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Possible Upgrade to macOS High Sierra

M

MacBookpro2011

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 19, 2017
134
70
Ontario, Canada
I am using an older MacBook Pro (13 inch early 2011) with OS X EI Capitan Ver 10.11.6 Is this older system I am using able to handle another upgrade to the current macOS High Sierra? EI Capitan works pretty good, have been getting alot of spinning balls since upgrading a while back to it. For general internet use and watching videos etc is works fine. Thanks for any info.

MacBook Pro (13-inch, Early 2011)
Processor 2.3 GHz Intel Core i5
Memory 4 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
 
I wish I could go back to an older OS...this High sierra has for me...the following problems: Apple Mail no longer had preferences....in box is now not viewable....finder can not find much of what I am looking for ....I see no advantage to this new OS...I would call it a disaster.
 
My late 2013 iMac was not quite as fluid with High Sierra and I had a few issues with mail and preview which really made me wish I had not upgraded. The other day the load bar would not finish the load sequence and was unable to start up. I tried re installing High Sierra with the same results so off to the Apple Store I went. At the Apple Store the Genius Bar tech re installed Sierra and I'm back to a nice fluid experience.
 
MacBookpro2011 said:
I am using an older MacBook Pro (13 inch early 2011) with OS X EI Capitan Ver 10.11.6 Is this older system I am using able to handle another upgrade to the current macOS High Sierra? EI Capitan works pretty good, have been getting alot of spinning balls since upgrading a while back to it. For general internet use and watching videos etc is works fine. Thanks for any info.

MacBook Pro (13-inch, Early 2011)
Processor 2.3 GHz Intel Core i5
Memory 4 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
Click to expand...
Here is the list of Macs compatible with macOS High Sierra.

Source: Apple Support

I am happily running High Sierra on a Mac mini 2010 as well as a MacBook Air 2013. Both of my systems have 8 GB RAM and SSDs.
 
I have a MacBook Pro from 2012. For years I stuck with OS X 10.8.5 because later versions were incompatible with my printer. Finally the printer died, and I upgraded to 10.13, for which Epson amazingly already had a driver available at launch. Anyway, laptop and printer are doing fine. I don't have any complaints, although I'm probably the most unsophisticated user on this site.
 
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MacBookpro2011 said:
I am using an older MacBook Pro (13 inch early 2011) with OS X EI Capitan Ver 10.11.6 Is this older system I am using able to handle another upgrade to the current macOS High Sierra? EI Capitan works pretty good, have been getting alot of spinning balls since upgrading a while back to it. For general internet use and watching videos etc is works fine. Thanks for any info.

MacBook Pro (13-inch, Early 2011)
Processor 2.3 GHz Intel Core i5
Memory 4 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
Click to expand...

I had a macbook 2010.
2.4GHz core2duo
8gb 1066MHz DDR3
240GB SSD
ran el cap, then Sierra then High Sierra until the GPU gave out last week.

firstly fitting an SSD will vastly help the beachball issue. It did for me.

Make a backup of ur machine before you upgrade to Sierra/high Sierra that way can go back.

Your Mac should run it well, maybe bit more ram.
but I have a 2012 MacBook Air 1.7GHz i5 and 4GB ran running HS right now and it's fine bar the iMessage delay issue.
 
OP wrote:
"EI Capitan works pretty good, have been getting alot of spinning balls since upgrading a while back to it. For general internet use and watching videos etc is works fine. Thanks for any info."

Chances are the "spinning beach balls" aren't coming from El Capitan.
If you still have a platter-based hard drive inside, THAT'S WHERE they're coming from.
Platter-based HDD's can't keep up with the demands that versions of the OS since Mavericks place on them. They "run", but the running seems more like "walking" to the user.

Replace it with an SSD (simple procedure that anyone can do), and I promise you that things will go MUCH faster!

Having said that, I'd try the drive upgrade first.
IF you're satisfied with the performance boost, and IF El Capitan is doing everything for you that you need, I think you'd best "hold off a while" before thinking about High Sierra. It's still very much "a work in progress".
 
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Can anyone recommend what brand of Ram to buy and SSD for my MacBook Pro late 2011 500 GB SATA Disk with 4gb of RAM? Thanks

Screen Shot 2017-11-27 at 2.34.38 PM.png
 
Last edited:
pdxmatts said:
Can anyone recommend what brand of Ram to buy and SSD for my MacBook Pro late 2011 500 GB SATA Disk with 4gb of RAM? Thanks

View attachment 738656
Click to expand...

2x8GB 1333MHz DDR3 SO-DIMM. Crucial DIMM usually work well.

Pretty much any SATA SSD can do the job, but if you want something widely available, have lots of review, and with proper warranty support, then Samsung 850Evo is one of the good choice.
 
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h9826790 said:
2x8GB 1333MHz DDR3 SO-DIMM. Crucial DIMM usually work well.

Pretty much any SATA SSD can do the job, but if you want something widely available, have lots of review, and with proper warranty support, then Samsung 850Evo is one of the good choice.
Click to expand...
Thanks, but it says for my model that it will only go up to 8gb of Ram which would be 2x4gb and I am not sure what a good price is. There are so many on Amazon.
 
pdxmatts said:
Thanks, but it says for my model that it will only go up to 8gb of Ram which would be 2x4gb and I am not sure what a good price is. There are so many on Amazon.
Click to expand...

2x4 is the max defined by Apple, not the real world limit. There are lots of reason why it happen.

For example, when the machine was under development, there was no 8GB SO-DIMM available. In this case, since Apple never test this config, they of course won't say the machine can support 2x8GB. And once the limit is publish, they never update it. So, I will treat that's the Max demonstrated limit by Apple back in 2011, not the real hardware limit. You MacBook Pro now is known to support 2x8GB.

That's very common in Apple computer. e.g. My Mac Pro 2009 Apple officially stated the Mac max memory supported is 16GB (4x4GB), but now I am running 48GB (3x16GB). The dual processor model's Apple limit is 32GB (8x4GB), but some user successfully upgrade to 160GB (5x32GB).

For price or particular DIMM part number, you may better try the MacBook Pro forum.
 
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