Is it worth it to upgrade a mid-2007 MacBook (MB061LL/A) to use an SSD?

Question

I would sincerely love a new MacBook, but I can't justify spending the prices that are being touted by Apple what with life to pay for and everything. I upgraded my memory to 2GB a while ago, but am thinking of now upgrading the HD to a SSD seeing as the MacBook is still performing OK, just a bit lagging behind the times.

For the record, my MacBook is the 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo (13-inch White) MB061LL/A version. I have upgraded the HDD 2 or 3 times since this purchase in 2008. The current RPM is 5400, but I have just found out I was missold as I have never knowingly bought a HDD other than 7200rpm (!).

Crucial recommends their 256GB Crucial M4 2.5-inch SATA 6GB/s SSD. But I know that the SATA controller in my model is only 1.5Gb/s. So is this actually worth the upgrade?

To give some idea on usage, I mainly surf the internet for long periods so no real heavy usage apart from spinning or streaming a film now and again. But I will now be looking to use this as my main music recording computer due to my dedicated PC dying.

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

1. Your Macbook can have as much as 3GB of RAM. Check it first.
2. Buy an Optical Disk Drive to HDD adaptor on ebay (9.5mm PATA to SATA variant). Put you HDD there.
3. Crucial is good. 64GB is enough for me, SATA150 and probably you. Small read/writes are same between different sizes and you will not get those faster linear RW anyway — why pay more when you can have platters to store those big files?
4. Still it's wiser to sell your Macbook as is and buy anything unibody(used) for a bit more — you'll get better graphics to help with flash (I have such a notebook and know how pathetically slow it becomes when flash is on). And then max that unibody Macbook with RAM (which is DDR3 and cheaper) and SSD.

Answer 2

Yes,

... because there are other advantages besides the faster access times.

• SSDs work inaudible
• SSDs are shock-resitant
• SSDs use less energy _{but the total impact is very little...}
• SSDs max out the SATA 1 throughput, which your old HDD will probably not.

Also, you might get a SSD and then use it in your newer Mac which you will buy in a few years. Make sure to get a SSD with a SATA 3 interface - which is backward compatible to SATA 1.

What about TRIM? The current SSDs have very efficient garbage collection which make the need for TRIM dispensable. But as such performances largely differ depending on the hardware manufacturer, make sure to study performance reviews of the SSD which you'll consider.

I've written some more in this post.

Answer 3

I've got the next newer model with a an OWC Mercury Electra 120GB SSD and 6GB of RAM. The disk performance is roughly doubled but it's far short of a new MacBook Air/Pro with an SSD. However, there is a caveat. I get pauses that last 20-30 seconds on a regular basis (say once an hour). I've never figured out the cause but it happens much more frequently when I run out of free memory and paging starts. Paging should be fast so it should not be an issue, yet there's a definite connection. Others have reported the same thing but it's rare to find SSD's in old MacBooks so experience is limited. I experienced similar, but different, pauses with a 500GB mechanical disk that I was using before.

Browsers consume crazy amounts of memory but it's not too bad for me since I have 6GB of RAM. It might be an issue specfic to my SSD, system, or model but the same issue on a 2GB max system is going to be ugly.

120GB is tight so going with 240GB is the right idea for size.

Just to give a feel for the performance differences, I ran Black Magic Speed Test and got around 100 MB/s write and 125 MB/s read compared to a YouTube video of a Crucial M4 128GB on a MacBook Pro 2011 which got about 200 MB/s write and 506 MB/s write. The OWC is a similar speed drive so the 1.5 vs 6.0 interface is the difference. I couldn't find any numbers for a stock white MacBook but here's a video that compares boot times.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_hbdkz71xg&sns=em

Here's a new MacBook Air vs an older one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecZCe3RUtWA&feature=relmfu

Answer 4

SATA I is still going to be an enourmous speed increase on your existing spinning drive.

I upgraded to a SATA III compatible drive in my iMac, which only supports SATA II, and initially the auto speed negotiation for my particular drive controller resulted in only acheving SATA I speeds - and it was still a huge improvement. I got it up to SATA II speeds by forcing the link speed on the drive through firmware updates. The point being that a good SATA III drive will be backwards compatible for your Macbook, and you'll still benefit from being able to take it with you should you ever upgrade to a machine that supports faster speeds.

