You know the symptoms: applications don’t open as fast as they used to, and you always seem to be running out of space on your hard drive. It’s painful to admit, but your MacBook Pro that was so shiny a year ago may finally be showing its age. But you don’t have to put your faithful companion out to pasture––or make another $2,000 trip to the Apple Store––just yet. Save those pennies while you work (and play) more productively by upgrading your MacBook Pro yourself.

It’s easier to do than you might think, due in part to the fact that we MacBook Pro owners don’t have nearly as many options as our pals with Mac Pros. In fact, our upgrade paths boil down to adding RAM and swapping out the current hard drive. Yet these upgrades can deliver serious performance gains, and thanks to Cupertino’s design sense, they’re relatively painless, too. Still, as with any major alteration to your Mac, don’t forget to back up your data before you get started.

Add More RAM

More RAM lets your Mac handle memory-intensive tasks like gaming, video editing, and running multiple applications simultaneously. Adding as much RAM as possible helps keep your Mac ready for these tasks for years to come, but you don’t necessarily need to install as much as your machine will hold. Even an extra gigabyte or two over your current configuration may be enough to make a difference in day-to-day use.

More RAM means a mightier, multi-tasking Mac.

For step-by-step instructions about finding out how much RAM you have, where to buy it, and how to open up your MacBook Pro and finally do the deed, check out our handy how-to.

Install a New Hard Drive

A higher-capacity HDD can breathe new life into your not-quite-old MacBook Pro.

A bigger hard disk drive (or HDD) means more room for songs, movies, apps, and documents. When shopping for a new HDD, remember that MacBook Pros use 2.5-inch SATA drives that run at 5400 or 7200 RPM. These speeds determine how quickly data can be read from, and written to, the drive (the more revolutions per minute, the faster your drive). The vendors mentioned in our RAM installation guide also make great sources for hard drives, and the documentation that came with your computer has information about how to install them. If your manual is someplace at the bottom of a drawer like ours, here’s a link to Apple’s manuals for the entire MacBook Pro line.

SSD drives cost more than conventional drives, but their speed benefits can be worth it.

But if you have a need for speed as well as storage, consider installing a solid-state drive (or SSD) instead. These drives use flash memory that has no moving parts, just like a MacBook Air, so data can be read from them even faster––even up to twice as fast as a conventional drive. If that sounds like a good deal, we don’t blame you. In fact, we’ve put together a how-to that will help you choose an SSD and install it while preserving your current data.