13" MBP upgrade or new

[Dermako]

Currently have an early '10 13" MBP with a 250 gb HD and 8 gb ram.
All is good, but since upgrade to Lion things are noticablly slower and I am getting to the limit of HD space.
I like the size of the 13" and rarely use it as a laptop. I plug into a Henge dock at three different locations. My solution to portability, syncing and desktop convenience.
Has anyone purchased the new 13" MBP with Lion and have any input to offer or should I just upgrade to a larger HD and call it good.

 

[harryb2448]

Trust you burned Lion to a USB thumb drive prior to installing? If not go into App Store, hit Option button and Purchases and select the Lion icon and download again no charge. Search the forums on how to burn to the thumb drive.

Then format the drive and do a clean install. Clean install reportedly improved Lion on laptops in particular.

 

[Dermako]

I did burn a USB of Lion.
But would like to know if the new 13" MBP is worth the upgrade from an early '10.
Even if I keep this one I would probably do a clean load of Lion on a new HD.
I am about 10 gb from full.

 

[pigoo3]

Has anyone purchased the new 13" MBP with Lion and have any input to offer or should I just upgrade to a larger HD and call it good.

To be honest you really haven't mentioned anything that warrants getting a new computer. That almost full HD could be really slowing things down.

We're talking the difference in cost here of about $100 for a new HD to $1500 for a new 13" MacBook Pro. My vote is install a larger HD...install the OS...or use a Time Machine backup on the new drive...and you're good to go.

- Nick

 

[Dermako]

Probably right.
New questions now.
Which HD? 500 gb minimum, quite, cool and dependable.
Then, load Lion and restore from Time machine or just restore from the TM?
I have never had to use the TM so not real sure how to use it with comfort.

 

[pigoo3]

Which HD? 500 gb minimum, quite, cool and dependable.

Just get a big HD...500gig, 720gig, etc.

I have never had to use the TM so not real sure how to use it with comfort.

This is a great time to learn! You're probably going to need an external HD to create the Time Machine backup.

I should also mention that MANY users do not have very good hard drive management. They:

- download too much "crap" from the internet
- install too many applications...then don't use them
- store too many mp3's on their HD (nobody needs 5,000+ songs stored on their primary HD)
- too many photos, video's
- etc.

If you fall into this group...you may not even need a larger internal HD for your MBP. Just move a lot of the unused files, photos, songs, videos to an external HD...and delete or uninstall unused or infrequently used apps. And you'd be surprised how much space can be freed up.

If someone gets a larger HD...and still has bad HD management practices...eventually that new-larger HD will fill up as well. Then the cycle starts all over again.

I guess you got the "bonus answer" this time around!

- Nick

 

[Dermako]

Now you described my wife to a T.

I do have a fair bit of downloaded PDF's, for reference and work use.
About the only App I don't use regularly is Adobe CS5, but that is a spare time issue.
Probably less than 500 MP3's (Classic Rock)
Pictures, probably 50 gb on this computer.