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I have a 2010 Macbook White Unibody will an SSD make a big difference?
RAM is standard 2 GB, am considering upgrading to 4 GB if needs be, however I do not run intensive applications other than one game Portal 2. I am looking for an upgrade that will make the system more responsive overall. Funds are limited so which will give better upgrade ? RAM to 4/8 GB or hard drive from 250 GB SATA to 128 GB SSD?
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philby123's pick
I noticed a HUGE jump between my last MacBook and the one I have now with the addition of an SSD. I mean, the thing starts in like 7 seconds or something crazy like that. I don't do much gaming on it, but I do have the 128GB SSD and 4GB of RAM and the thing is perfectly responsive.
If you can do 128 + 4GB RAM, I would do that, otherwise it's probably a tossup because 2GB of RAM is pretty low.
If you can do 128 + 4GB RAM, I would do that, otherwise it's probably a tossup because 2GB of RAM is pretty low.
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philby123's pick
I'd personally add an SSD. It;s the biggest performance increase you can get bang for buck. It's true that you need RAM to do anything intense but for day to day performance the SSD would be the best option.
You won't regret buying an SSD... with RAM you won't regret it either... you just won't sit back with your mouth open shocked at the sudden performance increase an SSD will give.
You won't regret buying an SSD... with RAM you won't regret it either... you just won't sit back with your mouth open shocked at the sudden performance increase an SSD will give.
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philby123's pick
I was in a very similar situation to you & started by upgrading my RAM first and then installed a Vertex 2 240GB SSD drive. The RAM upgrade didn't do a great deal, I only did it because I often run a few different VMs & extra headroom is important as I like to disable paging files inside the VMs (giving them as much physical RAM as possible).
As for the SDD, it made a HUGE improvement, without any question all I'd highly recommend this as your first step, unless you are seeing major issues with available memory (check out "Activity Monitor", system memory if you aren't sure). Boot times are amazing, battery life has improved quite a bit, application load times are significantly better, application performance is improved (ie outlook is much faster), less risk of failure when using in a "mobile" environment (ie drop or large impact whilst running) & certainly have a "cool" factor.
SSD does however come with it's own set of risks, specifically early drives had issues with short lifecycle. These are largely fixed (as I understand it), but as always a good backup strategy is key (check out Crash Plan or Mozy if you don't like TimeCapsule).
One tip, don't worry about the latest and greatest SATA3 drives unless you plan to use the drive in a future machine purchase. Some things I've read indicate that performance of these newer drives can be worse when installed into SATA2 type machines.
Obviously I've added a fair bit of personal "guestimate" information above, hope it's of some use to help you with you research & eventual decision.
As for the SDD, it made a HUGE improvement, without any question all I'd highly recommend this as your first step, unless you are seeing major issues with available memory (check out "Activity Monitor", system memory if you aren't sure). Boot times are amazing, battery life has improved quite a bit, application load times are significantly better, application performance is improved (ie outlook is much faster), less risk of failure when using in a "mobile" environment (ie drop or large impact whilst running) & certainly have a "cool" factor.
SSD does however come with it's own set of risks, specifically early drives had issues with short lifecycle. These are largely fixed (as I understand it), but as always a good backup strategy is key (check out Crash Plan or Mozy if you don't like TimeCapsule).
One tip, don't worry about the latest and greatest SATA3 drives unless you plan to use the drive in a future machine purchase. Some things I've read indicate that performance of these newer drives can be worse when installed into SATA2 type machines.
Obviously I've added a fair bit of personal "guestimate" information above, hope it's of some use to help you with you research & eventual decision.
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Ram is cheaper now and will give you a good boost in performance, but an SSD will dramatically boost boot times, and app launching. As a rule of thumb I generally try to upgrade an aging machines ram to the max first. Ram prices will eventually go up over time but SSD are olny going to get cheaper.
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