Breathing new life into a 2010 Macbook pro

[Doc Holiday]

So, I've decided to try and Breath some life into my 2010 Macbook pro, I've neglected it terribly bad these past two years and have spent most of the day doing some much needed cleaning. Now my question is has anyone refurbished one of these before? and if so any suggestions?  I would like to do the whole upgrade for around $300.

Right now I have a 250GB HDD and 4GB ram, I would like to go to 8GB Ram or more if possible. and a 1TB HDD would be nice too.

I wont be using it for gaming, but some video editing, and your usually school/work stuff.

[d-dave]

The best bet is going to be a SSD.  My wife is the same macbook, and we dropped a 500gb Samsung 850 SSD in it.  Night and day different as far as usability.  I mean we paid $175 for it on amazon, and we should easily get another 2+ years out of it even now.  

And as I've gotten used to having a smaller HDD (128GB on my last computer), I move stuff all the time.  Get a decent external HDD for projects you aren't using

If you have the budget for the 8gb, do it.  I've done a fair amount of 720p/480p video editing on 4gb using Premiere (on a windows machine), and it was a struggle.  Having more than two layers (video+overlay) and audio files coming in and out just chewed through the ram on my old computer.

Good luck!  A SSD HDD is going to make a world of difference!

[Sapper]

Yea, like d-dave said, go for SSD all day.  HDD still has its uses (especially for mainframes) but there aren't many.

I found this off Tom's:  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LMXBOP4/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_S_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=XHEIU2IZ4ZXL&coliid=I2RLRMUAE04CLB&psc=1&tag=viglink20237-20

They had a few benchmarks on some newer models on cnet and techradar worth looking into it seems.

I'm not sure on your RAM spec/requirements - but this popped up based on what you mentioned:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233179

8GB should be more than enough, and RAM is a very cheap component.

Keeps you under $200 and should get you up to speed with where you need to be.  As for additional storage, I always opt for cloud.  But if you need the comfort level of a handheld, there's always the scalable:

http://www.amazon.com/Passport-Ultra-Portable-External-Drive/dp/B00E83X9P8/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1440910894&sr=1-1&keywords=external+hdd&pebp=1440914532334&perid=0CD3J8TJ7065MYA2YCHA

[Doc Holiday]

The best bet is going to be a SSD.  My wife is the same macbook, and we dropped a 500gb Samsung 850 SSD in it.  Night and day different as far as usability.  I mean we paid $175 for it on amazon, and we should easily get another 2+ years out of it even now.  

And as I've gotten used to having a smaller HDD (128GB on my last computer), I move stuff all the time.  Get a decent external HDD for projects you aren't using

If you have the budget for the 8gb, do it.  I've done a fair amount of 720p/480p video editing on 4gb using Premiere (on a windows machine), and it was a struggle.  Having more than two layers (video+overlay) and audio files coming in and out just chewed through the ram on my old computer.

Good luck!  A SSD HDD is going to make a world of difference!

Yeah, I've had some issues with video editing, some stuff has been coming out chewed up as you said.

[Doc Holiday]

Thanks guys, this is all great info, and total will be in budget!

[PandaPancake]

I refuse to believe the Huddle was helpful in anyway.