My MacBook Pro is so slow

Question

MacBook Pro 13" Unibody Early 2011

Early 2011 Model: A1278 / 2.3 GHz i5 or 2.7 GHz i7 processor

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Elena Gilbert @elenaglbrt

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My MacBook Pro is so slow

Dear All,

I have a MacBook Pro (13-inch, Early 2011) with 2.3 GHz Intel Core i5 processor and 4 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 Memory.

My problem is my MacBook Pro is so slow and I’m not sure what I should do to fix this.

I’ve read that I can replace the processor and use an SSD hard drive. Should I do this?

What brand I should use? Any risks or any important things I need to know beforehand?

Can I use 1 or 2TB SSD for this MacBook Pro? Also, can I upgrade my Macbook Pro’s RAM to 16GB or should I upgrade to 8GB just to be safe?

Do I need to backup anything before doing this? Do you think using an SSD maybe cause some problems in the future? I don’t want something that will make me lose all my documents.

I hope someone can help me with this.

Thank you.

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Dan @danj

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You are likely hitting a few different issues! This series of MacBook Pro’s had an issue with the HD drive’s SATA cable. Here’s a writeup on it Your Hard Drive Cable Is A Ticking Time Bomb

So the slowness can be due to a worn cable! Here’s the needed part MacBook Pro 13" Unibody (Mid 2012) Hard Drive Cable and yes this is for a 2012 model and will also work in your system. This is the better cable to put in! And you will want to put a strip of electricians tape down as described in the article.

OK, so far we’ve dealt with the basic problem but you likely want to get a newer drive installed if this is still the original drive the system came with. HDD’s over time do wear out!

Going with a SSD is a great idea! Do you think you really need a 2TB drive? 1TB is quite large! I would recommend going with it and you should bump the RAM up to 16GB while you’re at it.

So there you are! But how do get there? Are you going to do this your self? Or do you have a friend with the mechanical skills to help you?

Give these guides a review to get a better idea on how. Lets start off with the easiest MacBook Pro 13" Unibody Early 2011 RAM Replacement You do need to be careful with the RAM clips and making sure you’ve got the SO-DIMM fulled seated. Make sure your system is up and running before going forward.

Next let’s kill to birds with one stone! Follow this guide in swapping out your drive & SATA cable MacBook Pro 13" Unibody Early 2011 Hard Drive Replacement you’ll want to get a 2.5” SATA III SSD. Here’s what iFixit offers MacBook and MacBook Pro (Non-Retina) SSD Upgrade Kit besides the tools they give you the needed case to hold your old drive so you can transfer your user accounts, apps & data over using Apples Migration Assistant app.

You still need to get your OS installed on your new drive first! Using a USB thumb drive setup with your OS. I would recommend going to Sierra if you have anything older. While your system can also run High Sierra I don’t recommend it on older SATA based systems like yours. Here’s the guide to setup the drive How to create a bootable macOS Sierra installer drive and you’ll want to use the OS installer file from here How to upgrade to macOS Sierra Jump down to Step 4 click on the Download macOS Sierra blue URL link.