If I want to make my laptop go a little faster, what are my upgrade options? What are the differences between upgrading RAM v. harddrive to SSD for instance?
MacBook Pro, iOS 7.0.4
kristin268,
how much RAM do you currently have installed, and what capacity hard drive is currently installed? The differences would depend upon what your typical tasks are on your Mid 2012 MacBook Pro.
Thanks for the response Melophage -- I have 4gb RAM currently, and 500gb hard drive. I don't think my typical tasks are that memory-intensive -- usually 2-5 programs open at a time, often including Safari, Chrome, Word, and Excel.
kristin268,
Really, for current versions of OS X, 8GB of RAM is the 'sweet spot' - although you can upgrade to as much as 16GB, I wouldn't if I were you since you're not running an RAM-intensive applications concurrently.
But to see a real speed increase you will want a SSD. See my one and only user tip -> Upgrading Your MacBook Pro with a Solid State Drive.
Good luck,
Clinton
kristin268,
if you run Activity Monitor when your usual brace of programs are simultaneously running, what does it show with regards to your RAM?
My guess is that Clinton’s advice would work well for you — to upgrade from 4 GB of RAM to 8 GB, and to upgrade from a hard drive to a SSD.
Thanks for all your tips, Clinton & Melophage -- my activity monitor is green when running my usual brace of programs (though even then I feel like things are slow and delayed). One more quesiton: what's the price point for upgrading RAM and SSD, and at what point is it just better to get a new computer?
kristin268,
since your computer is not yet two years old, and given your typical tasks, I think that your computer doesn’t need to be replaced; upgrading the RAM and getting a SSD will be far less expensive than getting a new computer. The price of RAM will depend upon where you purchase it; for example, OWC’s price for 8 GB can be found here (and their RAM comes with a lifetime advance replacement warranty). The price of a SSD depends upon its manufacturer, its model, and its capacity. In my case, I put a 512 GB Samsung 840 PRO in my MacBook Pro; I chose it because of its five-year warranty and its performance characteristics. There are other SSDs that have higher capacities, but not many SSDs come with five-year warranties. (I interpret the warranty length as being indicative of a manufacturer’s expectation of low rates of product replacement during the warranty period.)
These comments have been so helpful. One more comment before I pull the trigger -- if I plan to start using Parallels or Boot Camp to run Windows (for STATA or other modeling software), is 8GB still enough?
kristin268,
I haven’t used STATA or other modeling software, so I can’t comment on that aspect — do such software packages include RAM recommendations in their system requirements?
If you run Windows via Boot Camp, then only one of OS X and Windows would run at a time, so I’d guess that 8 GB of RAM would be sufficient for either one. If you run Windows using Parallels Desktop, VirtualBox, or some other virtualizer, then OS X and Windows would run simultaneously, and you’d need to dedicate some portion of your RAM for exclusive use by the virtualizer — in which case you’d need to determine how much RAM you would need to adequately run your modeling software, and plan accordingly.
upgrade options mid-2012 mbp
