Best OS X upgrade?

[Hotspur00]

Hi,
I have a MacbookPro 13” mid 2010, model A1278, running 10.6.8 Snow Leopard, that has been sitting in a box for 8 months. I would like to upgrade the OS, but not sure if I should go all the way to the latest, which I guess is El Capitan. Recommendations? Thanks, Hotspur.

Profile:
Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro7,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 3 MB
Memory: 4 GB
Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz
Boot ROM Version: MBP71.0039.B0B
SMC Version (system): 1.62f7

 

[JTToft]

El Cap should work alright. But I would be a bit wary going beyond Mavericks if you're still on a traditional hard drive. Yosemite and El Cap really function best with an SSD.

 

[Count Blah]

Mavericks. IMHO. I"ve not taken my older macs beyond Mavericks, unless they had an SSD.

 

[Weaselboy]

Unless you have a copy of Yosemite or Mavericks sitting around, your decision has already been made for you because you can no longer download either from the App Store unless you previously "purchased" them and they are still in your purchases list.

I would just backup the current install the update to El Capitan and if you don't like it you can use the backup to go back to Snow Leopard.

 

[MrAverigeUser]

I´d upgrade at least Ram to 8 or even 16 GB (nowadays not expensive at all) and think about an SSD as well (prices are low as well now).
After all that you will feel like working with a new machine. Even with your SATA II limitation (which means nevertheless at least 5-times faster Write/Read transfer than any HDD!)

I don´t know if you still have to install TrimEnabler under ElCrap, but there are lots of people here who know by heart if and how to do this.