MacBook Pro Upgrade

danieljamesphoto

danieljamesphoto

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Hi,

I currently have a :-

2.26ghz Intel Core 2 Duo

2 GB 1067 MHz DDR3

MacBook Pro 13"

any ideas how I can make this damn thing run any faster please?

I've seen 8GB of RAM for around £130 which I guess would help, but anything else?

Also any suggestions for where to get a 1TB hard drive (internal) for this from would be hugely welcomed as there's huge variation in drives and i'm not sure of the compatibility

many thanks

Dan
 
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For the hard disk you're looking at any 2.5" sata. If you really want to speed it up get a Solid state drive, although not cheap at all or even check out the Seagate Momentus XT.
 
More RAM will help a lot.

Installing an SSD will help even more.
 
I notice your MBP is a 13" model, I'm reasonably sure these are limited to 9.5mm height drives - the best way to tell is to measure your existing drive and also check to see if there is any space below it in the caddy.

If it is 9.5mm you're limited to the 9.5mm height 750gb Western Digital Scorpio Blue at the moment I believe - it has a high density format that makes it much quicker than the 5400rpm spin speed would suggest. I err... cough... have one in this MacBook that I'm writing on.

From a bit of informal testing raising the RAM availability above 2gb significantly improves speed - go to the Crucial site and run their Mac RAM checker to see the specs and max RAM that you can fit to your machine - I'm quite happy with the 4gb in mine btw.

One final point.... Which version of Mac OS X are you running?

-Rob
 
More ram does help, but the best update I did on mine was to get a 7200 rpm hard drive. You have to be a little careful to get a low temp one & low power. Easier now than a few years ago.
 
danieljamesphoto said:
Accoding to KRCS you can get a 500GB 2.5” SATA Hard Drive 7200rpm 16MB which is 2.5" so maybe not restricted :/

http://www.eclipsecomputers.com/product.aspx?code=HDH-10007K1B&af=50 < gees that looks cheap!
Click to expand...

Cheap 'cos it's a 3.5" desktop drive :)

This is the 750gb laptop drive I'm currently running, the high density format make it pretty quick:

http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/15453841/Western-Digital-WD7500BPVT-Scorpio-Blue-750GB-2-5-inch-Internal-SATA-Hard-Drive/Product.html

-Rob
 
The change from the orignal 5400rpm to the Western Digital Scorpio Black 7200rpm drive I have in it now was fantastic. Sure solid state is faster still, but at a much greater cost.
 
Robert Davies said:
Cheap 'cos it's a 3.5" desktop drive :)

This is the 750gb laptop drive I'm currently running, the high density format make it pretty quick:

http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/15453841/Western-Digital-WD7500BPVT-Scorpio-Blue-750GB-2-5-inch-Internal-SATA-Hard-Drive/Product.html

-Rob
Click to expand...

just to 100% clarify, this will be ok for my MacBook Pro 2.26ghz laptop?

How would I go about backing up - installing etc?

I keep a Time Machine backup but is it a case of unscrew, put the new one in, format it using Disk Utility and voila?

sorry I know I sound thick but jut need to be sure, not changed a hard drive before (RAM yes but not hard drive)

Also will 750gb be ok? the guy at KRCS said 500gb was best any higher would eat the battery quicker :/ and i've read spin down problems with this drive?

https://www.krcs.co.uk/shop/product/details/500gb-2-5-sata-hard-drive-7200rpm-16mb < thoughts... or...

http://www.misco.co.uk/applications...E-_-google-_-hhd-_-Q263823&CAWELAID=566991715
 
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Before jumping the gun why don't you just up the RAM and see how that affects performance. I think you'll find it will make the biggest difference, cost you the least amount of money, and cause the least hassle. Snow Leopard is supposed to be a bit faster than Leopard because it is Intel only rather than universal, but 2GB of RAM will be eaten up quickly by the OS and some graphics apps.

A faster hard drive won't make much difference to you at all unless you're after a few seconds off your boot time or want slightly faster load times for your apps. With enough RAM it will make practically no difference at all, and for the number crunching tasks like photo editing and video, it's the processor and graphics device that do all the hard work.
 
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I'd suggest a RAM upgrade first. This will probably make the biggest difference. Not sure if you need to go up to 8gb , probably just upping it to 4Gb would make a difference ( and save you some cash) Might be worthwhile checking that your machine will support more than 4 Gb of memory
 
Rather than change the internal drive, why not go for an external one.

If you can get a Firewire drive,rather than a USB version you might find it quicker, even if it only a Firewire 400
 
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