Hi Guys, I have the 15" 2.53 Ghz MBP and have these questions: - Does upgrading your 15" 2.53 GHz MBP's memory to 8 GB worth it? - Does it have any side effects? - Has anyone here tried that before? What are your experiences? - If you upgraded to 8 GB then will some applications slow down? I have read somewhere that the memory upgrades should be equal in order to have no issues. Like you must upgrade your memory only to 4 GB and 8 GB. Upgrading it to 6 GB is no good at all because it will not balance with load and some apps will run slower including overall performance. Has anyone confirmed this and can back this up? 500 GB HD upgrade questions: - Do you need to buy also hitachi HD brand because it is the default HD that is included in your MBP? - Does upgrading to 500 GB HD will slow down your boot and shut down time? - To the people who have experience the 500 GB HD upgrade, what is the HD brand you bought and have you experienced any side effects? Last question: Do you have any advice/tips in upgrading memory and HD? I need some enlightenment pleas because I am planning to upgrade mine to 8 GB and 500 GB for work intensive apps and windows games. EDIT: I found my same question to macrumors forum Reading it now Thanks in advance
8GB RAM: do you really need that much RAM? it's just not practical...yet. But that's me. 500GB: not necessary to get the same brand of HD, and no, it won't slow your MBP's performance down.
Ok thanks for your replies. HD brand is not an issue so I will go with WD. My priority will be the 500 GB HD.
I am not sure about the memory upgrade. But for the HDD, higher density platter HDDs will mean better speed. Check the HDD if it has 2 platters instead of three. The 2 platter design has 250gb per platter vs the 3 platter that has 166gb per platter. I'm not sure about other brands but Samsung has a 500gb 2platter HDD with shock protection. Its called the Spinpoint M7. Sadly, its not available locally. At 250gb vs 166gb per platter, you get the performance equivalent to a 7200rpm HDD with a 5400rpm HDD--less heat dissipation. Check it out.
At the moment 8 gig is not practical because of the cost. Also if your 2.53 MBP is from mid 2008 (removable battery), I believe you can only upgrade it to 6 Gb of RAM. The first MBPs that can accept up to 8Gb with the removable battery is the one with the 2.66 Ghz processor. While all MBP with the sealed battery can use up to 8 Gigs of RAM. As for the Hard Disk, as long it is SATA, regardless of the brand, your Macbook Pro will accept it no problem. You mean "memory interleaving?" Believe me friend the so called performance hit is negligible. Barefeats.com did some testing and the difference is barely noticeable (about 1 to 2 seconds). @jaijin Just 10 years ago people were saying "1 Gig of RAM is way too much!" Now having 4 Gb is standard. I believe it is only a matter of time all of us will be using and 'can't live without' 8 Gigs of RAM.
Does any local shop carry 8GB SODIMMs compatible with the Macbook Pro? I'm already on 4GB, and the thing is, I need more to run a couple more virtual machines (for work).
You also won't get to use up all of the 8GB in normal use. Maybe very heavy media-oriented work but for regular media stuff (convert to iPod format, PS) I can't even use up my 4GB ram. Once software catches up, it'll be much more in demand and way cheaper. pfalcone's case is actually one of the few times when even more ram is better due to virtualization. It has to be paired with a sufficiently powerful machine though for a smoother run. Wow, multiple OS - I can't even juggle Windows and OSX running at the same time.
It will make MBP (and any capable Mac) zippy since paging out is less likely, IMHO. Check the Activity Monitor. If you see mostly blue and green on the pie chart (under System Memory), which represent free and inactive memory, you don’t really need to upgrade.
The 4GB module's price at the moment is prohibitive so it's still not worth it. To have some quantitative proof of the performance benefits of upgrading to 8GB of mem, you can check out some sites on the web that does this. If you're really after performance, you should upgrade the slowest component on your MBP, i.e., your hard drive. Get an SSD and you'll see the performance difference. Everything seems so fast and swift. This is most noticeable if you're doing disk-intensive tasks. Otherwise, if you're doing number crunching, you'll need a faster CPU. In my case, i still haven't upgraded my MBP to 4GB because afterwards, i don't have a use for those 2x1GB modules other than to sell them. And i suck at selling. But then i digress.
my wife's 2.66 mbp is running 8gb ram and a 7200rpm hdd... i'm not sure if there's actual performance gain but she "feels" they improve performance... that's what counts... i'd say get both... even if the effect is purely psychological, the "happy" feeling is worth the entry price...
The most convenient way to get 8 Gigs of RAM is through Macsales.com. Be willing to pay about 500 USD for 8 Gigs though. 8 Gigs should improve your performance by lots if you use Virtual Machines.
If you really want to spend the money and get an actual performance increase - just go get an SSD and replace your harddrive.
if you have money why not. . if your going to use your unit as a server or a workstation i think its worthed. but if not you just waste a lot of cash..
I believe your model only goes up to 6 Gb of RAM but just in case I suggest to check your specs in http://www.everymac.com/
