Upgrading Ram after SSD upgrade worth it on early 2011 Pro?

[nasa25]

Hi Guys,

So I have an early 2011 i5 MacBook Pro. Since installing Yosemite it's been painfully slow, basically unusable. I just swapped out my 320gb HD for a 250GB crucial mx200 SSD. I installed Yosemite on the SSD and just transferred a small portion of the data on my HD to the new SSD.

The speed increase is astronomic. It's basically as fast as when i first got it. Now I'm considering swapping out my 2 2GB sticks of ram for a couple 4gb sticks. Would I see any tangible benefits from upgrading to 8GB of ram when all I basically do is web browsing, music streaming and office (word/excel/ppt) document editing? I'd like to keep this laptop for another 2-3 years so I'd be more than happy spend the money on an upgrade that will allow me to do that. Thanks.

 

[2984839]

You wouldn't see any difference at all with that usage.

 

[z31fanatic]

Memory prices have come down recently and it won't hurt if you upgrade it to 8GB. You can get 8GB (2x4) for $50-55 from Newegg every day.

 

[JTToft]

If it runs fast enough for you with 4GB right now, there's no need to upgrade now. You can always do that in the future.

Try taking a look at Activity Monitor's Memory tab. If the Memory Pressure graph is not green, you might benefit from some more RAM.

 

[sonspot]

I think the OP just redefine "astronomic" lol.. I have a i5, the difference was not "astronomic" faster yes. I've had a SSD and 8gb now now

 

[Meister]

You will not see any performance increase from a RAM upgrade.

 

[nasa25]

I think the OP just redefine "astronomic" lol.. I have a i5, the difference was not "astronomic" faster yes. I've had a SSD and 8gb now now

lol the difference was astronomic. I think my HDD was pretty messed up because the computer was virtually unusable. It'd take like 10 minutes to shut down and restart and now it goes through that process in around 25 seconds. I've yet to see the beachball of death with this new SDD.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. I think I might throw in 8GB of ram if I see it on sale. I wouldn't be expecting much if any speed increase though.

 

[brdeveloper]

Hi Guys,

So I have an early 2011 i5 MacBook Pro. Since installing Yosemite it's been painfully slow, basically unusable. I just swapped out my 320gb HD for a 250GB crucial mx200 SSD. I installed Yosemite on the SSD and just transferred a small portion of the data on my HD to the new SSD.

The speed increase is astronomic. It's basically as fast as when i first got it. Now I'm considering swapping out my 2 2GB sticks of ram for a couple 4gb sticks. Would I see any tangible benefits from upgrading to 8GB of ram when all I basically do is web browsing, music streaming and office (word/excel/ppt) document editing? I'd like to keep this laptop for another 2-3 years so I'd be more than happy spend the money on an upgrade that will allow me to do that. Thanks.

You'd only see performance improvements if you edited large raw pictures or had played with virtual machines.

 

[nasa25]

If it runs fast enough for you with 4GB right now, there's no need to upgrade now. You can always do that in the future.

Try taking a look at Activity Monitor's Memory tab. If the Memory Pressure graph is not green, you might benefit from some more RAM.

Here's my memory tab

 

[Meister]

Here's my memory tab

Image

You will not see any performance increase from a RAM upgrade.

 

[JTToft]

You will not see any performance increase from a RAM upgrade.

- What he said.

 

[z31fanatic]

I think I might throw in 8GB of ram if I see it on sale.

$50

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...050115-latest-_-LaptopMemory-_-20231342-S1A4B

 

[JTToft]

$50

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...050115-latest-_-LaptopMemory-_-20231342-S1A4B

- If you do decide to upgrade, OP, I'd recommend getting a single 8 GB stick instead of 2x4GB (they're nearly the same price) and installing that alongside one of your 2GB sticks for a total of 10GB.
That way you won't have wasted your money if you should decide you need 16GB in the future, as you can just get another 8GB stick to replace the last 2GB with.

That said, I'd like to reiterate what has been said above: For your current usage, you're unlikely to benefit at all from the upgrade.

 

[nasa25]

$50

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...050115-latest-_-LaptopMemory-_-20231342-S1A4B

Thanks. I'm from Canada so it's around $75 plus tax on newegg here. All in I'd be looking at $90. It's a tough decision

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- If you do decide to upgrade, OP, I'd recommend getting a single 8 GB stick instead of 2x4GB (they're nearly the same price) and installing that alongside one of your 2GB sticks for a total of 10GB.
That way you won't have wasted your money if you should decide you need 16GB in the future, as you can just get another 8GB stick to replace the last 2GB with.

That said, I'd like to reiterate what has been said above: For your current usage, you're unlikely to benefit at all from the upgrade.

I was actually thinking about that....getting an 8gb stick and running 10 total. Thanks for your feedback.