MacBook Pro mid 2010 issues

[ryanlabe1]

Hi all,

I'm really not sure what I should do. I'm a DJ that uses my macbook all day long at my day job, and then for DJ'ing as well, needless to say, heavily used.

I've already changed the hard drive once, which I took the opportunity to go bigger for music storage. I'm finding files that used to be ok, coming up as 'corrupt' in my DJ software, which does analysis of files regularly. I'm not sure if the drive is nearing its life end (750Gb Western Digital with an average of 80Gb only free on it at all times).

I'm not sure if I should be looking at getting a new macbook for one...since the battery on this one is also getting weak, or if making a the big purchase of a Samsung 1Tb SSD would be the best bet, which would probably help my battery life, and speed things up to get me another year or maybe two out of this laptop. I'm also confident that copying all my files over from the Time Machine drive to a new SSD drive, and re-encoding them, will fix the corruption issues on many of the old files that haven't been used in a long while currently coming up as corrupt.

What are your thoughts?? Keeping in mind, I have to have at least 750Gb worth of HD, which means upgrading the HD of a new macbook even if I were to do so... Do you feel the SSD drives can be trusted, for the heavy use I do on my laptop?

 

[chscag]

There's no doubt that a high quality SSD will give you a longer life than a spinning hard drive. For someone who uses his machine as much as you do and for DJ'ing, you need lots of drive space. A new MacBook Pro with at least a 1 TB SSD and lots of memory is going to be expensive. The new MacBook Pro's are all retina models and non upgradeable for memory, which means you have to order one with the amount of memory you'll need for future use. You're probably looking at spending around $2000 for a new MBP.

 

[ryanlabe1]

There's no doubt that a high quality SSD will give you a longer life than a spinning hard drive. For someone who uses his machine as much as you do and for DJ'ing, you need lots of drive space. A new MacBook Pro with at least a 1 TB SSD and lots of memory is going to be expensive. The new MacBook Pro's are all retina models and non upgradeable for memory, which means you have to order one with the amount of memory you'll need for future use. You're probably looking at spending around $2000 for a new MBP.

So do you think I would see good reliability out of this then....

Canada Computers & Electronics | Solid State Drives | Samsung 840 EVO 1TB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive (MZ-7TE1T0BW)

I'll probably always travel with an external usb hard drive ready to boot with all my necessary data in case of any failure. I guess my question was, am I silly to be upgrading a laptop that's 4yrs old? I was actually looking at the MBP model that doesn't have the retina (but does have the I5 processor and nearly same GHz) since I don't need the retina for anything. I think I can also transfer my 8GB of ram to this unit as well....but is it actually worth the money to spend on a laptop that simple ups my processor and gives me a new battery (in essence)?

 

[chscag]

The drive should be reliable but do you really want to put $469 into your 2010 MacBook Pro? The MacBook Pro you were referring to which is the only one available sold new that is not retina is the 2012 13" MacBook Pro. That's the only remaining MBP which is user upgradeable both for memory and hard drive.

I agree it's a difficult decision but if you need a reliable machine for your DJ business, it might be wise to go with a new one. Keep your 2010 model for backup. Memory is inexpensive, there's no need to move the modules from the 2010 to a new machine.

 

[ryanlabe1]

The drive should be reliable but do you really want to put $469 into your 2010 MacBook Pro? The MacBook Pro you were referring to which is the only one available sold new that is not retina is the 2012 13" MacBook Pro. That's the only remaining MBP which is user upgradeable both for memory and hard drive.

I agree it's a difficult decision but if you need a reliable machine for your DJ business, it might be wise to go with a new one. Keep your 2010 model for backup. Memory is inexpensive, there's no need to move the modules from the 2010 to a new machine.

So what your saying is go with the Retina, upgrade the ram, and then what about the HD?? I need at least 750Gb worth of space as well....

I'm with you....keeping a laptop thats 4yrs old, used literally almost every day...is playing with fire.....can I upgrade the Hard drives on the new Retina's?? To have a 2014 model with a 1Tb SSD, or do I have to upgrade when buying the laptop from Apple, which will cost me a fortune to have a 1TB SSD....

