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@zippy if your machine has 4gb min ram then do ssd first (or both) if your machine has 8gb ram just do the ssd. If you buy the ssd and caddy you can do a video call with me and I will help you if you get stuck. The “spannering” I struggle with as I am an f-whit at DIY but it’s quite straight forward really (you do need a torx 10? To remove the bracket holding the drive in and also the locating screews which you reuse on the ssd) the software bit is more tricky but not hard.
but it was slightly confusing in the context of a thread
Good job your there to look after people who can’t read.
@retro imo that’s an old wives take, trim not needed. Never enabled it on any of the machines I have done some of which have been running for a few years now.
Trim is the SSD equivalent of defrag* on mechanical HDDs. If you don't enable it then your drives may well be fine but running sub-optimally.
Most modern SSDs have a built-in trim-a-like function which renders trim less important, however trim is kinder to the drive in terms of write wear.
TL;DR - if you can enable trim, do so. There's absolutely no reason not to if your OS supports it.
(* note to techies: I know this isn't entirely accurate, I'm oversimplifying for the purposes of clarity.)
From Wikipedia:
OSX 10.6.8 introduced trim support for Apple branded SSDs. Third-party utilities are available to enable it for other brands.
From 10.10.4, you can issue the "trimforce" command to enable it for non-Apple drives.
Good job your there to look after people who can’t read.
It's a vocation. God came to me in a dream and asked me to help the semi-literate. Oh, and 'you're' rather than 'your' while I'm here 🙂
ps: Sorry petal, didn't mean to step on your petticoats. Can we just leave it at that?
I stand by my original comment. Yes a RAM upgrade and an SSD will speed an old machine up but only relative till it's current piss poor performance.
It still won't hold a candle to a new computer.
This generally won't matter for Word, bit of web browsing etc but of you're looking to do more intensive tasks a new machine wins every time.
[quote=jambalaya ]@retro imo that’s an old wives take, trim not needed. Never enabled it on any of the machines I have done some of which have been running for a few years now.
That's the good thing about opinions, you're free to be wrong. 😉
Indeed 🙂
I will check this out some more. Forcetrim sounds very Jedi like
So, I've watched the "how to" to video on [url= https://eshop.macsales.com/installvideos/macbookpro_17_hd/ ]MacSales.com[/url]. Looks pretty straightforward.
It talks about Antistatic Precautions. What do I need to do in order to prevent any static related issues when I get stuck in to swapping the drives over?
Take off your nylon tracksuit and work in the buff.....
What do I need to do in order to prevent any static related issues when I get stuck in to swapping the drives over?
Before you touch any electronic components, touch a metal part of the chassis. That will discharge any static.
Naked job it is then. Ta.
Just on the RAM issue, I have a 2011 MBA that's only got 4GB and can't be upgraded. It was dog slow after High Sierra, CPU often maxing out with many system processes going berserk, and RAM full to the brim.
A bit of googling revealed Cisco AnyConnect (VPN software) to be a potential issue, even though it wasn't in use. Uninstalling that has restored this 6 year old laptop to almost as-new performance. I now use OSX's internal VPN for work connections.
Anyone use the [url= https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00K73NT0S/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_nPyrAbCYPVWGM ]Transcend Jetdrive Lite[/url] for extra storage capacity?
Looking to get one for my Air - will mainly use it for photos and iTunes library.
I use a Nifty Minidrive with a 128g Samsung Evo micro SD in my MBP. It holds my Lightroom and iTunes catalogues. The Mac SD card reader is shit, even with a fast card like the Evo, but it’s not noticeable in iTunes and I get only the tiniest latency in Lightroom. I’m happy to live with it given that it saves me having to carry a portable USB3 drive around.
I use a Nifty Minidrive with a 128g Samsung Evo micro SD in my MBP. It holds my Lightroom and iTunes catalogues. The Mac SD card reader is shit, even with a fast card like the Evo, but it’s not noticeable in iTunes and I get only the tiniest latency in Lightroom. I’m happy to live with it given that it saves me having to carry a portable USB3 drive around.
Thanks sounds like it should be perfect for what I want it for then.
Before you touch any electronic components, touch a metal part of the chassis. That will discharge any static.
Surely that'll only work if the chassis is earthed? Don't you need to get an earth wrist strap?
