Macbook 13 (mid 2010) upgrade memory & hard drive

[Cheekysis]

Hello Mac peeps

I'm looking for an honest opinion from people who have tried this and what their results have been like.

I have a Macbook 13 (mid 2010) 2.4Ghz intel core duo. Since upgrading to Sierrra 10.12.6 its been so slow I want to throw it out the window. I've surfed all the threads and found that some of you have upgraded to an SSD and 8Gb ram, however I'm concerned that with a 2010 model (7 years old now) that actually the other hardware, logic board etc. will still keep it slow even if upgrades are made to the Ram and Hard drive.

Is there anyone out there that has upgraded both and can give me feed back on how they now find the speed?

And any recommendations on what does and doesn't work?

I'm looking at 8GB ram pack and 480GB SSD from Crucial (although they only recommend the 4GB pack). Total cost £213 ish. I don't want to spend this if its not going to improve speed and I should just put the money towards a new Mac.

Also Ive never upgraded before, tips or links to fitting these and do's and dont's, and help on once I've installed the new drive how to get the Mac back up and running (OS software etc) is it straight forward? I'm a newbie to this sort of thing.

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[robvas]

The SSD will make certain things much faster. Booting up, copying large files, starting programs, running updates...

The extra RAM will come in handy when you have lots of programs or lots of browser tabs open. If it's not much more to get 16GB, go for it.

You will still be held back by the graphics and the CPU, so things like games won't really be much faster, but it should make it much more enjoyable to use overall.

The other thing you might want to think about is selling it and then spending the 213 you were going to upgrade, and buy a used 2014 model or something like that. How is your battery? You might want to buy a new one if it does't last long and you want to use it away from the house.

 

[ZapNZs]

I have a 2010 MacBook Air with a similar Core2Duo Processor and 4GB of RAM + a (slow) SSD. It runs High Sierra reasonably well.

How much RAM does your current machine have? If only 2 GB, upgrading the RAM could be night-and-day. If 4 GB, how pronounced going to 8 GB may depend on what you do IMO.

When we do SSD upgrades or SSD+RAM for your machine, they always run a whole lot better. However, the bottleneck then becomes the processor/CPU, which often gets maxed out performing relatively basic tasks (such as playing a low resolution video on YoutTube). Depending on how you want to use the computer over the next several years, it may make sense to upgrade or it may make sense to put the money towards another machine with a Core iX series CPU, in my personal opinion.

 

[djdownhill]

I'm rocking 2010 Macbook as a daily driver.

My setup is:

240gb ADATA SP550 SSD,

8gb of A-Tech RAM

OS Sierra

Windows 10 Pro.

Boot times and running Sierra works better then the original setup it came with (2gb RAM and 320gb platter drive)

 

[covisio]

I'm looking at 8GB ram pack and 480GB SSD from Crucial (although they only recommend the 4GB pack). Total cost £213 ish. I don't want to spend this if its not going to improve speed and I should just put the money towards a new Mac.

Given that the cheapest new, portable Mac is the £949 MacBook Air, you still have a long way to go after putting your £213 towards it.

On that basis, I would say it's worth the spend. I have the same machine with 8GB RAM and the original mechanical HD and I get along OK. I do use an ad blocker on Safari, I find this helps a lot when browsing.

When I get some pennies I'm going to do the SSD.

Try the 8GB first, it's a relatively cheap spend and see if it helps. Give it a month then do the SSD. If you still find it unliveable with after that, well.......start saving

 

[YanniDepp]

It's definitely worth the upgrade. I've got two of them, a 2009 and a 2010, and both have been upgraded to a 500GB SSD and 8GB RAM.

The 2010 model can take 16GB RAM (the 2009 can only take 8GB).

Try the 8GB first, it's a relatively cheap spend and see if it helps. Give it a month then do the SSD.

Honestly, I'd say the opposite. Years ago, upgrading RAM would be the most effective way to get extra performance. But in this day and age, replacing a HDD with an SSD is far more effective. Especially on newer OS versions, which pretty much expect an SSD.

 

[covisio]

Honestly, I'd say the opposite. Years ago, upgrading RAM would be the most effective way to get extra performance. But in this day and age, replacing a HDD with an SSD is far more effective. Especially on newer OS versions, which pretty much expect an SSD.

[doublepost=1507736597][/doublepost]I agree, it's just that the RAM is £59 whilst a 500GB Crucial 480Gb-525Gb SSDs is in excess of £130, so a bit more of an investment.

 

[xyzmac]

Hi,
I have the same MacBook.
Whats your comment about cleaning or changing the heat sink after 7 years?
Recently I just clean up the fan during battery replacement.

Thank you
xyzmac

 

[jeyf]

with your s/n & model# research if your 2010 suffered from a GPU issue?
if so may not be worth putting the money into it