Upgrade Your Mac??

[racer7]

I built my first pc in 1983 and only got my firdt MacBook in 08 (5.1 alum unibody 13" runnig Leopard) after getting permanently disguted with Vista- a pos if there ver wss one.

 

A few days ago my last functional portable pc (runnig VIsta, ugh) ae its HD and reminded me I ought to do something with my 4 yr old MacBook befire it crashed.

 

So to spped it up and extend its life I cloned over to an OWC 3G Solid Ste HD (US built with some imported parts) and maxed out it RAM. Holy cow, what an upgrade- by far the best single performance upgrade I've ever done in my almost 30 yrs of mucking with pcs, iblcuding building some real hotrods for their day...

 

No more rotating discs on my portables, ever..These SSDs are truly impressive performers and what I'm using isn't the fastest available (hardware limits, no reason for the 6G version)

 

An FYI for those buying who like the quick stuff and those of you looking to stretch a favorite aging machine and willing to spend a couple hundred to do it..As prices drop I suspect the old spinnigplatter is going to disappear except in the cheapest stuff. Right now only a few like some Macs, ultrabooks, and a few others use them. (Hybrids also exist, are fast, and a bit cheaper but energy pigs)

 

Oh, and the ease of doing this on a Mac was truly appreciated compared to Windows/MBR/etc screwing around.

A bit over 2 hrs start to finish almost all of which was runtime for the cloning operation made necessary by the old 5400 rpm oem drive in the Mac...So simple a caveman could do it...

[Peter Parts]

Thanks for post. I'm itching to go SSD on my MacBook. For sure, our iPad is zippy on boot-up and immune to harm from bumps. On the other hand, desktop machines don't jar their hard-disk drives and the drives are faster... and you can fill your coffee cup while it boots.

 

I can think of only two occasions in past years when I needed Windows - to get some firmware into a voip modem and to use some propietary dyno chart reader software after bike engine mods. Otherwise, no need for Windows at all for years.

 

Ummm, took you a while to come over from the dark side. I've been Apple at work and home since 1979 and Mac since 1984. Arrival of my first LaserWriter in 1987 was one of the happiest days of my life.

 

Ben

rain in Toronto

[Mike]

I upgraded my old MacBook's hard drive and doubled its RAM a few months ago. For the minimal cost, it was certainly worth the effort. It's amazing how inexpensive these components have become.

 

The RAM isn't a challenge, but it takes a while to replace the hard drive, requiring, in my case, that I reboot from the original OS disk, then replace the contents of the hard drive from my backup.

[racer7]

I've gotten to the point where messing with pc hardware is of little interest to me due to the almost always trivial gains and incessant piggish resource wasting by Windows bloat code that I thought about just buying a new Mac, expecting the same level of what has become almost futility in trying to to do any worthwhile pc upgrades. Then by accident I tripped on a set of comments on the OWC SSD drives and noticed the prices had finally started to get somewhat reasonable on ones with passable capacity for a portable (I used a 240, an upsize from the MacBooks oem 160 platter. There are still no SSDs big enough for serious desktop production machines and they would be far too expensive at present if existing)

The 240 SSD works so well it has even got me thinking about upgrading my Leopard 10.5.8 OS to either Snow Leopard, or heaven forbid, the new Mountain Lion version just to mess with new features and increase my otherwise minimal knowledge of the Mac OS and hardware. Though the extreme proprietary / litigious attitude of Apple (shape of the IPhone battle with Samsung? get real!!) keeps me from being overly enthusiastic about it- been at this stuff so many years I know where all proprietary stuff ultimately ends up which is the bottom of the barrel after it stifles competition. And Jobs/Wozniak just ripped off their OS ideas from the Xerox Star anyway, a system I used for a couple years in the late 80s that predated both Macs GUI and Windows. Now there was an example of a stupid company- two bites at the apple to make a permanent business (copiers and computers) and now reduced to selling services for survival as an also ran. Must be brain worms in Rochester NY water- Kodak also being congenitally stupid despite their impressive imaging R&D history but now bankrupt.

Anway, I'd strongly suggest that doing an upgrade to SSD on a Mac will be worth every penny it costs and I'm long past the point of saying that about

windows based portables. There are too many headaches upgrading Windows systems these days and as anyone who has done it knows, trying to upgrade a Windows OS is a waste of time and effort. Windows 7 is just a fix for that piece of crap Vista and I sure don't care what they do with Windows 8. Still got a netbook running XP though, the last decent OS Microsoft did though needing enough security patches to be a true nuisance now. Got so pissed off at Microsoft trying to sell me the same Office with trivial upgrades for the umpteenth time that I pulled it off all my stuff and replaced it with (free) Open Office- on my Mac, too.

If the Mac OS stuff ever becomes annoying I guess the Unix freebies OS as replacement are always an option. After 30 years I am flat out of tolerance for large corporations wanting real money for almost nothing improved in their latest marketing gimmick..

