Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Tyler9627

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 20, 2013
8
6
CT, USA
Hey MacRumors people: Longtime reader here, but don't tend to post. But I could use your advice.

I have a 13" late-2011 Mac Book Pro running Yosemite, and use is as a secondary machine for doing my graphic design work, primarily InDesign, Photoshop, and web browsers. Lately, the thing has been unbearably slow. Is there anything I can do to speed it up? It's got 4 gigs of ram. I see Crucial has a 16 gig upgrade kit, but they're out of stock. And I don't know enough about ram to pick out the right type without using their "Crucial Advisor Tool". I'd like to max it out at 16 gigs, if possible.

Can you A) point me to another good source of the correct ram I'd need, and B) give any other suggestions for speeding it up? The system is already pretty lean (i.e. not much in the photo library, no music or videos... I really just use it as a work machine with the Adobe CC suite.

I'd really prefer to fix it up and keep it running a little longer rather than buying a new MBP (much as I LOOOVE the retina display on the newer ones.)

Thanks for your help.
—T
 
I have a feeling that Yosemite has slowed things down for a lot of us with older macs, I have a 2012 and have been experiencing slow downs/freezes only recently after getting the latest upgrade to Yosemite...
 
  • Like
Reactions: Tyler9627
Hey MacRumors people: Longtime reader here, but don't tend to post. But I could use your advice.

I have a 13" late-2011 Mac Book Pro running Yosemite, and use is as a secondary machine for doing my graphic design work, primarily InDesign, Photoshop, and web browsers. Lately, the thing has been unbearably slow. Is there anything I can do to speed it up? It's got 4 gigs of ram. I see Crucial has a 16 gig upgrade kit, but they're out of stock. And I don't know enough about ram to pick out the right type without using their "Crucial Advisor Tool". I'd like to max it out at 16 gigs, if possible.

Can you A) point me to another good source of the correct ram I'd need, and B) give any other suggestions for speeding it up? The system is already pretty lean (i.e. not much in the photo library, no music or videos... I really just use it as a work machine with the Adobe CC suite.

I'd really prefer to fix it up and keep it running a little longer rather than buying a new MBP (much as I LOOOVE the retina display on the newer ones.)

Thanks for your help.
—T

Are you sure that you're actually running out of RAM? Because unless you are, more RAM will do absolutely nothing to help any slowness you're experiencing.

As far as specs, so long as you're using 1333MHz, 204-pin SO-DIMM, it'll work. RAM is RAM. Use the crucial tool, that's great, if you find something cheaper, just make sure the specs match to what it gave you and you're good to go.
 
Ram isn't your problem... It's the old spinny disk. I finally got around to upgrading our 2011 15" to an SSD and it's turned the old girl into a speed demon. The difference is night and day. I ended up getting a 480GB Sandisk Extreme Pro for $189. While I was in there, I also picked up a single 8GB ram stick off of Amazon for like $40... I think it was a Kingston stick.

As long as the specs match and it works right.. The brand doesn't really matter.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Tyler9627
I have a 13" late-2011 Mac Book Pro running Yosemite, and use is as a secondary machine for doing my graphic design work, primarily InDesign, Photoshop, and web browsers. Lately, the thing has been unbearably slow. Is there anything I can do to speed it up? It's got 4 gigs of ram. I see Crucial has a 16 gig upgrade kit, but they're out of stock. And I don't know enough about ram to pick out the right type without using their "Crucial Advisor Tool". I'd like to max it out at 16 gigs, if possible.
Can you A) point me to another good source of the correct ram I'd need, and B) give any other suggestions for speeding it up? The system is already pretty lean (i.e. not much in the photo library, no music or videos... I really just use it as a work machine with the Adobe CC suite.
A) Crucial RAM 204-pin PC-10600 (1333 MHz) DDR3 SO-DIMM at Amazon:
http://smile.amazon.com/Crucial-PC3...ords=204-pin+PC-10600+(1333+MHz)+DDR3+SO-DIMM
B) I think the best performance improvement would be from installing an SSD. Your spinner HDD is getting old and could be slowing. I like the Crucial MX200.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Tyler9627
Thanks folks. I'm hearing from everyone that it's more likely the hard drive that's the issue. So I guess I'll be upgrading to a new quick SSD. Thanks a lot for your replies!
 
I have a quad core 2011 with 16GB RAM. It is the hard drive. I have been waiting for a 2TB SSD, but now I'm holding on for Micron.

After that, 4GiB RAM was OK for basic use years ago, today it would be like 8, maybe 6.

16GiB RAM is no longer enough for real power users since a couple years now.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Tyler9627
After that, 4GiB RAM was OK for basic use years ago, today it would be like 8, maybe 6.

16GiB RAM is no longer enough for real power users since a couple years now.

You definitely pulled that out of your ass. There are plenty of people still using 4GB for light uses. Heck, almost all of the Engineering CAD computers at my university still run on 4GB. And people design bridges, highways, retaining walls, etc. on those machines. 16GB is pretty much still overkill for everyone except heavy VM users and people video editing in 4K.
 
Last edited:
You definitely pulled that out of your ass. There are plenty of people still using 4GB for light uses. Heck, almost all of the Engineering CAD computers at my university still run on 4GB. And people design bridges, highways, retaining walls, etc. on those machines. 16GB is pretty much still overkill for everyone except heavy VM users and people video editing in 4K.

Of course there's a lot of people still using 4GiB for basic tasks. But it is suboptimal for a current OS.

You don't need to be a really heavy user for 16GiB not to be overkill.

Just with Safari open, I am using more than 5GiB.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Tyler9627
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.