Early 2011 Macbook pro upgrades???

[mcveigh]

A friend wants to upgrade his 15" macbook pro. He bought a Seagate Momentus XT 500GB hybrid drive without asking.
He currently has a 750GB drive and 4GB ram.

he's using about 510GB. I told him buy a bigger SSD, or we might be able to replace his optical drive with his old HDD and use the hybrid drive to boot from.

1) I've heard bad things about the Momentus drives, should he run away?
2) If he agrees he doesn't need the optical drive, would it be a decent upgrade to use the momentus to boot from?

3) should he get more than 4GB ram?

thanks!

 

[TheStu]

A friend wants to upgrade his 15" macbook pro. He bought a Seagate Momentus XT 500GB hybrid drive without asking.
He currently has a 750GB drive and 4GB ram.

he's using about 510GB. I told him buy a bigger SSD, or we might be able to replace his optical drive with his old HDD and use the hybrid drive to boot from.

1) I've heard bad things about the Momentus drives, should he run away?
2) If he agrees he doesn't need the optical drive, would it be a decent upgrade to use the momentus to boot from?

3) should he get more than 4GB ram?

thanks!

1: If you can convince your friend to get an SSD ~$100 for 500gb these days... return the Momentus and get an SSD
2: Basically see 1. You could always get a 240gb SSD ~$55 as the boot drive
3: Yes, more RAM, always more RAM.

 

[mcveigh]

thanks!

 

[nerp]

Upgrade the memory and pop in an SSD.

You can swap the optical for storage, which isn't a bad idea.

 

[ericlp]

funny... Just upgraded the wifes early 11 mac book pro. it had an i7 in it so still somewhat speedy.

500 Gigbyte SSD samsung
crucial 8 gig kit form 4GB
new battery
new charging port
new touch pad
new fan
new 4 feet pack and new screws for base

Came out to around 350. dunno, I tried to buy her a dell xps i7, with 128gb (upgrade later) ... but she didn't like the keyboard. so we returned it and bought new parts for the mac. Hopefully it will last for a long time ... I figure if she can get 2-3 years out of it, it will have been worth it. so far so good, no crashes or anything weird.

 

[mcveigh]

funny... Just upgraded the wifes early 11 mac book pro. it had an i7 in it so still somewhat speedy.

500 Gigbyte SSD samsung
crucial 8 gig kit form 4GB
new battery
new charging port
new touch pad
new fan
new 4 feet pack and new screws for base

Came out to around 350. dunno, I tried to buy her a dell xps i7, with 128gb (upgrade later) ... but she didn't like the keyboard. so we returned it and bought new parts for the mac. Hopefully it will last for a long time ... I figure if she can get 2-3 years out of it, it will have been worth it. so far so good, no crashes or anything weird.

where did you get the parts?

 

[SearchMaster]

I have a late 2011 (i5, 500GB) that I recently put an SSD in. I had upgraded the RAM to 16GB shortly after purchase and had replaced the optical with another 500GB HD primarily for backup. I lived with the old HD for well over 4 years.

I do web development and it was obvious early on that 4GB was NOT going to cut it, and the upgrade to 16GB was YUUUUUGE. The upgrade to a 1TB SSD was very nice as well, though the biggest change frankly is how quiet it is. It certainly is faster as well, especially when searching files for keywords and on startup, but I remember how sloooooow it was with 4GB so the RAM was a much more impactful change (cheaper too).

My wife is looking for a new laptop, and has sort of considered a MBP. Now that upgrading is either impossible or a PITA I can't recommend it to her.

 

[rugby]

Just max out the laptop and call it a day.

 

[CuriousMike]

I have a late-2011 macbook pro i7 that i upgraded to 16gb of ddr3-1600 ram ($80), replaced hdd with 500gb mx100 and replaced optical drive with 250gb ssd (conversion kit $15, drive $80 )

The machine is still very capable - only thing I wish I could upgrade is USB 3 ports and something to bring the fan speeds down.