Macbook Pro SSD upgrade
It's been just over two weeks since I decided to upgrade my Macbook Pro 15" late 2008 model with a 128GB Crucial M4 SSD also replacing my SuperDrive with the exisiting 320GB HDD in the process.
I was initially going to bite the bullet and purchase a brand new Macbook Air but figured I'd probably want to upgrade again within the next 12-24 months, so despite the fact that everyone seems to be raving about the Air at the moment I thought going with the SSD upgrade instead would save me some money in the long run.
Equipment used
OSX Lion thumb drive
00 phillips screwdriver
T6 Torx screwdriver
128GB Crucial M4
Fenvi HDcaddy
Choosing the SSD
Obviously the most important part of this process is in deciding which SSD to go with. As always our trusty friend Google had plenty to say on the matter but not everything it spat out was entirely helpful. I did however find this article from MacGateway had enough information to get me started.
There are already a number of good quality Solid State Drives to choose from and this is only going to increase as the technology behind them improves. I decided to go for a mixture of price, space and all-round speed settling on the 128GB Crucial M4 in the end.
Installation
I've always been a bit of a clean freak when it comes to computers. I love reformatting my HDD (now SSD) about every 6 months in an effort to trick myself into thinking I have a completely new machine. I had an external HDD lying around that I used that to back up all of the files I wanted to keep and took this opportunity to install a clean version OSX Lion.
Replacing the HDD with the SSD couldn't have been simpler (assuming of course you have the correct tools), whereas swapping out the SuperDrive with the HDD was a little bit trickier. To get the job done I basically followed these step by step instructions from ifixit.com and watched this guy take his machine apart on YouTube:
Conclusion
So far everything seems to be a lot snappier than it was before, applications are responding a lot quicker and waiting for my machine to boot up in the morning is now a thing of the past. If you're thinking about performing a similar upgrade on your machine - do it, you won't regret it.
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