MacBook upgrades, any advice?

[ixta70]

Alright guys so I have a white MacBook 13" that I bought roughly in August of 2010. Use it for school mostly, occasional gaming on steam (only with severe extra time to kill). Lately I've been thinking of upgrading to a SSD and swapping out the battery (says to get it serviced or checked) and fix the screen (dead pixels, hit it from the top pretty hard one day by accident).

Anyways wanted to get some input on SSD's, if they're actually worth it for the higher price range to increase speed, as well as different brands to look at or stay away from. Also forgot to mention I may add to the RAM as well.

Another option I was considering was also just giving my laptop to my sister and buying myself a new one. Current OS is Mavericks. Thanks in advance!

[Gutz]

4 year laptop? Replace it or leave it alone.

[Yugo]

buy a macbook pro and put a SSD and 8gigs of ram in it otherwise leave that old white beater alone. OR just sell it.

[NYT]

time for a new laptop. the new one should already come with a hybrid drive.

[Yugo]

time for a new laptop. the new one should already come with a hybrid drive.

Hybrid is NOT solid state. Forget the Hybrid, I have one in one of my laptops, fast start up but thats it, for the price just buy a regular drive or spend a little more and get the SSD (SSD are a must for a laptop IMO drop it and it doesn't break)

[ixta70]

4 year laptop? Replace it or leave it alone.

That's what I was thinking

buy a macbook pro and put a SSD and 8gigs of ram in it otherwise leave that old white beater alone. OR just sell it.

Lol it really is a beater. I think I'll just fix the base stuff, clear it out and give it to my sister. If I sell it I doubt it'll get me much in the state it's in.

[ocabj]

I still have a mid-2009 13" MBP that I never replaced with a laptop (ended up getting a Mini last year).

I put in an OWC "data doubler" which is basically a chassis that you swap in for the optical drive so you can put in another drive, and I put in an SSD in place of the optical.

So while it's a mid-2009" MBP, it's got 8GB of RAM, a 256 SSD and a 500GB platter drive and it works quite well for what I need in a laptop for general portable computing. I can still edit photos on it in a pinch, but it's perfectly fine for sysadmin work.

[NYT]

Hybrid is NOT solid state. Forget the Hybrid, I have one in one of my laptops, fast start up but thats it, for the price just buy a regular drive or spend a little more and get the SSD (SSD are a must for a laptop IMO drop it and it doesn't break)

it seems you dont know what a hybrid drive is.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6679/a-month-with-apples-fusion-drive

i just checked my macbook pro and found that it isnt a fusion after all, i have the fusion (hybrid) in my imac. my macbook runs a 1TB SSD from the factory.

[ocabj]

If you can't use an SSD for some reason, I would definitely pick a hybrid drive over a standard platter drive.

The SSD cache is fairly effective to gain some speed advantages. Is it as good as SSD? No. Is it better than a standard platter? Yes.

[the86d]

Linux.

[ixta70]

I still have a mid-2009 13" MBP that I never replaced with a laptop (ended up getting a Mini last year).

I put in an OWC "data doubler" which is basically a chassis that you swap in for the optical drive so you can put in another drive, and I put in an SSD in place of the optical.

So while it's a mid-2009" MBP, it's got 8GB of RAM, a 256 SSD and a 500GB platter drive and it works quite well for what I need in a laptop for general portable computing. I can still edit photos on it in a pinch, but it's perfectly fine for sysadmin work.

This is kind of what I wanted to do, replace the optical drive for an SSD and add some ram to beef it up. The only thing is I also have to replace the battery and LCD so I'll be up there in cost. If I do get a new laptop I was thinking of a new MBP but that's easily in the $2000 area

[Yugo]

it seems you dont know what a hybrid drive is.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6679/a-month-with-apples-fusion-drive

i just checked my macbook pro and found that it isnt a fusion after all, i have the fusion (hybrid) in my imac. my macbook runs a 1TB SSD from the factory.

Im not talking about running 2 drives. Im talking about THIS.

Yes it performs better but it is still a mechanical drive so when dropped it would break, so for a laptop a SSD is the way to go.

[Peter.Steele]

As far as SSD's go, the best mix of quality and price right now that I know of is Samsung. I've got 840 Pros in my workstation at the office, and may laptop and workstation at home.

Stay away from anything with a Sandforce controller.

[funnybookz]

I just took my '07 black MacBook to Reanimac in Hollywood for an SSD upgrade two weeks ago. Best $250 I have spent in a while. Its like a whole new computer.

I'll pm more info.

[ocabj]

I'm partial to Crucial SSD.