Sluggish MBP - Should I buy new?

My MBP is now 4 years old. It's been showing sluggish performance for at least 18 months now. I've had independent people look at it, and I've brought it to the Store and had a Genius take a look. I get a lot of pinwheels, applications can take up to a full minute or even more to load, and I'm running out of HDD space. My independent guy thought the HDD was failing, but the Genius did analysis and said no. He said all was running fine, but I know it's not like it used to be.

I have a 2.66 i7 chip and today's MBP's have a standard 2.5 i7 chip. Is it really a step down? I'm not super techy, so I need help on that. I'd like more RAM, as I'm maxed out at 8GB. I have just 75GB of HDD space left on my 500GB drive. I also see the advantage of solid state drive.

Before I spend $3000 on a new MBP, I just want to do my homework.

I use my system for relatively minor stuff. I'll have most things open all at once, but nothing that I see is particularly intense on the processor or the memory. I'll typically have the following apps open:

• AppleMail
• Contacts
• Notes
• Messages
• Safari with 4-8 windows open
• iPhoto
• a bunch of pdf's
• iTunes

When I open Activity Monitor, it generally is not showing that my system is tapped. A fairly typical load profile is like I have right now this morning as I write this:

• Physical Memory: 8GB
• Mem Used: 7.95 GB
• Virtual Mem: 12.06 GB
• Memory pressure is green
• CPU has 90%+ idle

I do have a program on my system that is a bit of a hog. I sell digital x-ray machines, including 3D imaging systems and I generally need to shut most other things down to open that program. Even when I open that imaging program, the memory and CPU specs don't get maxed out. I just don't get it.

Any thoughts/ideas are appreciated.

Here's my Etrecheck report:

Problem description:

General sluggishness. Pinwheel, slow to open apps, overall deterioration of performance.

EtreCheck version: 2.1.2 (105)

Report generated December 12, 2014 at 6:38:10 AM CST

Hardware Information: ℹ️

MacBook Pro (17-inch, Mid 2010) (Verified)

MacBook Pro - model: MacBookPro6,1

1 2.66 GHz Intel Core i7 CPU: 2-core

8 GB RAM Upgradeable

BANK 0/DIMM0

4 GB DDR3 1067 MHz ok

BANK 1/DIMM0

4 GB DDR3 1067 MHz ok

Bluetooth: Old - Handoff/Airdrop2 not supported

Wireless: en1: 802.11 a/b/g/n

Video Information: ℹ️

Intel HD Graphics - VRAM: 288 MB

NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M - VRAM: 512 MB

Color LCD 1920 x 1200

System Software: ℹ️

OS X 10.9.5 (13F34) - Uptime: 6 days 22:36:56

Disk Information: ℹ️

Hitachi HTS725050A9A362 disk0 : (500.11 GB)

S.M.A.R.T. Status: Verified

EFI (disk0s1) <not mounted> : 210 MB

Macintosh HD (disk0s2) / : 499.25 GB (69.14 GB free)

Recovery HD (disk0s3) <not mounted> [Recovery]: 650 MB

HL-DT-ST DVDRW GS23N

USB Information: ℹ️

Apple Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad

Apple Inc. BRCM2070 Hub

Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller

Seagate FA GoFlex Desk 2 TB

S.M.A.R.T. Status: Verified

EFI (disk1s1) <not mounted> : 210 MB

TimeMachine (disk1s2) /Volumes/TimeMachine : 2.00 TB (1.53 TB free)

Apple Computer, Inc. IR Receiver

Apple Inc. Built-in iSight

Gatekeeper: ℹ️

Anywhere

Kernel Extensions: ℹ️

/System/Library/Extensions

[not loaded] com.aliph.driver.jstub (1.1.2) [Support]

[loaded] com.seagate.driver.PowSecDriverCore (5.1.1) [Support]

/System/Library/Extensions/Seagate Storage Driver.kext/Contents/PlugIns

[not loaded] com.seagate.driver.PowSecLeafDriver_10_4 (5.1.1) [Support]

[loaded] com.seagate.driver.PowSecLeafDriver_10_5 (5.1.1) [Support]

[not loaded] com.seagate.driver.SeagateDriveIcons (5.1.1) [Support]

Problem System Launch Agents: ℹ️

[loaded] com.paragon.NTFS.auth.plist [Support]

Launch Agents: ℹ️

[loaded] com.divx.dms.agent.plist [Support]

