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2012 MacBook Pro on Yosemite

TribeFan1

TribeFan1

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 1, 2013
125
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I've got a 2012 non retina MacBook pro and having been looking into updating to Yosemite from Mavericks. The MacBook has 8GB RAM, the 2.6 i7, and the stock 750GB hard drive. So how does it run on this? And how does the screen look with Yosemite on a non retina display? Because the retina ones look awesome. Should I upgrade to 16GB RAM before doing so? I'm just looking for some pros and cons on updating, so thanks for all the tips and thoughts
 
TribeFan1 said:
I've got a 2012 non retina MacBook pro and having been looking into updating to Yosemite from Mavericks. The MacBook has 8GB RAM, the 2.6 i7, and the stock 750GB hard drive. So how does it run on this? And how does the screen look with Yosemite on a non retina display? Because the retina ones look awesome. Should I upgrade to 16GB RAM before doing so? I'm just looking for some pros and cons on updating, so thanks for all the tips and thoughts
Click to expand...

16GB RAM will cost about as much as 500GB SSD.

Go SSD IMO.
 
TribeFan1 said:
I've got a 2012 non retina MacBook pro and having been looking into updating to Yosemite from Mavericks. The MacBook has 8GB RAM, the 2.6 i7, and the stock 750GB hard drive. So how does it run on this? And how does the screen look with Yosemite on a non retina display? Because the retina ones look awesome. Should I upgrade to 16GB RAM before doing so? I'm just looking for some pros and cons on updating, so thanks for all the tips and thoughts
Click to expand...

8GB will be fine if it's fine on mavericks and it will be fine on El Capitan too.

The only real way to get better performance out of this machine is an SSD as mentioned above (and that really will give it a boost all round). Yosemite is currently pretty stable and much less buggy than at launch,


However I would say just wait and go straight to El Capitan on the 30th which has been an overhaul of Yosemite making it faster, less resource intense and more stable not to mention the increased graphics capabilities.
 
JackieInCo said:
Actually, it's much less. I bought 16GB RAM for my 2012 MBP for $74 on Amazon.
Click to expand...

It'll also have literally no effect if it's not used. As the Op has given no idea of how well mavericks deals with their workload and RAM (fine I have to assume) we have to make some assumptions, one is that 8GB is fine for their usage and that won't change on Yosemite.
 
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Samuelsan2001 said:
It'll also have literally no effect if it's not used. As the Op has given no idea of how well mavericks deals with their workload and RAM (fine I have to assume) we have to make some assumptions, one is that 8GB is fine for their usage and that won't change on Yosemite.
Click to expand...

Mavericks has been running well, although there are times where it gets laggy when running multiple apps or things like Photoshop and Illustrator. I do wish it would start up quicker and apps would load quicker, and I do realize that is an issue to be solved by SSD. I just want to make sure that when I upgrade, likely next week to El Capitan as suggested above.

What should I look out for when upgrading to an SSD? What are the best products then and what should I know about doing it? My concern is losing my Adobe CS 6 stuff and Microsoft office stuff
 
I don't use Adobe so can't help you their but their website should give you any info you need, your microsoft stuff will be fine.

As for SSD's I would suggest the crucial mx200 range for your particular computer as it will make use of the fast IO with it's sata 3 connections and is cheap, reliable and works well in macs.

No real issues just copy your drive to the SSD with an external enclosure using carbon copy cloner and swap it into the machine hey presto SSD equipped mac.
 
8gb RAM should be fine.

What you -really- need is an SSD in there.

ANY SSD will do -- you don't need the "latest/greatest/fastest" for a 2012 MacBook Pro.
There are a couple of good deals on SSDs ($70 for 240gb) today over at dealnews.com ...
(no financial interest to above recommendation)
 
Thanks for the help. What I do need is a lot of storage on the SSD, I have a lot of media (music, movies, tv shows, and photos) on my computer.

For those who have non retina screens, how does the new software look on the screens? It looks amazing on the retina ones, I just don't want to hate looking at a screen that looks terrible with the new software.
 
TribeFan1 said:
For those who have non retina screens, how does the new software look on the screens? It looks amazing on the retina ones, I just don't want to hate looking at a screen that looks terrible with the new software.
Click to expand...

i have an Mid-2010 13" MBP w/ a glossy display and runs Yosemite with no issues and to me looks good. i'm also running 8gb of RAM so in my opinion all you need as others have mentioned is a SSD.

since you have a 750gb, an SSD of that size will be quite pricey. an option may be to buy 250gb SSD as your main drive and place your 750gb in the optical bay as a secondary drive for all your files.
 
Thanks for all the help. I was look at Crucial's website and their reviews for the mx200 say that theres some sleep/wake issues with Yosemite and the SSD. Has anyone had those or is there a way to fix it?
 
TribeFan1 said:
Thanks for all the help. I was look at Crucial's website and their reviews for the mx200 say that theres some sleep/wake issues with Yosemite and the SSD. Has anyone had those or is there a way to fix it?
Click to expand...

So i took some of the advice here and waited for El Capitan. I think a new SSD is the way to go on it, and the only large size one is the MX200 for $329 or so on Amazon for 1 TB. Is the job easy to do? Thanks again for all the help
 
TribeFan1 said:
Mavericks has been running well, although there are times where it gets laggy when running multiple apps or things like Photoshop and Illustrator. I do wish it would start up quicker and apps would load quicker, and I do realize that is an issue to be solved by SSD. I just want to make sure that when I upgrade, likely next week to El Capitan as suggested above.

What should I look out for when upgrading to an SSD? What are the best products then and what should I know about doing it? My concern is losing my Adobe CS 6 stuff and Microsoft office stuff
Click to expand...

I don´t really think your sluggishness is related to Mavericks but your HDD. As soon as you jump to an SSD you will have blazing speeds. Considering that El Cap was released today I would skip Yosemite.
 
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