RetiredGuy1000
Active Member
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- St. Petersburg, FL
So I posted an article on my website and a few more places. It deals with my very own situation of upgrading my MacBook Pro instead of buying a new one. Just curious if my thinking is right on this, from a technician perspective...should I get a new MacBook or do the hardware upgrades? What would you do?
Here is the article...
“So, you want the new $2,399 MacBook Pro? Me too.
But, I already own a MacBook Pro...mid 2009 model. Is it dead?
Not necessarily. In fact, this is a true story as right now I am purchasing some needed upgrades to my MacBook Pro which will, hopefully, allow me to avoid a $2400 purchase!
So, what am I doing? Well, the existing Mac is quite slow as you can imagine with ten years of third-party applications installed all over the place and older slower hardware. What we must do to see if this computer is salvageable is to clean up all those files and potential conflicts. The second thing we need to do is to upgrade three critical hardware components...the RAM memory modules, the actual hard drive, and the battery. These three pieces of hardware must go.
Luckily through Amazon I can replace all three for a total cost of $190... Thus, if I am lucky, these improvements will noticeably improve my performance. But how?
Well, the cleaning up of the file system using diagnostic software obviously optimizes things. And the choice of new hardware is essential in determining if performance will improve.
For example, the new RAM I chose will be both twice in size to my existing RAM, but also the RAM itself is 50% faster than the old RAM. Similarly, the hard drive I am replacing is an optical disc drive and much slower than the newer solid state drives(SSD) that are out there and whose prices have come way down in recent months.
I’m replacing the battery, not because of performance improvements but because the existing battery is shot. What good is a laptop whose battery is dead? Good news is that my model of MacBook Pro has a replacement battery on Amazon for just $32!
I’ll report back on my results. I’ve only just ordered the parts. But I am hopeful that the 50% increase in RAM speed, the doubling of RAM size, and the addition of a new faster SSD will do the trick. It will still be slower than a new Mac. But in my case, I only need my Mac to run diagnostic programs on other Macs. I’m not doing CAD or gaming or anything really taxing on the CPU.
You can do the same thing with your Mac(or windows PC)...to a degree. Sometimes, buying a new machine makes the most sense. In this case, I sense that I am ‘on that edge’ with my ten year old MacBook Pro. Some would say that I blew right past that edge a few years ago! Yet, the repairman in me says there is still more life in it.”
Here is the article...
“So, you want the new $2,399 MacBook Pro? Me too.
But, I already own a MacBook Pro...mid 2009 model. Is it dead?
Not necessarily. In fact, this is a true story as right now I am purchasing some needed upgrades to my MacBook Pro which will, hopefully, allow me to avoid a $2400 purchase!
So, what am I doing? Well, the existing Mac is quite slow as you can imagine with ten years of third-party applications installed all over the place and older slower hardware. What we must do to see if this computer is salvageable is to clean up all those files and potential conflicts. The second thing we need to do is to upgrade three critical hardware components...the RAM memory modules, the actual hard drive, and the battery. These three pieces of hardware must go.
Luckily through Amazon I can replace all three for a total cost of $190... Thus, if I am lucky, these improvements will noticeably improve my performance. But how?
Well, the cleaning up of the file system using diagnostic software obviously optimizes things. And the choice of new hardware is essential in determining if performance will improve.
For example, the new RAM I chose will be both twice in size to my existing RAM, but also the RAM itself is 50% faster than the old RAM. Similarly, the hard drive I am replacing is an optical disc drive and much slower than the newer solid state drives(SSD) that are out there and whose prices have come way down in recent months.
I’m replacing the battery, not because of performance improvements but because the existing battery is shot. What good is a laptop whose battery is dead? Good news is that my model of MacBook Pro has a replacement battery on Amazon for just $32!
I’ll report back on my results. I’ve only just ordered the parts. But I am hopeful that the 50% increase in RAM speed, the doubling of RAM size, and the addition of a new faster SSD will do the trick. It will still be slower than a new Mac. But in my case, I only need my Mac to run diagnostic programs on other Macs. I’m not doing CAD or gaming or anything really taxing on the CPU.
You can do the same thing with your Mac(or windows PC)...to a degree. Sometimes, buying a new machine makes the most sense. In this case, I sense that I am ‘on that edge’ with my ten year old MacBook Pro. Some would say that I blew right past that edge a few years ago! Yet, the repairman in me says there is still more life in it.”