Anyone want to share their experience going from Snow Leopard straight to Yosemite on a 2009 MacBook Pro 5,5?

I've been dragging my feet about upgrading my OS since Snow Leopard has always been good and stable, and I didn't seem much in 7 or 8 to convince me to switch. But with a lot of software no longer supporting 10.6, the time has come.

Now, though, I'm hesitant of making such a huge leap to 10.10 because I'm afraid of taking a huge hit in speed and performance. I'm far too impatient to wait for my computer to do something slowly that it once did quickly.

So I'm hoping there are some StackExchangers out there who've done the same to a similar machine, and can tell me how it went.

I have a MacBook Pro 5,5 (Mid-2009) with 8GB of RAM, a 2.26Mhz Intel Core 2 Duo, and a 5400rpm 500GB drive. (I know I can reduce any speed hit by switching to an SSD, but that's a lot of money to sink into a 6 year old computer.)

Anyone have a story to tell?

Thanks in advance.