Upgrading from 2009 Macbook Pro: Questions

[MSUspartn]

Hi,
My trusty 2009 15' Macbook Pro is finally going. It has 8gb ram and is 2.53ghz and 1tb. Our normal use is web browsing, some office editing(word etc.), and most of all using Apple Photos. Not a professional photographer but we take a lot of family photos and my wife is always curating. Do not use any other photo software. We use the Photos app a lot and it's becoming almost unusable. We normally keep our computers forever.

Questions:

1. Should I get 16 GB or is 8 sufficient for using the Apple Photos application?
2. Will the Air be faster than my other Computer?
3. Is the I5 worth the small upgrade or my usage?
4. I have 750GB or so in photos should i spend money on getting the 1tb or figure out how to store in the cloud

Thank you so much as this is a large purchase for us

 

[Capeto]

Should I get 16 GB or is 8 sufficient for using the Apple Photos application?

I would personally recommend the added RAM, especially if you are working with larger files (e.g., RAW files). However, I'm assuming you don't given that you're using the stock Photos app. The extra RAM will guarantee some prolonged life/usability too, though.

Will the Air be faster than my other Computer?

Based on Geekbench 5 results:
* Your current MBP: 334 single-core, 588 multi-core
* 2020 MBA i3: 1003 single-core, 2001 multi-core
* 2020 MBA i5: 1058 single-core, 2662 multi-core

So yes, you should see significant improvements over your current MBP.

Is the I5 worth the small upgrade or my usage?

I would go for it, given that it's only a $100 upgrade and has 30% better performance on multi-core tasks.

I have 750GB or so in photos should i spend money on getting the 1tb or figure out how to store in the cloud

That is going to be up to you. I prefer to go with smaller storage on the computer to save on costs and go with external/cloud storage for media and backups. If you are going to need all of your pictures with you at all times (even when offline), then go for the 1TB; if you can manage your photo library online/with connected external storage, cloud storage might be a better option. Pictures do tend to take a bit of space, so you might be able to find a nice compromise between cloud storage and, say, 512GB internal storage to manage your more recent pictures.

Something else to take into consideration is that Apple's storage upgrades tend to be pricy. If you decide to go with the external option, something like this can be a cheaper and portable option.

EDIT: Just saw your last sentence about it being a large purchase for you and your wife. With that in mind, here's what I would recommend:

For your use, the i3 should be plenty - very similar single-core performance to the i5, and your usage does not involve many multi-core tasks - but I would still recommend the upgrade to 16GB RAM given your large photo library.

It also sounds like you are new to cloud storage. Even if you go with the 1TB internal storage, I would strongly recommend having some sort of backup, whether it's through the cloud or on an external device - the last thing you'd want is for all of your pictures to be gone if your internal storage messes up. iCloud offers a 2TB plan for $10/month and it easily integrates into your Apple devices (MacBook, iPhones, iPads); personally, I use Dropbox that also offers a 2TB plan for $10/month, as well as 30-day backups in case you delete something off the cloud storage that you later want to retrieve, but it doesn't integrate into the operating system as seamlessly as iCloud does.

 

[deeddawg]

8GB ram is perfectly fine with Photos. Look how big a photo is. 5-10MB

We’re talking about systems using virtual memory to fast storage. 1.3 gigabytes per second read speed. Caching to RAM was helpful back with old slow spinning hands disks but is not nearly as important today.

Remember, with virtual memory the system pages stuff out if absolutely needed. You don’t have a hard limit on what you can do, just that performance can suffer.

unless you plan to use virtual machines or have another use case where you know it’s needed, I don’t think it’s necessary

8GB ram is also going to be perfectly fine for the next several year for the usage you state. We’re well past the 32bit to 64bit transition.

If you have to ask if you need 8 or 16GB ram, put the money into storage

 

[MSUspartn]

Thank you both for responding. The speed looks way faster. I’m still unsure on the ram q. Everyone seems divided. More is better vs it’s good at 8. Would I experience a slowdown with 8 using photos? My current is bad. I would like to be able to have at least the speed of my iPhone when I’m editing.
Thank you both so much. Super helpful in considerations!! Have a great weekend

 

[deeddawg]

@MSUspartn You already have a mac with 8GB of memory. So it's really simple to see how well it's utilizing it and whether you need more.

Open Activity Monitor, Memory tab, and spend time doing your usual stuff. Look at the Memory Pressure graph. So long as it's green you'd great. See here for more details of what the stuff means: https://support.apple.com/guide/activity-monitor/view-memory-usage-actmntr1004/mac

If you wish, post a screen cap and folks here will interpret/translate for you.

If you have money burning a hole in your pocket, it'll never hurt to buy the extra RAM. But it's a $200 expense that most folks (who have to ask) simply don't need. Resale on upgrades is next to nothing, maybe 10-20% of original cost if you're lucky after a couple years.

Remember there are many enthusiasts here who want to have the best of everything, or who really push their systems and do actually need the higher capacity specs. Typical person just doesn't need it though.