I have a quite “old” Apple MacBook Pro from late 2009. It’s an 15″ MBP with a 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 8GB RAM:

Mac Book Config

Over time I thought that it’s getting slightly slow, so the question was either to go for a current model or to do some tuning. Usually I change computers every 3 to 4 years, meaning I would go for the tuning. As the upper RAM limit is reached with 8 GB RAM, I read into changing the Harddisk with a SSD Drive. SSD Drives are fast but unfortunately pretty expensive. 64, 128, 256 are the most commonly sold these days. As my 500 GB factory drive was quite well used and I need to store lots of GBs during Photo Sessions I decided to go for a 512GB drive, despite the awful price. In the end I didn’t want to trade speed in with limited capacity… The one I chose, a Crucial M4 512GB, brought me down by CHF 849 (approx. USD 900) – but for a SSD of that size it’s still one of the cheaper ones.

Crucial M4 512

To replace your Harddisk with a SSD, many people recommend to install the OS from scratch and then to install all apps from scratch, too. A frequently discussed alternative is to re-install the OS freshly and to restore data via TimeMachine or backup/restore. Lazy, I didn’t follow these options and chose the 3rd alternative: cloning the disk. This means doing a 1:1 copy of the HDD to the SDD, installing the SSD – ready.
To clone your HDD you need two things: a cloning software and a kit to connect the SDD via USB or Firewire to your Macbook.
There are two widely used cloning softwares available for free: Carbon Copy Cloner (CCC) and SuperDuper. Each of the two has a passionate Fan Community – I tried both and felt there were not so huge differences. In each cloning software you chose the source drive and the target drive and click “clone”.

Both applications provide numerous options – I think the main differences are here – but I just went with “standard” settings which worked fine for me.
The SATA connection set I chose (to connect the SSD to the MAC) comes from Newer Technology and is called “USB 3.0 Universal Drive Adapter”. This was another CHF 55 investment.
My 512GB HDD was used with 370 GB of data. The cloning process with CCC took approx. 6 hours. Once the software said “done”, I shut down the Mac, dismounted the HDD and installed the SDD. Details on the way to open your MAC and to change the drives is documented step by step on IFixIt.
This replacement went very fast and took only approx. 10 minutes (10 screws for the housing and the disk, 4 screws on the disk and unplugging the old and plugging the new drive).
Then the big moment arrived: will it work and will I sense the difference…
Answer is 2 times “yes”. The Mac booted as usual – but much much faster this time. Really impressive. I did not measure the times before and after – but the difference is significant. There are many websites illustrating the differences in precise, scientific measurements – so I did not wast time on this.
Once the OS was up, I launched randomly some of the applications in order to see what has changed. Here the same: the effect was making me smile
With the time some of the applications took long to launch and be ready for use (e.g. Adobe Photoshop CS5 or even Firefox). Now Photoshop starts in 3-4 seconds!

In short, I am extremely satisfied with the upgrade. It’s said, that the performance of SSD will degrade over time (this has to do with the physics of SSD – used “blocks” have to be erased before they can be rewritten). Manufacturers say with using updated technology like “Trim” or proprietary “Garbage Collection” this effect does no longer appear. I will see this over time. For the moment I’m happy – I’ll let you know if that changes over time!