Upgrading RAM/SSD on MacBook Pro 2009

[chaofahn]

Hi guys,

With my 2014 MacBook Pro sitting at work more and spending less time at home, I'm beginning to consider upgrading my MacBook Pro 2009 for personal home use. It's still perfectly usable, but having been spoilt by the speeds in the 2014 model, I feel like I need to upgrade some internal parts.

So my questions are:

• If you were forced to only choose one of the following, which one would you pick - more RAM, or a new SSD?
• What kind of performance boosts can I expect from the upgrades? Boot times? Would multiple tabs in Safari/Chrome be doable? How about 1080p videos, or should I stick to 720p?

Or should I take the third option:

• Sell my old MacBook Pro and get a 2015 MacBook/MacBook Air? (This would probably be the most expensive option though)

Thanks in advance!

 

[GoldfishRT]

If ram is less than 4GB then RAM. If 4GB or more then definitely SSD.

Either way that machine is real old, but buying a newer laptop even if you sold the old one would be far more expensive.

 

[Tarek]

I would say upgrading the SSD is going to make a huge difference, a lot more than the RAM will do.

 

[jerwin]

If it's anything like my imac 9,1, 1080p and multiple tabs were both possible. Had 8GB though.

the last copy of macosx I used-- probably 10.9 or 10.10 felt as though an SSD would have been worth while.

 

[chaofahn]

Thanks everyone for the suggestions! From what I gather, I should be sticking with an SSD upgrade. Any recommendations on which model? I'm looking for something reliable and something that is easy on the wallet.

If it helps, my specs are:

• MacBook Pro (17-inch, Mid 2009), El Capitan 10.11.6
• Processor: 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
• Memory: 4GB 1067 MHz DDR3
• Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT 512 MB
• 500GB SATA drive

Thanks again in advance!

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Thanks everyone for the suggestions! From what I gather, I should be sticking with an SSD upgrade. Any recommendations on which model? I'm looking for something reliable and something that is easy on the wallet.

If it helps, my specs are:

• MacBook Pro (17-inch, Mid 2009), El Capitan 10.11.6
• Processor: 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
• Memory: 4GB 1067 MHz DDR3
• Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT 512 MB
• 500GB SATA drive

Thanks again in advance!

Any modern SSD will be an improvement apart from the crucial BX200, that really is a pretty poor effort from crucial all their other ssd's are good though

So any Samsung evo or crucial mx series or sandisk SSD will max out your computers bandwidth buy the cheapest you can find,Amazon usually have some good deals on ssd's.

 

[Tarek]

This thread should be of benefit to you.

And after some research, this is a list of SSDs that are compatible with your MBP. I wouldn't invest too much money seeing as it is a bit of an old notebook now, so even the slightest of gains is still again.