 

[pm-r]

Well I think I'd sure consider putting in that Samsung 840 EVO, which is one of the top, if not the top, rated SSDs out there.

With all the restrictions and hassles, if and when even possible with the latest MBPros, and considering that with the price, $500.00 is cheap compared to a new MBPro, which would cost around $2,500.00 for the 13" and close to $3,000.00 for the 15" to get the desired large capacity.

The SSD can also help save battery life and good replacement batteries can be had for reasonable cost as well. And does any DJ really care or need a portable with a Retina Display??

 

[ryanlabe1]

Well I think I'd sure consider putting in that Samsung 840 EVO, which is one of the top, if not the top, rated SSDs out there.

With all the restrictions and hassles, if and when even possible with the latest MBPros, and considering that with the price, $500.00 is cheap compared to a new MBPro, which would cost around $2,500.00 for the 13" and close to $3,000.00 for the 15" to get the desired large capacity.

The SSD can also help save battery life and good replacement batteries can be had for reasonable cost as well. And does any DJ really care or need a portable with a Retina Display??

This is exactly what I was thinking....I think having said that...I"m going to stick with my original plan...what do I have to lose...a 1Tb drive will always be useful in the future regardless, and if it buys me another year even with my laptop, I'm ahead of the ball!

Thanks all!

 

[pigoo3]

From what I'm reading...it sounds like most of the problems are software related (due to the hard drive). Maybe your HD is suffering from all of the mobility you do with it (bumps, jarring, etc.). If you had other hardware problems (that aren't as easily solved)...then I would say new computer time.

Just pop in a new HD...and see how it goes.

- Nick

 

[ryanlabe1]

From what I'm reading...it sounds like most of the problems are software related (due to the hard drive). Maybe your HD is suffering from all of the mobility you do with it (bumps, jarring, etc.). If you had other hardware problems (that aren't as easily solved)...then I would say new computer time.

Just pop in a new HD...and see how it goes.

- Nick

I don't have any other hardware issues, but do have another 750Gb drive I could test with. That's a great idea. If I see improvements, maybe I'll then take it to the next level and grab the 1TB SSD...

Changing the laptop is seeming more and more the last resort...especially given the benefits with the new laptops are in areas that don't really benefit my usage.

 

[ryanlabe1]

Hi again,

I probably should have thought of this before, but I just ran a disk check on my current drive, and it failed almost right away with blocks corrupt etc. I suppose this answers my issues with tracks that are causing me issues in my DJ software. Question now is, if I am moving to the new drive, and I time machine this drive, is it going to transfer the issues, or will the new drive transfer correct all this?

Does this mean that the drive is reaching the end of it's life??? Or will following the instructions to boot from DVD and run repair actually fix all the errors?

 

[pm-r]

It sounds like you need to backup or clone the data as best as you can with CCC, SD or TM and maybe try and do several, and only a recovery will let you know what works properly.

You can possibly salvage the workable parts of the drive by doing a full erase without missing doing the optional one pass security or zero out on the drive.

An alternate suggestion would be to use DiskWarrior to possibly fix the "corruption".

 

[ryanlabe1]

It sounds like you need to backup or clone the data as best as you can with CCC, SD or TM and maybe try and do several, and only a recovery will let you know what works properly.

You can possibly salvage the workable parts of the drive by doing a full erase without missing doing the optional one pass security or zero out on the drive.

An alternate suggestion would be to use DiskWarrior to possibly fix the "corruption".

So doing a time machine with the data on the drive the way it is, won't copy back and corrupt a newly zero'd drive right?? Meaning, I' not backing up corrupt data, its just way it's written to the drive.....?

 

[pm-r]

When you do a backup or a clone, you should get a message if the data is really corrupt.

And if you used CCC to make a backup clone and then booted from that clone, you'd find out what doesn't work if CCC didn't even give any warning - which would be unusual in my experience if the data was really corrupt.

They only way to tell is to try. Or start all over from scratch!! Shudder...