Mods -SSD -6gb Ram

Hey all I'm a video editor and generally work on a tower, but need the mobility of a laptop for an upcoming project. Anyone have any experience putting 6gb ram in there 3.1(non-unibody) macbook pro? or replacing the hard drive with a SSD? Also in the mean time I'm planning to wipe out my hard drive and repartition it, i need a bit of a walk thru to copy it to an external and boot from that.
Thanks,
J.B.

First generation MacBook Pros are limited to 2GB, later models 3GB, and the early 2008 models can go up to 4GB. You would need a Unibody machine for 6GB.

SSDs work just like a typical 2.5 SATA HDD (although there are some severe performance problems with the cheaper models). Long story made short, be sure to pick up a 2.5" SATA enclosure for the old drive so that you can connect both drives simultaneously to transfer your data from the old drive to the new drive.

In my opinion, the best thing to do is to remove the old hard drive and install it in an enclosure. Boot from the now external drive and use SuperDuper to clone the old drive to the new, making it bootable. That's all there is to it.

Nice, thats a good idea to save that drive and have an extra external laying around. As for the 6gb ram, it is possible, I have seen a number of videos of the 3, 1 running it on leopard. Just wandering if anyone had first hand experience. check out RAMJET Inc. - Item Details.

Starting Mid 2007 Macbook Pros were 4GB capable.

As far as the people who say they have 6GB in, I wonder if Finder just shows 6GB or if the computer can actually address all 6GB.

Put in 6 GB ram, I believe that its all getting used, and a Apex SSD. X-Bench changed from 117 to 255.

Can you give us a screen shot of Activity Monitor on the System Memory tab? That will tell us definitively how or if it's being allocated. Just not sure how this is possible since the chipset doesn't officially support more than 4GB of RAM.

The chipset in the new unibody supports up to 8GB ram but there is an issue in OS X addressing the full 8GB but 6GB works fine. Hopefully this will be fixed in 10.5.7 or maybe Snow Leopard. The 17" unibody does support the full 8GB so maybe a firmware update will be released in the future for the 15" since they have the exact same chipset.

I put in 6GB in Unibody 15" 2.53 and could not get it to work reliably. I am thankful to OWC/macsales.com for working hard to get it resolved. They could not and are refunding my purchase. Apparently some of the exact same machines are not working with 6GB. For now, I am stuck at 4GB RAM which is not optimum given the large server VM's I need to run.

I will definitely do business with OWC again because of their service.

I used 6GB w/o problems in 3,1 and 4,1 17" MBP(s) be sure to

to use matched brands at the least - my MBP wouldn't boot with 2GB of "Mac Memory" (not Apple memory, but another brand of RAM which claims to be specifically for Apple computers) one brand and 4GB of another.

6GB shows up as long as the RAMM is installed properly. I have read repeatedly that 6GB RAM will not work in pre-Unibody 15" MBP(s).

I'd avoid cheap MLC/SLC SSD(s). Frankly, I found the internal Hitachi(s) (7200 RPM) to be wicked fast when short-stroked. If you need fast sequential writes some of the newer MLC(s) might work. By now, I'm sure you know that write speeds (and random speed) were a serious short-coming of MLC drives. There are claims that newer MLC drives do not suffer the same maladies.

Best of luck and, whatever course of action you choose, its highly unlikely that you'll be unhappy with a MacBook Pro of any stripe.

SSD in Macbook Pro

I recently installed an SSD in my non-unibody (June 2008) 15" Macbook Pro.

Getting to the hard drive is a little tricky - it requires both a small jewelers and a torx 6 screwdriver. There are plenty of videos and guides on the net to help you out if you've not dismantled your MBP before. Keep in mind that swapping the drive yourself WILL void whatever remains of your warranty.

I installed an 80gb Intel X25-M and am really happy with the results - apps open MUCH faster and OSX boots much quicker than with the original 200gb/5,400rpm offering from Apple/Hitachi. The battery also seems to last longer, but I've not actually timed anything!

The only real limitation is that the drives are very expensive compared to a "traditional" SATA 5,400/7,200rpm disk. I paid £250 for 80gb - I could easily have gotten a 500gb Seagate 7,200 for less money.

The drive I got is detailed here:

Intel® Mainstream SATA Solid State Drives

I've been reading a few articles on the Internet regarding replacing the internal Superdrive with a 2nd hard drive. That way, I'll have a fairly small-capacity SSD for the OS and applications, plus a larger 2nd drive for data (I'm thinking 320/500gb).

Speaking of SSD drives, does anyone know the particulars on the factory installed ones in the MBPs....beyond capacity. Thats the only info I could really find....but wanna know if they are SLC or MLC and some read write stats if possible for comparisons. rockit to russia.