
If you are not a gamer then upgrade is the best you can afford. SSD pricing is not too expensive. 
Office stuff + Browsing + iTunes + 2009 MBP? SSD, of course! HDDs are for long term storage... they look like DAT storage these days.
Thanks for the advice everyone. I was leaning to upgrading but was having second thought of sinking 250 bucks into that and it not be much difference. I will be looking through the SSD threads and battery ones to try and find the best ones for this model.
Browsing alone surely means a lot of random I/O access on the drive, where mechanical HDDs limitations appear more glaring. On the other hand, iTunes require massive amounts of storage (linked to your library size of course) that typical SSD only provide at a high cost.
Budget limiting, your best bet for this machine could be either a faster spinning HDD, or a hybrid drive. If you're not using the DVD drive AND a supported OS X version, you could always put the spinning drive there, add a small=affordable SSD, and merge both as a Fusion drive.
Budget limiting, your best bet for this machine could be either a faster spinning HDD, or a hybrid drive. If you're not using the DVD drive AND a supported OS X version, you could always put the spinning drive there, add a small=affordable SSD, and merge both as a Fusion drive.
Here's the thing about electronics... they die.
You replace the battery and soon after something else goes. You replace the hard drive and the display goes. You replace the display and the logic board goes. It's like a car that constantly needs work ... save the money and buy a new one. You'll eventually hit that road anyway.
You replace the battery and soon after something else goes. You replace the hard drive and the display goes. You replace the display and the logic board goes. It's like a car that constantly needs work ... save the money and buy a new one. You'll eventually hit that road anyway.
Do you want to spend 250 or a thousand or two? That also needs to be considered.
While the 250 for a battery won't change how the computer performs, it will mean you're not spending 1,300 to 2,000 (depending on the MBP model). I don't know if you'll see a huge difference in performance running office or surfing the web, so I'll buck the trend and say spend the 250.
An SSD will make a bit of a difference in speed; especially if you re not using graphics or processor intensive programs. I noticed a bump when I went from an HDD to an SSD on a 2010 MBP.
Office, in my experience, is slowest on startup; unless you are doing huge Excel spreadsheets with many computations.
If your machine does the job for you and battery life is the main issue replacing the battery is probably cost effective. A clean reinstall of OSX and you applications on an SSD wouldn't hurt either; it also gives you the opportunity to slim down installed application numbers.
Replacing hard drive doesn't seem too bad but I have lost the OSX disk that came with my macbook. Will this matter or do I need this?
Download Carbon Copy Cloner and it will clone your OSX partition (it doesn't clone Bootcamp if you have a Windows installation).
Please add a new word to your vocabulary:
budget |ˈbəjit|
noun
the amount of money needed or available for a purpose : they have a limited budget.
If you're running any version from Lion onwards, it doesn't as it's a downloadable. You could go the grey zone way, by downloading a copy of the original OS X that came with the machine from unapproved sources, or go the legitimate way to the nearest Apple Store. They will do that for free.
Thanks for the advice. I downloaded the Mavericks when it was released and don't have an Apple store within five hours so might need to look at the other options.
I have upgraded on the second version of every new case redesign. So, my last one was a 2010 mbp. I upgraded it to 8gb of RAM and a 256GB SSD, and it was like a new computer. Very fast for most basic tasks. However, my new 2013 rmbp is significantly faster, as is to be expected. For basic tasks, the improvement isn't as noticeable. However, for intensive tasks, it is a huge improvement.
Anyone know where I can find the exact model Samsung Evo 840 for my mid 2009 macbook pro? Don't want to order something that is not compatible.
Amazon has the 840 Evo. There isn't a specific "version" that works with the MBP.
Last weekend I upgraded an old MPR for a friend because it has become so slow. It's a 2009 13" model and by simply throwing out the old 5400 HDD (250GB!) and replaced it with a Samsumg 840 EVO, the machine works perfectly fine again and opens all apps without troubles - and it has only 2 GB of RAM!
(originally we also wanted to upgrade the RAM but out of curiosity tried first with the existing configuration and for the moment my friends keeps it as it is because the RAM in conjunction with the SSD is sufficient!)
So you should be perfectly fine with your 8GB! Just make sure that you either buy an SSD that is sufficiently big for your needs or consider storing the 'bulk data' someplace else, either an external HDD or replace the superdrive with a spinning HDD.
The battery change is very easily done as well (you have to open the back cover anyway to change the drive), so try to get your hands on a cheapish replacement battery (around $60)
(originally we also wanted to upgrade the RAM but out of curiosity tried first with the existing configuration and for the moment my friends keeps it as it is because the RAM in conjunction with the SSD is sufficient!)
So you should be perfectly fine with your 8GB! Just make sure that you either buy an SSD that is sufficiently big for your needs or consider storing the 'bulk data' someplace else, either an external HDD or replace the superdrive with a spinning HDD.
The battery change is very easily done as well (you have to open the back cover anyway to change the drive), so try to get your hands on a cheapish replacement battery (around $60)
Thanks to everyone for the advice. I went ahead and bought a new battery and SSD from OWC and will be replacing when it comes in on Thursday. Really want to do a fresh install of OSX and not bring over some of the bloated stuff I don't need.
I could always send you a DVD with Mavericks burned on it for the cost of mailing. Of course install will be dog slow since it's not optimized for spinning media, but at least you'll be able to install it.
PM me if interested.
Eh, I'm pretty sure the OWC SSDs all use SandForce controllers which can fail early and don't always perform as well. I would have gone with the Samsung or Crucial drives that are available.