Will El Capitan slow down my 2011 MacBook?

[macness]

hey guys. A have a late 2011 i7 Mackbook Pro 13". I have never upgraded the RAM or SSD. I have done everything else under the sun to speed up my computer. It got considerably slower after Yosemite. Will El Capitan slow it down even more or is it just time to get a new MacBook? I was kinda hoping I could ateast wait until the SkyLake MacBooks

 

[krishmk]

hey guys. A have a late 2011 i7 Mackbook Pro 13". I have never upgraded the RAM or SSD. I have done everything else under the sun to speed up my computer. It got considerably slower after Yosemite. Will El Capitan slow it down even more or is it just time to get a new MacBook? I was kinda hoping I could ateast wait until the SkyLake MacBooks

Spend $200 upgrade RAM and SSD and this will Mac will run for another 3 years on el Cappy or whatever mac throws at you.

I cannot imagine life without SSD.

 

[Queen6]

Another for the SSD, OS X is now very much optimised for SSD`s hence the slowdown with spinners...

Q-6

 

[Rhinoevans]

Spend some money and get some ram and an SSD. Way less expensive if you would have bought it configured that way from Apple. I just upgraded a 2012 13 Pro with 16 G Ram (probably overkill, 8 probably enough, but ram is so cheap) and a Samsung 256 EVO drive. Really makes a difference, and all for less than $200

 

[Mr. Buzzcut]

Another for the SSD, OS X is now very much optimised for SSD`s hence the slowdown with spinners...

Q-6

That is to say not at all optimized. Disk access is disk access whether solid state or platter. OS X should still avoid pounding on a SSD unnecessarily to maximize life span.

OP, my 2011 with i5 and 8GB is running the latest public beta just fine. I can't say yet if it's better than Yosemite but it's certainly not worse.

 

[meson]

Put in an SSD, and with at least 4GB of RAM, I would say the RAM upgrade is optional, unless you are doing photo/video editing or running virtual machines, you aren't likely to notice the difference of extra RAM for day to day use. If you need the extra RAM, however, it will be well worth it.

That machine will feel brand new after the SSD is installed. My 2012 13" with Mavericks was slower than my 2008 13" MacBook running Snow Leopard. I was a little disappointed, but after the SSD, it felt brand new, and I couldn't be happier with my choice of machine. I also swapped out an HDD for an SSD in a friend's 2010 17" MBP, and she couldn't be happier.

I wouldn't say that OS X is optimized for SSDs, rather it has become so bloated that it requires an SSD. Back when I bought my first Mac on 10.2, Jaguar, it had maybe 10 or 12 background processes running after startup. I currently have 261 processes running with only Finder, Mail, and 1 tab in Safari open.

 

[Queen6]

I wouldn't say that OS X is optimized for SSDs, rather it has become so bloated that it requires an SSD.

Won`t disagree with that one, Apple has got fat and lazy with OS X thanks to W8 and the associated surge in Mac sales, now W10 is launching Apple needs to get back on their game, to keep the numbers up. With many "switching" as they had few alternatives. Let`s hope 10.11 is a start, as OS X is in dire need of a "diet"


Q-6

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Won`t disagree with that one, Apple has got fat and lazy with OS X thanks to W8 and the associated surge in Mac sales, now W10 is launching Apple needs to get back on their game, to keep the numbers up. With many "switching" as they had few alternatives. Let`s hope 10.11 is a start, as OS X is in dire need of a "diet"


Q-6

That is why Apple quite clearly stated this year that El Capitan would be very short on new features etc and concentrate on better graphics drivers, stability and lowering resource use. I personally would far rather see a new OS every 2 years that was great from the get go than the current new features but buggy followed by sorting out all the bugs and issues the year after.