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I have a mid-2009 Macbook Pro13" Unibody 2.56 GHz and would like suggestions as to how/possible upgrades in all respects: Logic Board, RAM and Hard Drive. I also think it would be appropriate to mention that I am ashamed to have selected a new MacBook Pro 13" 2.7 GHz Intel Core i5 without the crucial upgrade-ability that the machines have had since their inception. I don’t see any major improvemet in fact I detest the force touch trackpad, the battery. and HD are glued in place and of course as we all knokw it barely breakes 20mph while running any application of signifigance. I spoke to Kyle about using the water-jet cutting system to slice the darn thing in half so every day I use it I won’t continually be dissapointed with the company in general for so crudely getting over on many of us new Macbook owners. I have 2 - PowerBook 300 (Wall Street) units, a Mac SE 30 that I use as a soccer ball (it’s square) and it still works beautifully! Trapped and dissapointed! Update (06/07/2016) Hey Dan I think you are right. If I was to go with purchase of a gently used 13" or 15" or perhaps since I stay at home most days now,, how far back was the glue bottle utilized. Can I get a 15" from say 2013 or 14 that is still fully up-gradable? I could live very comfortably in Yosemite, shy away from the surfer / beach life at Mavericks cuz my surfboard broke up into seven pieces the last time i was brave enuf to paddle out….hozit I never realzied before that APPLE is on they decline and path to meet Dante.? Thanks!

You have the better unit of the two in this series (Core 2 Duo). Sadly, you can’t slide in a newer logic board as the mountings & port layout is very different. So that only leaves you the option to upgrade the RAM & storage. I would max out the RAM here if you hadn’t already to 8 GB, I would also recommend upgrading the original HD to a hybrid drive like the Seagate SSHD or if you can swing it you might think about going with a SSD. But be careful here! Your system only has a SATA II (3.0 Gb/s) SATA interface so the SSD you get needs to support SATA II. You should also make sure your systems firmware is up to date, follow this Apple T/N to check and update: About EFI and SMC firmware updates for Intel-based Mac computers make sure yours is at or newer that what is listed here. As to the drives size you do want to leave between 1/4 to 1/3 of the drive space free, more so in a limited RAM system like yours. So look at how much stuff you have on your current drive and add to it to gage what you’ll need. You may also want to peel away as much junk and old stuff you don’t need off to lessen the needed drive. You’ll find SSD’s are the most expensive when you get to 1 TB vs a SSHD so keep that in mind. The other option here is locate a used pre retina i5/i7 model system which does offer both RAM & storage upgrades over the newer retina models which only offer SSD upgrading. I should also point out other MS Windows (cough!) system makers are also following Apples lead here with soldered RAM and limited storage options so that is the direction going forward. Good Luck!

Upgrade to an SSD of capacity above 500gb and swap out the optical drive for additional storage with an optical expansion bay(opti bay). A 2009 MacBook is still very useable today. The SSD would increase the usable speed, in fact, the mechanical HDD is a relic compared to every other component in the computer. You will not regret it! i would also check if OWC has a memory upgrade beyond 8GB, I recall the 2009s could do 12gb but I could be wrong.