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10.9.5 on MBP Mid 2010?

E

EhyEf

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 16, 2016
3
0
I need help if I should Update my MBP MID 2010. I have done no upgrades and I dont plan to :(
I have been reading alot of problems with mavericks. I know this is really outdated but I dont know if I could save the laptop from being deprecated entirely.
Or Maybe I could update to El Capitan?
 
While I don't use MBP it is hard to answer without more information such as: 1. What kind software you use, 2. Exact specs of the MBP, 3. Currently installed OS X?
 
Ebenezum said:
While I don't use MBP it is hard to answer without more information such as: 1. What kind software you use, 2. Exact specs of the MBP, 3. Currently installed OS X?
Click to expand...
I can only use Microsoft 2011 and outdated spotify since I only run 10.6.8. Specs are c2d, 4gb ram and, 250 gb hdd
 
Office 2011 should work, most of the problems I have seen are on the 2016 version.

Both Mavericks and El Capitan have higher requirements and c2d Macs have slow processor & GPU so its very likely it won't be as fast as 10.6.8.

If you have purchased Mavericks on the Mac App Store you could install it, at the moment its likely more bug free OS compared to El Capitan.

I am not saying El Capitan won't work for you but it has some issues that Apple hasn't completely solved yet (Mail, Spotlight, Time Machine and Disk Utility) to name a few.

You could also keep using 10.6.8 for a while and wait a few more updates to El Capitan before installing it.

If you decide to upgrade to newer OS X remember to make a backup to external drive first! You could use Time Machine or make a clone with Disk Utility, clone has the benefit being bootable so you can boot your Mac from it if necessary if the install bricks your Mac. (I'm not saying it will happen but its not impossible.)

For the record I'm still on Mavericks because neither 10.10 nor 10.11 have any benefits for my needs and both have clear downsides...
 
If you can happily use 10.6.8 for the tasks you need to accomplish, then I would recommend keeping it. Snow Leopard is very fast, very efficient, and one of the best versions of OSX ever made. The newer versions are more wasteful of resources, slower, and have a larger memory footprint.

If you need to upgrade then 10.9.5 is the best choice, much faster than Yosemite and El Capitan. However particularly on an older machine, I'd keep Snow Leopard if possible.

I'm running 10.6.8 on my 2010 machines, and 10.9.5 on my 2013+ machines. I downgraded from 10.10 and 10.11.3 after being dissatisfied with performance.
 
I run 10.9.5 on my mid 2010 15" MBP and it is excellent. I found Lion and Mountain Lion progressively slowed my machine as I upgraded from the original Snow Leopard OS.

HOWEVER, I did also take the time to upgrade my ram to 8GB and install an SSD. I have no doubt that both of these upgrades are largely the source of the speed boosts I received and these days you can buy both very reasonably. They are not hard to fit as there are loads of walkthroughs on here, youtube etc. I reckon I'll get another 5 years out of my MBP which is great because I still like to watch the odd DVD (remember those LOL).

I haven't upgraded to EL Cap yet because I like to let the new OS settle down but there are other people who have upgraded 2010 MBP's with no problems although I think they had also made similar ram and SSD upgrades.

Good luck with whatever you choose to do and remember backup first!
 
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