You may want to look into replacing the optical drive with a caddy bay adapter for the SSD, if you have issues of price/capacity, and use the SSD as boot and your existing drive as bulk storage of data.

Answer 5

This is one of those questions where the only valid (enough) answer is "it depends ...".

We can begin with your question about whether using a Crucial M4 SSD is "worth it" in your MacBook.

No, it is not.

As you pointed out, your MB only supports SATA I with a max throughput of 1.5 Gbit/s. It makes no kind of cost/benefit sense to pay the premium for a recent SATA III capable SSD when your MB will only be able to use it at a fraction of the speeds it is capable of.

Another limiting factor is that your MB uses a 667 MHz Front Side Bus (FSB). Strictly speaking this is a memory (RAM) to CPU throughput limitation, not SATA. But I bring it up because it is a factor limiting your MB's overall maximum performance. That is, it is another reason you would not enjoy the full benefit of a SATA III capable SSD. Your MB is unlikely to be able to move data between RAM and the CPU fast enough to stress even your SATA I controller's throughput.

So if you ultimately do decide to move to an SSD, I would suggest you consider older SATA II models which would be a better fit to the throughput of your MB. The older SSDs should also be relatively less expensive.

Another concern with using an SSD in a MB is if your version of OS X supports the TRIM command. My understanding is that you would need either Snow Leopard (10.6.8) or Lion (10.7). Also, since Apple's OS X only supports TRIM for Apple supplied SSDs, you may still have to jump through hoops to enable TRIM for the SSD you choose to use.

Of course, not having support for the TRIM command does not make your SSD worthless. However, it can mean that, over time, you will suffer a significant degradation in your SSD's write speed. So it is something you might want to look into further before deciding whether or not to move to an SSD.

Finally, an SSD is not really a good choice for storing large amounts of data such as music files. You would probably be better served using a traditional HDD with a larger capacity.

Another possible alternative might be using Seagate's 750GB hybrid HDD, the Momentus XT. While you will never see the SSD performance from a hybrid, you may get enough of a boost to make you happier using your MB. And you would also have the extra storage space for storing large (music) files.

Answer 6

I have a similar white MacBook 2.0gig core 2 duo made in late 2007. I filled up the mem banks with 4 gigs dd2 667, and replaced the original 80 gig hard drive with a 120 gig SSD. I am aware of the 3 gig of ram limitation, and the limited transfer rate of the old serial ATA interface, but overall, the update was cheap a total of $130 usd, for the 2 x 2gig ram and a refurbished ssd drive.

The overall result to me is great. Boot time is very low, compared to the same computer back in 2008. Browsing the internet feels natural as if it was a new MAC, NetFlix works great. For few more $$ got OS 10.7, and it works as if it was made for it.

Compared to a new MacBook Air, the old white plastic should be slower but that new fresh speed is irrelevant to me. I get to keep an optical drive and firewire interface that are absent with the new MacBook Air, and I still having the chance to replace my battery anytime I want.

To me it is, indeed a wise upgrade

DD

Answer 7

I have a mid-2007 Macbook that I upgraded to Lion, 4GB RAM, and a 256GB SSD. I was referred to Other World Computing by an Apple tech, recognized by Apple as an authorized parts vendor. If you have not upgraded to Lion, go ahead and do it and will the max upgrade in OS. I think it cost me to about $150.00 for the RAM and SSD upgrade. I know that 3GB RAM is all that your Macbook uses but I went ahead and added 2 2GB modules, which resulted in a noticable improvement in performance. With the 256GB SSD upgrade, the Macbook now boots up in 20 seconds and runs great. My 16 year old uses it for high school work. You might find it interesting that I bought a 2012 Macbook Pro with an i7 Quad-core, 8GB RAM, and a 500GB SATA, which was a little slower due to the SATA hdd. I immediately upgraded my Macbook Pro to a 500GB SSD, provided a great boost. OWC prices are very competitive and their products are great.