2010 MacBook Pro questions

[Savage]

I just wiped the dust off my wife's mid 2010 MBP. I did a clean macOS install; the newest compatible version is High Sierra 10.13.6.

It appears to be a pretty usable device, even in 2021. But I'd like to beef it up before she uses it, if possible.

Questions:

• Should I keep it on High Sierra or should I attempt to put Big Sur on it? I'm thinking High Sierra because she doesn't need anything special, just performance and reliability. But if Big Sur is known to work well on a 2010, I'd be willing to try it.
• I think it might need a new battery. Is there a way to check battery life? If I'm going to replace the battery, any suggestions on where I should buy it from/which model to buy?
• I'd like to upgrade the 320 GB HDD to a SSD. Any suggestions? What should I know as far as compatibility goes?
• I'd like to upgrade the RAM as well. There are two RAM slots which each have a 2 GB stick in them right now. Same thing... anything I should know about compatibility? About This Mac does mention it accepts 1067 MHz DDR3; would any of those be fine? Is there a GB limit?

Not sure if this is relevant to my questions, but this MacBook has the 2.66 GHz Intel Core Duo.

I'm looking forward to pushing this thing for as long as possible.

 

[justashooter]

I would stay with the last supported version for that MBP. So High Sierra is good for it. There are ways to install new unsupported version but I have never tried them (and if I did I would probably go only to Mojave).
Buying new batteries are a crap shoot for these 2009 - 2012 MBP's (is this a 13 inch or 15 inch). Most that you can buy now won't last as long as the original has. Hard to tell quality, are they counterfeit if claimed to by Apple batteries. If you go to the Apple > System Report and click on Power, it will tell you the charge cycle count and the condition. If condition says normal and battery is not swollen, I would stay with that battery. One symptom of a swollen battery is the track pad is hard to press, the battery swells and pushed against the track pad.
I like Crucial SSD's, I have installed both Crucial MX500 and Samsung 850 EVO 500gb. The Crucial runs about $55 locally (Michigan).
As for the ram, I find them used on ebay and have not had a problem. You can go to 16gb on the 2010 (Apple specs say only 8gb), but unless you are trying to video edit or heavy photoshop, 8gb rams is quite sufficient for that MBP. I like OWC, Micron, Crucial, Kingston ram brands for MBP's and you should be able to find 2 4gb chips for around $30.
I would also use FireFox web browser because I believe it is still updated for High Sierra, Safari is not. It will be a fine computer for email, web browsing, writing documents, etc.

 

[Savage]

I would stay with the last supported version for that MBP. So High Sierra is good for it. There are ways to install new unsupported version but I have never tried them (and if I did I would probably go only to Mojave).
Buying new batteries are a crap shoot for these 2009 - 2012 MBP's (is this a 13 inch or 15 inch). Most that you can buy now won't last as long as the original has. Hard to tell quality, are they counterfeit if claimed to by Apple batteries. If you go to the Apple > System Report and click on Power, it will tell you the charge cycle count and the condition. If condition says normal and battery is not swollen, I would stay with that battery. One symptom of a swollen battery is the track pad is hard to press, the battery swells and pushed against the track pad.
I like Crucial SSD's, I have installed both Crucial MX500 and Samsung 850 EVO 500gb. The Crucial runs about $55 locally (Michigan).
As for the ram, I find them used on ebay and have not had a problem. You can go to 16gb on the 2010 (Apple specs say only 8gb), but unless you are trying to video edit or heavy photoshop, 8gb rams is quite sufficient for that MBP. I like OWC, Micron, Crucial, Kingston ram brands for MBP's and you should be able to find 2 4gb chips for around $30.
I would also use FireFox web browser because I believe it is still updated for High Sierra, Safari is not. It will be a fine computer for email, web browsing, writing documents, etc.

Very helpful, thank you. This one is a 13”.

 

[Amethyst1]

Mojave was noticeably slower than HS on my 2009 Mac mini (2.66GHz C2D too), so I'd second the suggestion to stay on HS. I have a 250GB Intenso SSD in mine - cheap and works well. I've had good experiences with SanDisk (Ultra II), Samsung (850 Evo) and Crucial (BX500) SSDs as well.

 

[Fishrrman]

Leave it on High Sierra.

Get a 2.5" SATA SSD.
DO NOT "buy for speed".
DO "buy for price".
A 500gb SSD is all you need. I like Crucial and Sandisk.

Also, get one of these:

SABRENT 2.5 Inch SATA to USB 3.0 Tool Free External Hard Drive Enclosure [Optimized for SSD, Support UASP SATA III] Black (EC-UASP)

SABRENT 2.5 Inch SATA to USB 3.0 Tool Free External Hard Drive Enclosure [Optimized for SSD, Support UASP SATA III] Black (EC-UASP)

tinyurl.com

When you get the SSD, put it into the EXTERNAL enclosure first.
Use it this way to "prep and test" it BEFORE you install it into the MBP.
This way, if something goes wrong, YOU STILL HAVE A WORKING MBP.

I would use disk utility to erase the SSD to Mac OS extended with journaling enabled, GUID partition format.
Then, I'd download CarbonCopyCloner from here:

Download CCC - Bombich Software

www.bombich.com

CCC is FREE to download and use for 30 days -- doing it "my way" costs you nothing.
Then, use CCC to clone the contents of the old drive to the SSD.
CCC may ask if you wish to clone the recovery partition as well -- YES, do this!

