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worth upgrading 2006 MacBook Pro to SSD?

G

Gjwilly

macrumors 68040
Original poster
May 1, 2011
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SF Bay Area
Just got a 2006 MacBook Pro in very good condition and while I have absolutely no idea what I'll do with it I was still wondering whether it would benefit from an SSD.
I mean what do you think the useable life is of a 15" 2006 Core Duo?
It needs a battery but everything else seems to be working just fine.
 
SSD's do greatly perk up those machines, but all versions of Mac OS X it can run are no longer being updated.
 
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Gjwilly said:
Just got a 2006 MacBook Pro in very good condition and while I have absolutely no idea what I'll do with it I was still wondering whether it would benefit from an SSD.
I mean what do you think the useable life is of a 15" 2006 Core Duo?
It needs a battery but everything else seems to be working just fine.
Click to expand...

It would, but it's totally not worth it considering that:

1. It's so old.
2. It cannot run any versions of OS X that are currently still supported by Apple.
 
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While it will be of some benefit, given this is a 12 year old machine, the max RAM it will support is 4GB. Add in that most current software will run on the latest two, maybe three macOS incarnations, it might be throwing good money for not a whole lot of benefit.
 
Bending Pixels said:
While it will be of some benefit, given this is a 12 year old machine, the max RAM it will support is 4GB. Add in that most current software will run on the latest two, maybe three macOS incarnations, it might be throwing good money for not a whole lot of benefit.
Click to expand...
Not quite. Any Core Duo is stuck with 2GB maximum.
 
While I usually advocate the idea of upgrading to SSDs to breathe new life into old machines, I think 12 years is way too much. It's an obsolete, unsupported laptop, and if it also needs a battery (as you say) you would effectively spend much more than its own value just to get it to work.

TL;DR: save your money
 
Gjwilly said:
Just got a 2006 MacBook Pro in very good condition and while I have absolutely no idea what I'll do with it I was still wondering whether it would benefit from an SSD.
I mean what do you think the useable life is of a 15" 2006 Core Duo?
It needs a battery but everything else seems to be working just fine.
Click to expand...
It’s perfectly usable for another few years and fast and modern with an SSD, here’s the big if...if you dump OS X and install a recent Linux distro.
 
I have a 2007 (SR) pro so similar to OP.

yes SSD will help even with 10.7
Well built machines are these old pro laptops.

and the SSD can be taken to new laptop if/when you upgrade.
some will say your wasting money on old machine but as it can go in a newer model if/when you upgrade it not a complete waste.
 
I stuck a 64GB SSD (too small to use in anything else) in our 2007 MacBook Pro...we just use it to do presentations in the conference room, works great.
 
robvas said:
The first Core Duo machines could only use 2GB (Plus, they were only 32 bit!)
Then the next set of laptops came with the Core 2 Duo (introduced 64-bit), and could use 3GB
The next release saw the Core 2 Duo supporting 6GB
Then 8GB, and then in 2010 the Core 2 Duo (13" models) could support 16GB
Click to expand...

I was just correcting an erroneous statement that core 2 duos could only address 2gb of ram, it was just for those reading the thread who might be confused.

Thanks for the post it certainly makes it very clear.
 
Probably not worth upgrading, even if you could.
It's just getting too old.

Not a problem to use "as is", of course -- for whatever you can get out of it. But be aware that some stuff (probably web based) probably won't work right because of OS/browser deprecation.

But you really need something "somewhat newer" for a "modern MacBook experience"...
 
It's still a 3 year old thread whose questions have been answered. Bringing it back wasn't needed and the conversation within it would have been better suited for a new or different thread.
 
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In that time new things are learned and new hardware comes out that could make something old new again or something that once cost far too much back then cost next to nothing now and now it makes much more sense to do, SSD's three years ago would have cost a small fortune but now when you can get a 128GB SSD for $35 dollars what's so bad about revisiting a question, I don't really see the harm in it...
 
I am just writing here to remember you that this is a five year thread and... I am writing this with a Macbook Pro 2006 with a SSD and with Lion... it is working really great! and we are in 2020! Old Technology can do whatever you want to do, I have Office 2011, Adobe CS6 and Surf the Net with Chrome... the only thing I cant do is watch Netflix! great machine.
 
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I have put SSDs in everything from clamshell iBooks to Powerbook G3s, G4s, and MacBook Pros. Admittedly, I don't really use most of these machines much, but I enjoy trying to soup them up and see what they are capable of. And for all of these, even the cheapest SSD dramatically improves the experience. A lot of the older portables have very noisy hard disks at this point, so the difference in noise level alone is worth it, not to mention much improved boot times.
 
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