 

Mike, the SSD swap out on my 5.1 was as easy as inserting a DVD, literally. Only 1 screw and 1 connector to remove/replace for the physical change- they had their head on first class when they designed my 5.1.....Even the memory upgrade took only the 8 case screws- nothing needing any sort of skill. Both could have been done by any 10 yr old...

 

Almost but not quite at the point of installing Parallels and seeing how well a GS-911 can run on a Mac (gee, then I could replace my slow netbook with an 11" MacAir for road trips!). Anybody here got any experience doing that they want to share with me?? Is it feasible??

[Peter Parts]

Many, many wise thoughts from Racer7 (and other posters too).

 

If you have any old but important software on a Mac (like accounting, old PhotoShop, very slightly old FileMaker, Word 2004, and quite a list more for me...) best to reconnoiter before moving to Lion.

 

The "About this Mac..." will bring up the whole list of apps and can even be sorted by type. This will immediately show what apps (pre-"Intel") are OK on Leopard but won't work in Lion unless upgraded. Apple and everybody else has to decide what software goes legacy and what gets carried into the future when a system is upgraded.

 

Several good work-arounds, if these old programs are not used too frequently, such as a Leopard external hard disk or partitioning the internal hard disk for two systems.

 

Ben

[Mike]

Mike, the SSD swap out on my 5.1 was as easy as inserting a DVD, literally. Only 1 screw and 1 connector to remove/replace for the physical change- they had their head on first class when they designed my 5.1.....Even the memory upgrade took only the 8 case screws- nothing needing any sort of skill. Both could have been done by any 10 yr old...

 

Yes, my post wasn't too clear--the actual physical replacement of the hard drive and RAM was super easy. It was the restoration of my applications and files that took a while. Not really complicated, just scary as heck for an amateur, like me. I considered an SSD, but my MacBook is ancient--four years old--and was a stripped-down model. When I ultimately replace it, I'll look seriously at an SSD.

[racer7]

I'm going to take this Mac OS upgrade stuff slowly though my 5.1 is an Intel 2.0 dual core and has nothing prior to late 08 on it. Have an upgrade to Snow Leopard available which will allow me to completely max the RAM to 8 if I wish but that puts the machine hard into motherboad/processor limits so anything beyond that would have to for a desirable feature in Mountain Lion itself- and I've got no idea what that might be, yet.

Definitely do not want to get into the "upgrade all the applications" route- only for those where there might truly be major improvements in performance or utility. Too many years of experience and know that leading edge is rarely worth what it costs...

Still would like info from anyone who has ever run or tried to run a GS-911 off a Mac. Got no use for smart (but really should be called low IQ) phones and won't carry one- I prefer something resembling a real computer hence my netbook, slow as it is (but at least its cheap and runs a whole day on its battery alone and isn't crippled/closed like an IPad or IPhone)

 

FWIW, although I can and have done gps route planning on both Macs and pcs, I stopped. These systems are silly/stupid unfriendly designs and slow as snails to actually do the work and then download it to a gps that is even slower, being built with cheap, slow hardware. Just not even remotely worth the effort- though I'm not above taking someone else's well done routes off the web when offered. I stick to a combo of my gps and state regional paper maps when exploring in areas I don't know- more info and less work- and I can use a free wi-fi with my netbook to answer any specific inquiries,...

[racer7]

One more thought. Won't own any more machines bult with anything except Intel main processors. BTDT- starting years ago when I first learned about messing with alternate processors and overclocking, etc. Definitely not worth the time or money (savings) to mess with anything else other than Intel unless your goal is simply to master the peculiarities of other stuff- which turned out not to be useful to me...

 

I've probably cost the Microsoft guys a few thousands of $ showing other folks freebies like Open Office and showing them how to get it onto their gear. My little piece of getting even....I like MS ongoing security support (proably required unless they want a whole lot of govt interference in what they think is their domain but isn't after much a a national infrastructure runs on it) but am not above exacting a few penalties for foisting stuff they had to know was crap into the marketplace simply out of greed...

[Bill_Walker]

Almost but not quite at the point of installing Parallels and seeing how well a GS-911 can run on a Mac (gee, then I could replace my slow netbook with an 11" MacAir for road trips!). Anybody here got any experience doing that they want to share with me?? Is it feasible??

 

I've done it, under XP on VMWare on a Macbook 2,1 (13-inch mid-2007) running Lion. Works fine, in the limited amount of use I've given it (checked my RT for codes once, just to see how the GS-911 worked).

 

On that old MacBook, with 3 GB max usable memory (out of 4 GB installed, grr), I have to quit all the Mac apps, and make sure Time Machine is turned off, before launching VMware, or the performance is horrible. But once I do that, it's quite usable.