When done, TEST the cloned SSD by rebooting and holding down the option key until the startup manager appears.
Select the SSD (still in the external enclosure) and hit return.
Do you get a good boot?
Look around, if things look ok, you're ready to exchange drives.

When it's time to do the swap, be sure to use the right tools:
Phillips #00 for the screws on the back
Torx T-6 for the bosses on the side of the drive.

Go to ifixit.com to see what's involved.

Ifixit sells batteries, too, but I have heard mixed reviews on them.
Buying ANY 3rd party battery is a crapshoot.
If I needed one, I'd probably try OWC.
But again, you will never get the performance from a replacement battery as you did from the factory-installed Apple original.

When everything is done, put the old SSD into the enclosure.
It can now become a backup, external storage, etc...

 

[ConfusedPear]

Hi! I have a 2010 15" MBPro, my daily driver.

- I run High Sierra 10.13.6 on it, pretty stable - better leave it this way;
- Also got 8GB RAM (the maximum of this model, not sure about the 13"), still decent for 2021 standards;
- Swapped the HD for a Crucial SSD and it was life changing - do not bother with speed, cause this model only supports SATA2 speeds, go for space/price, as @Fishrrman said;
- Still running the original battery, with 1022 cycles - it is plugged to power almost every time - and it lasts around 3h, when disconnected from power cord, depending on the task.

I used the CCC to clone the old HD to the new SSD and everything went well. Did it almost 4 years ago.

Also hoping to push this machine as long as possible

Edit: last summer I've also applied new thermal paste to the processor/graphics card. If you're able to perform such task, I really recommend it.

 

[Savage]

Leave it on High Sierra.

Get a 2.5" SATA SSD.
DO NOT "buy for speed".
DO "buy for price".
A 500gb SSD is all you need. I like Crucial and Sandisk.

Also, get one of these:

SABRENT 2.5 Inch SATA to USB 3.0 Tool Free External Hard Drive Enclosure [Optimized for SSD, Support UASP SATA III] Black (EC-UASP)

SABRENT 2.5 Inch SATA to USB 3.0 Tool Free External Hard Drive Enclosure [Optimized for SSD, Support UASP SATA III] Black (EC-UASP)

tinyurl.com

When you get the SSD, put it into the EXTERNAL enclosure first.
Use it this way to "prep and test" it BEFORE you install it into the MBP.
This way, if something goes wrong, YOU STILL HAVE A WORKING MBP.

I would use disk utility to erase the SSD to Mac OS extended with journaling enabled, GUID partition format.
Then, I'd download CarbonCopyCloner from here:

Download CCC - Bombich Software

www.bombich.com

CCC is FREE to download and use for 30 days -- doing it "my way" costs you nothing.
Then, use CCC to clone the contents of the old drive to the SSD.
CCC may ask if you wish to clone the recovery partition as well -- YES, do this!

When done, TEST the cloned SSD by rebooting and holding down the option key until the startup manager appears.
Select the SSD (still in the external enclosure) and hit return.
Do you get a good boot?
Look around, if things look ok, you're ready to exchange drives.

When it's time to do the swap, be sure to use the right tools:
Phillips #00 for the screws on the back
Torx T-6 for the bosses on the side of the drive.

Go to ifixit.com to see what's involved.

Ifixit sells batteries, too, but I have heard mixed reviews on them.
Buying ANY 3rd party battery is a crapshoot.
If I needed one, I'd probably try OWC.
But again, you will never get the performance from a replacement battery as you did from the factory-installed Apple original.

When everything is done, put the old SSD into the enclosure.
It can now become a backup, external storage, etc...

Go info! Two things:

I read that APFS is better for a SSD (and newer).

I don't think I'll need CCC because I don't have anything to transfer from the old HDD. It will be a clean install -- all of her stuff is in iCloud. Therefore, I can skip CCC, right?

 

[Savage]

Hi! I have a 2010 15" MBPro, my daily driver.

- I run High Sierra 10.13.6 on it, pretty stable - better leave it this way;
- Also got 8GB RAM (the maximum of this model, not sure about the 13"), still decent for 2021 standards;
- Swapped the HD for a Crucial SSD and it was life changing - do not bother with speed, cause this model only supports SATA2 speeds, go for space/price, as @Fishrrman said;
- Still running the original battery, with 1022 cycles - it is plugged to power almost every time - and it lasts around 3h, when disconnected from power cord, depending on the task.

I used the CCC to clone the old HD to the new SSD and everything went well. Did it almost 4 years ago.

Also hoping to push this machine as long as possible

Edit: last summer I've also applied new thermal paste to the processor/graphics card. If you're able to perform such task, I really recommend it.

Good to hear! Thanks for the info.

 

[justashooter]

Yes, you can skip the CCC step. I didn't bring it up in my post because you are doing a clean install. I'm not sure High Sierra supports APFS, but I know HFS runs fine on a SSD. You should enable TRIM on it after you install the OS. Search enable TRIM on OS X for instructions. Real simple to do in Terminal.

 

[loby]

High Sierra does well on the 13" MacBook Pro 2010. I duel boot with it and run various older OS's and software on it. It is a decent older laptop and if you put 16 GB of RAM, and SSD and a new battery (mileage varies) is plus. I swapped out the DVD for a Blu-ray player and its a decent laptop even now in 2021. Not my daily driver, but...if I wanted to for general stuff, it works still good.