How old is your Macbook

[earfulofmagic]

I have been told it is easy to do on my macbook since it is a 2009 and not the newer ones that are unibody. But i don't know how.

I probably would't do it myself because hardware is sensitive and I have butter fingers. But if you can find a reputable computer shop in your area that employs trained, Apple certified technicians, then it could be worthwhile. (I'd google city/state + apple certified repair.)

Or they might try to charge $600 for parts and labor, in which case I think you're much better off putting that towards a new (or newer, refurbished) laptop.

 

[drante]

I have a 2013 macbook air that I got secondhand for 250 dollars. I got lucky though, I purchased it from someone I know. It works great!

 

[star72232]

I think mine is from 2010. No problems. DH upgraded it to a SSD a few months ago, and it has sped it up quite a bit.

 

[torene03]

Have you considered upgrading the memory in addition to the hard drive? I have a 2009 iMac that I (stupidly) upgraded to the latest OS and as soon as I did, everything slowed down to the point I couldn't even login anymore. Turns out I only had 4GB of RAM installed and was using all of it with the upgrades. I bought 8GB (maybe overkill, 12GB total now) online and it was very simple to install per Apple instructions. Once I did, my computer was amazingly fast (for 8 years old) and I haven't had any issues logging in or running programs.

 

[earfulofmagic]

OP, just wanted to add something I thought of but neglected to mention -- you said your macbook is from 2009. 8 years is a pretty long life for a macbook. If this were my situation, I would wait to buy a newer model, and I know how frustrating it is to have a laptop hanging by a thread. that said, it's all up to you (of course).

at this particular college they liked to keep things on a 4-5 year refresh cycle, so the latest they would consider upgrading a machine with standard slowness would be a '12/13 machine. it's not the full extent of a computer's life, though, as PP demonstrates

Have you considered upgrading the memory in addition to the hard drive? I have a 2009 iMac that I (stupidly) upgraded to the latest OS and as soon as I did, everything slowed down to the point I couldn't even login anymore. Turns out I only had 4GB of RAM installed and was using all of it with the upgrades. I bought 8GB (maybe overkill, 12GB total now) online and it was very simple to install per Apple instructions. Once I did, my computer was amazingly fast (for 8 years old) and I haven't had any issues logging in or running programs.

just comes down to what you're comfortable with

 

[torene03]

OP, just wanted to add something I thought of but neglected to mention -- you said your macbook is from 2009. 8 years is a pretty long life for a macbook. If this were my situation, I would wait to buy a newer model, and I know how frustrating it is to have a laptop hanging by a thread. that said, it's all up to you (of course).

at this particular college they liked to keep things on a 4-5 year refresh cycle, so the latest they would consider upgrading a machine with standard slowness would be a '12/13 machine. it's not the full extent of a computer's life, though, as PP demonstrates



just comes down to what you're comfortable with

I work in IT, so I'm no stranger to working with hardware, but Apple is so user unfriendly when it comes to physical upgrades. I was really surprised to see that they had instructions on their website and made the memory fairly easy to access.

 

[earfulofmagic]

I work in IT, so I'm no stranger to working with hardware, but Apple is so user unfriendly when it comes to physical upgrades. I was really surprised to see that they had instructions on their website and made the memory fairly easy to access.

I'm surprised to hear that too. Learning something new everyday!