2008 MacBook Pro upgrade to SSD

Question

2008 MacBook Pro upgrade to SSD

I am looking to upgrade my MacBook Pro 5,1 by replacing the original hard drive with an SSD. The easy part will be the physical exchange of drives since the hard drive on this model is easily accessable by lifting off the battery cover.

My question relates to the fact I am running OS 10.5.8 (Leopard) and would like to update the OS to 10.6 (Snow Leopard) or maybe more recent. I am thinking of installing the new OS on the new SSD first, and then migrating my old hard drive stuff onto it. Would this be a good way to do it?:

1. Back up my hard drive.

2. Connect new SSD externally and Erase & Format it.

3. Purchase new OS CD and install it on the new SSD.*

4. Use Migration Assistant to install my old apps, files, preferences, etc from my old hard drive to the SSD.

5. Boot up the computer from the SSD (still connected externally) to make sure everything seems good.

6. Swap drives.

So, being a little nervous about this, I am wondering if:

1. * Can I install the new OS onto the new SSD or do I have to update my old OS instead?

2. Have I missed any other valuable steps?

3. Should/Can I install a more current OS on the SSD and migrate to that? If so, which OS for my old laptop? (I am a bit worried that a couple of my apps won't work on newer OS's.)

Thanks so much for your input.

Posted on Apr 5, 2014 10:52 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Melophage

Level 5

7,213 points

Apr 5, 2014 11:21 AM in response to deafbychocolate

deafbychocolate,

I took a similar approach with my MacBookPro7,1. It originally came with Snow Leopard on its HDD, and when I bought a SSD for it, I installed Mavericks directly onto the SSD externally, leaving Snow Leopard on the HDD. When I’d swapped drives, I’d put my HDD into an external enclosure, so that if needed I can still boot into Snow Leopard using Startup Manager. One difference between my approach and your proposed approach is that I didn’t use Migration Assistant; I’d set my preferences manually in Mavericks, reïnstalled the apps on the SSD as Mavericks compatibilty became available for each of them, and copied my files manually from the HDD to the SSD as needed.

Since you’ll be starting from Leopard, you’ll need to install Snow Leopard as a prerequisite for any newer version of OS X, so you might as well begin with Snow Leopard, even if your eventual target is a newer version of OS X. Note that if any of your apps are PowerPC, they won’t run on any version of OS X newer than Snow Leopard.

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Answer 2

Apr 6, 2014 4:50 AM in response to Melophage

Hi Melophage,

Thank you for answering all my questions in such a clear manner. And especially, thanks for telling me what I wanted to hear! I'll try to post again after I have completed the project to say how it all went.

Thanks again.

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Answer 3

Apr 15, 2014 2:50 PM in response to deafbychocolate

So here's the follow-up. I successfully installed my new SSD into my 2008 MacBook Pro. I pretty much followed the script from my first post, above, and there were really no major surprises. Given that I have very little expeprience doing these kinds of things, and it went very smoothly, I would rate the task as fairly easy. I did do my homework before jumping in, so I had the necessary tiny phillips and torx bits I would need, as well as an inexpensive hard drive case & USB cord so that I could first connect the new SSD externally to my MBP. I also had bought a CD copy of Snow Leopard from Apple so that I could update from the Leopard OS that I had been running. So here's what I did, and how it went:

Connected the new SSD via USB to MacBook Pro. The MBP said it did not recognize the SSD, so I erased it and formatted it as "Mas OS Extended (Journaled)".
I inserted the Snow Leopard CD and installed the OS on the external SSD. When the computer restarted, it had automatically used the external SSD as the startup disk. It also automatically launched Migration Assistant, so I was all ready to move my files, applications and preferences. Since I was migrating over a USB 2.0 connection, it took a couple of hours.
Once Migration Assistant was finished, I restarted the computer (just because) and then shut it down, unplugged it, flipped it over, and removed the battery cover and battery. The hard drive in my MacBook Pro 5,1 is next to the battery and is accessible with the battery cover removed. What could be simpler? I suggest watching a few YouTubes to see how easy swapping drives is in a MBP if you are thinking about doing it.
With the new drive installed, I started up the computer. The first thing I noticed was the cooling fan started to run. And it gradually ran faster and faster, so I did worry a bit about what might be happening. After a minute or two it died down and I haven't heard it since, which is much more normal.
Next, I ran Software Update, followed by "Repair Disk Permissions" in Disk Utility.
I did find that my 11-year old Canon i850 printer wouldn't print, but after reinstalling the driver from Canon, it's running like a champ again.

I have to say that the SSD has breathed new life into my 5-year old MacBook Pro. The spinning beach ball I had become accustomed to has been conspicuously absent. Everything happens faster, and certain apps that used to take forever are now actually snappy. With more recent versions of Safari and Java, which my old operating system was preventing me from installing, web pages and applets are so much quicker. I remember a similar feeling when we switched from dial-up to DSL, the improvement has been nearly that dramatic.

The cost of the project was $300; way less than a new MacBook Pro.

$14.99 Hard Drive Enclosure w/ USB 3.0 cable

$19.99 Snow Leopard CD from Apple

$265 Samsung "840EVO" 500GB Solid State Drive

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