Macbook late 2008 Upgrade to ssd or newer machine?

Hello I have just recently purchased a late 2008 unibody macbook manufactured in January 2009. The machine runs great for my needs for now which is mostly browsing, music, streaming videos and some office docs. No photoshop or anything like that. Now to my question to the apple guru's. Would it be feasible to upgrade my 500 gb 7200 rpm hard drive to an ssd or maybe try to get a pro or an air that's a little newer? I could as of now go $650 to maybe $700 and what I see right now, the most recent line I could go to is maybe a 2011 model. If I sell this macbook beforehand, I may could go to a 2012 model possibly. I want to stay in the 13 inch platform because for me, that's the sweet spot. Now to the ssd for the late 2008, I realize that with the mcp79 nividia chipset that a lot of newer ssd's won't play nice with this machine. I'm looking at the 256 gb models and those that i have found are the Crucial M4, Samsung 840 pro, even found a few Samsung 470's that supposedly play pretty nice with this macbook. I also have 4gb's of ram and Mountain Lion. I in the end have to make the decision, but in your opinion, which direction would you go? SSD in my current machine or just a newer machine? Sorry for this long rambling post, I'm trying to provide as much info as possible. Any opinions highly appreciated.

 

If the machine does everything you want and is acceptable... the SSD would give you a nice big performance boost. Getting a newer machine and sticking with a HDD, might even seem slower overall for you with what you do. The newer models are better... especially if you are wanting battery life. A newer model and a SSD would be great. Don't just look at the top of the line high speed SSDs, even a slow SSD is much much faster than a HDD. The Samsung 840 (non Pro) is usually at a good price and still wipes the floor with a HDD.

 

Thanks and yes it does pretty much what I want it to do. I know there is really no such thing as future proof, but the main reason I was even considering a newer machine is sata III speed and maybe the resolution that the air provides and the portability of the air as well. This machine is pretty portable as well. The ssd route may be my best bet, although I will be limited to sata II speed. I will look more into ssd's.

 

So what did you end up doing?

I have a Mid-2010 A1342 (P8600/320M/DDR3/DVDCD/BT/10.8.4) that I want to upgrade to SSD (512GB-1TB) and 16GB RAM. I'd also like to buy a newer MacBook (or Air) but this one does everything i need it to do and It cost me $292 in great condition. I would have to drop at minimum a STACK on a brand new Mac.

 

the first thing you should look at is if the newer controllers have a problem with that chipset.

the other thing is if the ram is going to play fine with it and if its actually possible to go 16gb without issues.

 

I have a late macbook 2008 as well...it pretty much does what I need so I swapped out the superdrive for a caddy that holds a ssd.

The ssd is my os drive and the other (500gb) is used for storage.

Overall made my system feel super snappy and breathed some new life into it.

 

Check your SATA connections on that... not 100% sure on the 2008, but often the main drive connection is SATA 3, and the optical bay is only SATA 2. When it comes to something like a CD drive or a hard drive, SATA 2 and SATA 3 are the same speed, because they just cant get faster than SATA 2 anyways. A SSD however can benefit from SATA 3 speeds. On most laptops you always want to put the SSD in the main bay with the faster SATA connection and the slower drives on the optical bay.

SSDs are so much faster than a hard drive, a lot of people don't realize its not running as fast as it could be sine its already so much faster.

 

I think the 2008 are sata 2 and sata 1.5 respectively

 

i have the same question. Should i upgrade mbp in my sig. Will the new one be a noticeable speed upgrade?

 

when the new one comes ask again

 

last time upgrade was laughable.

 

in terms of gpu it wasn't

 

I have a 2009 MBP with a Samsung 830 SSD as the primary internal drive. And I have another 500GB HDD in the optibay.

Works wonderfully! Go for it

 

Looks like that Nvidia SATA controller is only capable of SATAII connection speed. How does this 830 look like in a benchmark?

 

If I ever retire this laptop I know that I can put this SSD into a better machine that can support SATA III and almost double the current read write speed. This SSD in my 2009 MBP SATA II laptop consistently performs just over 190MB/s writes and just over 250MB/s reads when testing with blackmagic. The HDD (Hitachi 7K500 500GB 7200RPM) that is in my optibay writes at approx 88-90MB/s and reads between 88MB/s to 91MB/s with the drive half full... that will slow down as the platters fill up

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Very nice thank you.

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I had a 2007 15 inch macbook pro that I put a Intel x25 SSD in a few years back, and it made its way to a family member. Recently, the SSD supposedly died (I still debate this as the true cause and think a local tech ripped them off, but anyway), the rest of the machine still works fine and does everything they need. A friend even has an old G4 Powerbook that still works. Point I'm trying to make? Some machines seem to die a week after their warranty expires, and others last well beyond their shelf life (think about one of the Mars rovers), in my opinion though, considering how much SSD prices have come down, to me it would be worth the risk/cost to try and upgrade the SSD and get some more life out of it and wait for something more expensive to break before fully upgrading. Stuff like the logic board, LCD, etc, those get expensive, but the HDD is probably the cheapest and easiest of the replacements that you can make yourself. Just be prepared that if you opt with that, there is still a risk of something else breaking given the age of the machine (in which case you can always yank out the SSD anyway).

Edit: Also, you'll be surprised how a SSD breathes life into a new machine - for what most people do, the SSD alone will make the machine feel like a brand new computer.

 

I've tried convincing people to upgrade their hard drive to a solid state drive but most still see it as a huge expense especially for an 2-3 year old computer. Even with lower prices, they ask if it'll really be worth it. I tell them yes of course.

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as long as you can run the latest OS, you're good to go. so the macbook gets a pass for now. I would start thinking about an upgrade once the hardware isn't supported.

the SSD will make general usage very, very snappy.

 

As others have mentioned, an SSD will do wonders. My sister has a 2009 MBP which is comparable to yours and it used to take FOREVER for the OS to load. I installed an older Intel 320 into the computer and boot times are ridiculous now. Takes probably 10% of the time that I used to.