[url= https://www.amazon.co.uk/Static-Grounding-Wrist-Strap-Cable/dp/B004HI5UUG ]This sort of thing...[/url]
When I get to the point of re-installing stuff from my Time Machine Backup on to the new hard drive am I going to be able to re-install whole applications by just dragging the folder across from Time Machine?
For example I have MS Office 2011 which I purchased through the Home Use Programme many years ago. I no longer have any of the e-mails relating to this purchase (which I think was a download and not a disk purchase.)
I've got MS Office 2016 on my iMac, again through the HUP, but I think you can only install it on one computer.
I've got MS Office 2016 on my iMac, again through the HUP, but I think you can only install it on one computer.
I managed to get it on three computers. If your work email system is anything like ours, you'll have your firstname.lastname@company alias, your username@company address, and maybe even a staff/payrollnumber@company address that will all actually point to your inbox. Try them out with test emails first obviously, but if they work, they'll probably be seen as different users when you get the HUP details.
Thanks for this thread team! Just upgraded my mid-2010 MBP to 8GB of RAM and what a huge difference already. Will see how this settles and consider the SSD upgrade, but not so sure i can do that myself!
Merci.
It’s really worth doing the SSD upgrade on older pre-SSD Macs.
I upgraded an old 2009 MacBook Pro (2.53 GHz 8 GB RAM) 4 or 5 years ago and the difference in speed was incredible, it was probably the single biggest leap in performance (i.e. a much bigger leap than buying a new MacBook Pro 12-18 months later) that I’ve experienced in 25 years of using Mac’s.
I did a side-by-side comparison at the time… couldn’t be more stark, still use it as a back up machine today.
Boot>Open Photoshop>Open 250MB Scan.
[url= http://gavinckirby.me/videos/mbp_ssd.mp4 ]2009 MacBook Pro SSD Updrade Comparison Video[/url]
Pretty sure (as in 100%) iMacs HDD’s have another connection and built in temp control.
Huh. Every day's a school day.
Does look like it from - https://eshop.macsales.com/installvideos/imac_mid27_2011_hd/
Around the 6 minute mark - looks like they supply cable and external sensor with their kits.
Surely that'll only work if the chassis is earthed? Don't you need to get an earth wrist strap?
A wrist strap connected to the chassis does exactly the same thing as touching the chassis of the computer with your finger. You need to discharge any electrical potential between yourself and the computer. It doesn't matter at all whether the chassis of the computer is grounded or not, the only thing that matters is whether there's an electrical potential between you and the computer. You quickly get in the habit of touching the chassis before touching anything else.
Most modern SSDs have a built-in trim-a-like function which renders trim less important, however trim is kinder to the drive in terms of write wear.
From Cougar above, using [url= http://osxdaily.com/2015/10/29/use-trimforce-trim-ssd-mac-os-x/ ]this page[/url] for the command line instructions to enable TrimForce there is a throw away line just above the heading [b]Enable Trimforce...[/b] that says some drives have their own built-in routines for trash management.
No mention of what manufacturers products do this. The bottom line would be ensure that you have a maintained back-up just in case it all crashes in the future.
Welcome to the ragged edge of Mac use.
Goodness knows why my input is quoted and Cougars is supposedly mine.
Evening all.
So, I've swapped the hard drives in my 2008 MBP and I'm now at the point of reinstalling the OSX.
Got my time machine drive plugged in.
Switched on the MBP, holding down the alt button, Time machine drive appears, select it and then it just hangs on the screen showing the Apple icon.
Any ideas?
Ta in advance.
I tried an install from time machine and struggled too - never sussed out why. I ended up giving up and did a fresh OSX install. Can't remember the process now, you can google it easy enough, but you can create an OSX install file from your current computer, transfer that to a USB stick, then do the fresh install from there. Once OSX has installed you can do a time machine install from there or just reinstall your software. I didn't have a huge amount of software so wasn't a problem for me, but if you do then this might not be the best method.
My brother did it recently and did it via the cloning method, so made a clone of his OSX with all software onto the new HDD then just swapped the drives. Worked fine for him.
but you can create an OSX install file from your current computer, transfer that to a USB stick, then do the fresh install from there.
Would I need to do that before I swap the drives over?