[loaded] com.divx.update.agent.plist [Support]

[running] com.monitoringclient.cmhelperd.plist [Support]

Launch Daemons: ℹ️

[loaded] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist [Support]

[loaded] com.cocoatech.pathfinder.SMFHelper7.plist [Support]

[running] com.crashplan.engine.plist [Support]

[loaded] com.klieme.TimeMachineScheduler.plist [Support]

[loaded] com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper.plist [Support]

[loaded] com.monitoringclient.client.plist [Support]

[running] com.monitoringclient.diskjournald.plist [Support]

[loaded] com.monitoringclient.updater.plist [Support]

[running] com.planmeca.romexisserver.plist [Support]

[loaded] org.firebird.gds.plist [Support]

User Launch Agents: ℹ️

[loaded] com.adobe.ARM.[...].plist [Support]

[invalid?] com.citrixonline.GoToMeeting.G2MUpdate.plist [Support]

[loaded] com.google.keystone.agent.plist [Support]

[running] com.microsoft.LaunchAgent.SyncServicesAgent.plist [Support]

User Login Items: ℹ️

Dropbox Application (/Applications/Dropbox.app)

CrashPlan menu bar UNKNOWN (missing value)

Wondershare Helper Compact Application (/Users/[redacted]/Library/Application Support/Helper/Wondershare Helper Compact.app)

HP Scan Application (/Applications/Hewlett-Packard/HP Scan 3.app)

CrashPlan menu bar Application (/Applications/CrashPlan.app/Contents/Helpers/CrashPlan menu bar.app)

HP Scheduler Application (/Library/Application Support/Hewlett-Packard/Software Update/HP Scheduler.app)

Internet Plug-ins: ℹ️

OVSHelper: Version: 1.1 [Support]

Default Browser: Version: 537 - SDK 10.9

Flip4Mac WMV Plugin: Version: 3.2.0.16 - SDK 10.8 [Support]

AdobePDFViewerNPAPI: Version: 11.0.09 - SDK 10.6 [Support]

FlashPlayer-10.6: Version: 15.0.0.246 - SDK 10.6 [Support]

DivX Web Player: Version: 3.2.3.1164 - SDK 10.6 [Support]

Silverlight: Version: 5.1.10411.0 - SDK 10.6 [Support]

Flash Player: Version: 15.0.0.246 - SDK 10.6 Mismatch! Adobe recommends 16.0.0.235

QuickTime Plugin: Version: 7.7.3

CitrixICAClientPlugIn: Version: 11.2.0 [Support]

iPhotoPhotocast: Version: 7.0 - SDK 10.8

AdobePDFViewer: Version: 11.0.09 - SDK 10.6 [Support]

SharePointBrowserPlugin: Version: 14.4.6 - SDK 10.6 [Support]

JavaAppletPlugin: Version: 14.9.0 - SDK 10.7 Check version

User internet Plug-ins: ℹ️

CitrixOnlineWebDeploymentPlugin: Version: 1.0.105 [Support]

WebEx: Version: 1.0 [Support]

Google Earth Web Plug-in: Version: 7.1 [Support]

3rd Party Preference Panes: ℹ️

Citrix Online Plug-in [Support]

Flash Player [Support]

Flip4Mac WMV [Support]

Paragon NTFS for Mac ® OS X [Support]

SafeGuard Monitoring [Support]

TimeMachineScheduler [Support]

Time Machine: ℹ️

Skip System Files: NO

Mobile backups: ON

Auto backup: YES

Destinations:

TimeMachine [Local]

Total size: 2.00 TB

Total number of backups: 51

Oldest backup: 2014-08-20 05:39:49 +0000

Last backup: 2014-12-12 12:16:37 +0000

Size of backup disk: Excellent

Backup size 2.00 TB > (Disk size 0 B X 3)

Top Processes by CPU: ℹ️

9% WindowServer

4% mds_stores

3% com.apple.WebKit.Plugin.64

1% mds

1% sysmond

Top Processes by Memory: ℹ️

807 MB CrashPlanService

344 MB mdflagwriter

258 MB iTunes

254 MB com.apple.WebKit.WebContent

223 MB iPhoto

Virtual Memory Information: ℹ️

26 MB Free RAM

2.90 GB Active RAM

2.88 GB Inactive RAM

1.33 GB Wired RAM

7.65 GB Page-ins

396 MB Page-outs

Diagnostics Information: ℹ️