[Philistine]

My 15 inch MacBook Pro has its third birthday coming up, at this time it will be out of Apple Care and ripe for upgrading...
It's still running as good as new, but I want to speed it up and extend its life a few more years by adding a SSD.  The current HD is 250GB and has about 70GB of free space, looking at the OWC site I see the following options:

1) Replace the existing HD with a SSD of similar size

2) Replace the optical drive with a SSD, leave the HD in the machine

Option 1) is the easiest to do. 
With option 2 I see additional sub-options and a downside.  Option 2 will increase the power consumption, don't know how significant this is or not?
If I choose option 2 I need to decide the size of the SSD and how to configure it, do I use it just for the OS or do I also use it for application software?  This will also dictate the size I need.
As I rarely use the optical drive the plan would be to install it in a case and put it in the drawer until I need to use it.

Memory - currently it's 4GB, is it worth increasing it to 8GB?

Any advice on the SSD upgrade options, memory increase, or anything I've missed, would be appreciated...

[mathgeek97]

1) Replace the existing HD with a SSD of similar size
2) Replace the optical drive with a SSD, leave the HD in the machine

Memory - currently it's 4GB, is it worth increasing it to 8GB?

I'd favor option 1 just for convenience.  An SDD that plays nicely with a MacBook Pro is the Samsung 830 256GB for around $225.
At around $40, installing 2 x 4GB RAM modules seems like a no brainer.  Add those two upgrades and it'll seem like a much newer, faster machine!

Also, if you haven't already found them, I'd follow the guides at iFixit.com.

[Philistine]

I'd favor option 1 just for convenience.  An SDD that plays nicely with a MacBook Pro is the Samsung 830 256GB for around $225.
At around $40, installing 2 x 4GB RAM modules seems like a no brainer.  Add those two upgrades and it'll seem like a much newer, faster machine!

Thanks for the feedback.

This is the direction I was leaning towards, easier to implement and the best solution for battery management.  I'd been looking at the SSD's on OWC and totally missed Samsung, having read reviews this appears to be the SSD to get......order placed today!

[Philistine]

Job done...

Following mathgeek97's recommendation I checked out the Samsung 830 SSD and it get's rave reviews in the Apple community so I bought one from Amazon along with the memory upgrade.

Initially cloned the original hard drive and then, after talking to Apple, went down the path of a fresh OS install and backup from my Time Capsule - this was the best option as it gave me more hard drive space.  Apple also checked out the battery and it's running at 90% of original capacity, impressive for a 3 year old laptop.

Couldn't be happier:easy to do and put another few more years on my Macbook.

[TomS]

I see 3 different versions of the 256gb Samsung on Amazon and OWC. Which one did you get?

[jtwrace]

I've installed ~5 OWC (www.macsales.com) SSD and they have been flawless. 

FWIW

[Philistine]

I see 3 different versions of the 256gb Samsung on Amazon and OWC. Which one did you get?

The 3 versions are: laptop upgrade kit, desktop upgrade kit and stand alone drive - it looks like the SSD is the same for all options.  The kits have software, brackets and USB-eSATA adapters.  The laptop kit dropped down to within $3 of the stand alone drive so I bought this....didn't use the software or the bracket but the USB-eSATA bracket came in useful.

I've just read that they now have the Samsung 840 so we may see lower prices.  I want to put one in my iMac but don't relish the surgery.....

[TomS]

The 3 versions are: laptop upgrade kit, desktop upgrade kit and stand alone drive - it looks like the SSD is the same for all options.  The kits have software, brackets and USB-eSATA adapters.  The laptop kit dropped down to within $3 of the stand alone drive so I bought this....didn't use the software or the bracket but the USB-eSATA bracket came in useful.

I've just read that they now have the Samsung 840 so we may see lower prices.  I want to put one in my iMac but don't relish the surgery.....

Thanks!