Is it worth upgrading my laptop's components?

[yams_22]

Hey guys,

I recently just built my new computer, and am very pleased with the performance of it. My old computer was a mid-2009 model Macbook Pro, and it was the base model. It has a 2.26 ghz Core 2 duo, and 2 gb of RAM.

I want to keep using it however it is extremely slow and that was my main reason for building a new computer in the first place.

Would it be worth it to upgrade to 8gb of RAM, and throw in an SSD in there? How much of a performance boost would I get? Is it worth it considering the battery needs servicing as well?


Let me know what you think.

Also, not sure if this is the right forum to post in.

 

[claysm]

Well an SSD will help breathe life into almost any machine. And that model Mac will support up to 8GB of DDR3 1066 memory. The SSD would hep a lot more than the RAM though. It's worth upgrading if you want to, I guess it depends on how much you intend to use your Mac.

 

[yams_22]

The problem I was experiencing with it the most was that the computer became extremely slow while only having a few applications open, such as Chrome, Skype, Mail, Microsoft Word...

8GB of RAM is fairly cheap, about $40, and Newegg usually has good deals on 128gp SSDs @ $100. I wouldn't mind paying but I just don't want any bottlenecking.

 

[claysm]

If you do upgrade you will absolutely notice a difference. The only bottleneck you might see is that I believe the HDD currently in your Macbook Pro runs at SATA II 3Gb/s, instead of SATA III. But this is not something to worry about, as even a SATA II SSD is substantially faster than any HDD.

 

[jaguarskx]

SSD will make a laptop / PC feel a little more responsive because loading and saving will be faster. More RAM can also help as well since that means less swapping of data between the HDD / SSD and RAM.

Generally speaking, 2GB of RAM should be enough for modest usage like Chrome, Skpe, Mail and MS Word. Perhaps all you need is a fresh reinstall of the operating system.