Pimping my MacBook Pro late 2008 – Part 3: setting up an SSD as second disk bootable

Putting an SSD as second disk on the MacBook Pro late 2008 is relatively easy. There are just two delicate moments to deal with, the wiring is fragile and requires steady hands, and the last step of the process consists of creating symbolic links (using the Terminal). I am satisfied with the results, 8 GB RAM and a 60 GB SSD as boot disk, OSX Lion: the boot time has more than doubled, and the sleep and wake times even more. The usually sluggish apps such as Mac Mail run faster now. I’ve not got time to benchmark everything, but my MacBook Pro definitely feels like new and it performs much better than it ever did. I think this budget upgrade is well worth it, if you haven’t got the big dosh to buy one of the new MacBook Airs. Keeping the user home folder on the original disk somehow impedes the performance because that path is still in daily uses. But I think that isn’t a huge compromise.