MacBook Pro (Late 2008 - Model # MB470LL/A) Upgrade Question

Hey All,

I am interested in upgrading my son's late 2008 MacBook Pro (Model # MB470LL/A) with a new drive. He currently has the standard SATA 250gig drive (5400rpm) installed.

Because the model is about 3 years old and close to the end of its life cycle, I am really debating getting him a SSD vs a standard drive that runs @ 7200 rpm.

I've researched both @ the Apple site and other places online and can not definitely find whether his computer can handle (in terms of the interface) a SSD SATA III 6g connection. My limited research indicates that the most thru-put he can ideally expect to see is a 3g or SATA II connection speed. If that is the case, IMO, it seems like I should probably just stick with the a new standard drive (@ 7200 rpm) and not upgrade to the new types of drive just yet.

Can anyone here comment on this for me?

BTW....my son's laptop is already maxed out on 4gigs of ram. Additionally he is also running Lion (OS X 10.7.3.2)

Thanks in advance for all your help!
Iggy

Quote from Iggy : Hey All, I am interested in upgrading my son's late 2008 MacBook Pro (Model # MB470LL/A) with a new drive. He currently has the standard SATA 250gig drive (5400rpm) installed. Because the model is about 3 years old and close to the end of its life cycle, I am really debating getting him a SSD vs a standard drive that runs @ 7200 rpm. I've researched both @ the Apple site and other places online and can not definitely find whether his computer can handle (in terms of the interface) a SSD SATA III 6g connection. My limited research indicates that the most thru-put he can ideally expect to see is a 3g or SATA II connection speed. If that is the case, IMO, it seems like I should probably just stick with the a new standard drive (@ 7200 rpm) and not upgrade to the new types of drive just yet. Can anyone here comment on this for me? BTW....my son's laptop is already maxed out on 4gigs of ram. Additionally he is also running Lion (OS X 10.7.3.2) Thanks in advance for all your help! Iggy

Sorry, but that MacBook, and all MacBooks in general (even the Pro ones) do not support SATA 6Gbps (SATA III). That said, you may still want to consider a SSD because they will still be at least 2x faster than a mechanical 7,200 rpm HDD, even on SATA II (3 Gbps). Go to OWC (Macsales.com) and look there; they have very fast SSDs for the MacBook, complete with installation kits. Hope this helps!

If you know the computer is near the end of its life, you could always put the SSD you buy in the next computer you or he buys...

Quote from chickenortheegg : Sorry, but that MacBook, and all MacBooks in general (even the Pro ones) do not support SATA 6Gbps (SATA III). That said, you may still want to consider a SSD because they will still be at least 2x faster than a mechanical 7,200 rpm HDD, even on SATA II (3 Gbps). Go to OWC (Macsales.com) and look there; they have very fast SSDs for the MacBook, complete with installation kits. Hope this helps!

Yes, however you don't need to buy from that site. You can probably get better prices else where.

What is the purpose of the new drive? Is the old one failing? General slow down? More storage?

If it is generally slow, you can always format the computer, While bit rot is not as big of problem on OSX it still is a problem. A new faster drive is always nice too. Know that SATA 6 drives will work in SATA 3 computers, also you will still see a fairly large performance increase (Depends what he does with it) going from any HD to any SSD. Know that SSD's do vary in speed a ton. The decision to go to SSD or not I think will mostly depend on how much stuff he stores/wants to store and how much you want to spend. I am guessing he is in collage or late High school and if he is like most kids in this age group, they have a ton of music, and lots of photos, so things might get a little squeezed if you go with a reasonably priced ssd.