Jul 11, 2013 DIY Replace 128GB SSD in Macbook Air Mid-2012 with 480GB SSD - Duration: 9:27. Ben Hepworth 137,929 views.
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2019 Update: Read my thoughts on whether is worth it.Back in college, I bought a after a series of Windows computers were dying on me consistently for years. I went through about three computers in high school and the beginning of college purely because they were cheap.
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I still have this computer today (it’s turning 6 in September!), and I just upgraded it.In this article, I want to provide some insight into the process to upgrade a mid-2012 MacBook pro. And, I also want to give you my thoughts on whether upgrading the mid-2012 MacBook Pro was worth it. Table of Contents.The original tech specsI bought the better of the two 13″ mid-2012 MacBook Pro’s offered at the time. Here’s a list of the key technical specifications my MacBook Pro had before the upgrades.
2.9GHz dual-core Intel Core i7 processor (Turbo Boost up to 3.6GHz) with 4MB L3 cache. 8GB of 1600MHz DDR3 memory. 750GB 5400-rpm hard drive.
8x SuperDrive. macOS High SierraWhy I chose to upgradeYou might wonder why I didn’t just buy a new Mac.
And the answer is quite simple.The 2018 MacBook pro that I wanted was about $2500. And to top it all off, I LIKED using my mid-2012 Mac. There was absolutely nothing wrong with it, and I enjoyed it. I didn’t have a good reason to replace it, other than it was running a little slow and laggy. Finally, after doing some research on upgrading the mid-2012 model, I found out that it’s a pretty easy upgrade!
PinterestIf you’re trying to decide whether or not to replace or upgrade your mid-2012 MacBook Pro, I recommend considering the following points:. Do you have the budget to buy a brand new MacBook Pro or would you rather pay a fraction on upgraded components?. Are you capable of and comfortable performing the?. Can you follow instructions to install a fresh copy of macOS on your new SSD’s?. Are you ready to have your computer wiped with a fresh copy of macOS? AKA is your data backed up?To perform any technical upgrade, you’ll have to be comfortable opening up your MacBook Pro, taking apart subassemblies, and reassembling the aftermarket components.With this upgrade, you’ll also be removing your original hard drive, which means you’ll be starting over with a fresh system.
If you have important documents or programs, you’ll want to back these up before continuing.If this makes your stomach churn, then you’re probably better off buying a new Mac. On the flip side, if this doesn’t phase you, you can save quite a bit of money replacing a couple of components. Components I upgradedIf you made it this far, you’re probably wondering what parts I updated on my mid-2012 MacBook Pro.First off, I replaced the original 750GB mechanical hard drive (HDD) with a (SSD).
Then, I opted to remove the optical drive and replace it with a second 500GB SSD. The original plan was to create a RAID 0 drive with the two 500GB SSD’s. But, that didn’t happen. I’ll explain more about that later.
Lastly, I upgraded the 8GB of RAM to.You may also want to while you’re upgrading everything else. $279.97 My thoughts on the InstallationIn the 6 years that I’ve owned my computer, I’ve never taken off the back cover or upgraded any of the components. If I had known this upgrade was so simple, I probably would have done this a long time ago!It probably took me about 30-40 minutes to fully replace the RAM, the original HDD, and the optical drive. The easier replacements were the RAM and the original SSD. The optical drive replacement was a little trickier but doable. Optional ExtrasI also opted to get an so that I could use my original HDD as a backup drive.
Also, if you chose to replace the optical drive with an SSD, you may want to pick up a. My computer runs noticeably faster without the internal SuperDrive taking up communication bandwidth. Therefore, I’m ok with having an external DVD drive because I prefer speed over occasional entertainment. $10.99 Software ConfigurationCongrats for making it this far.
I hope your installation went smoothly. Now that the hardware upgrades are finished, we can move on to installing the software. Format Your New SSD’s and Install macOSOnce you install the new components, you’ll need to format and install a copy of macOS. I opted for macOS High Sierra, which is the latest version of macOS. One thing I wasn’t aware of is that you cannot install High Sierra on drives formatted as Striped RAID 0. So, unfortunately, I just installed macOS on one hard drive, and the other hard drive is recognized as an internal SSD. The installation video above shows you how to do this.
RAID 0 isn’t supported on High Sierra (yet)There have been a lot of, so hopefully, with the new macOS release, this problem will be fixed. If you’re planning on using the Striped RAID 0 format in the future, you will need two SSD’s of the same size. That’s why I bought two 500GB SSD’s rather than one 500 GB SSD and one 250 GB SSD to save money. So, while this wasn’t accomplished with the upgrade, it could be an addition I see soon. Enable TRIM once the OS is installedLastly, you can on your Samsung SSD’s.Open up a terminal and type in the command, sudo trimforce enableYou’ll be prompted for your login password, then hit enter.
Your system will reboot to enable TRIM support. You can verify this worked by going to the Apple logo (top left) and pressing alt/option System Information SATA/SATA Express. Finally, choose your SSD, and look for “Trim Support: Yes”. PinterestTo read more about the benefits of TRIM,. Is upgrading the mid-2012 MacBook Pro worth it?All-in-all the total cost to perform the upgrade was $363.25 $225.Was it worth it? Absolutely, yes. Update November 2019Yet another price drop for this project.
Expect to spend about $225 with the tools. If you’re planning to use your computer for another few years, then upgrade the SSDs to the largest size you can afford. The and SSDs have significantly dropped in price, so if you plan to do a lot of video editing or photography, it might be worth the extra up-front investment. Related:Here’s the new specification of my mac:. 2.9GHz dual-core Intel Core i7 processor (Turbo Boost up to 3.6GHz) with 4MB L3 cache. 8GB 16GB of 1600MHz DDR3 memory. 750GB 5400-rpm 2X 500GB SSD.
8x SuperDrive. macOS High SierraCompared to the new model, 2018 MacBook Pro, the savings are 100% worth it.
I wasn’t ready to pull the trigger on a new computer because mine was in really good shape. If you have taken care of your Mac, and it’s just a little slow now, then I’d highly recommend upgrading the components.
I can’t recommend it enough. My computer used to take anywhere from 5-10 minutes to restart or boot up.
Now, my computer boots in less than a minute. I can also have many memory-hogging programs (Adobe Photoshop, iMovie, etc.), and my computer is very responsive. I used to see the while working within graphics or modeling programs. Now, this is just a distant memory!
?I had to share this upgrade with you because I was skeptical of even doing the upgrade in the first place. But if your computer is in really good physical condition, and you have a bit of patience and handyman skills, I would say go for it!If you have any questions about this upgrade or need help, feel free to comment below! Hey Rebecca,Yes, you definitely can follow along with the process I used to upgrade your mac. You will need to create a macOS boot flash drive (and back up any existing files) before you take things apart. Once everything is installed, you’ll want to boot to the flash drive and install macOS on one of the SSDs.
You can purchase a HDD case if you’d like to use the current hard drive as an external storage drive. Good luck with the upgrade! Feel free to let me know if you have questions and how it went! Liz from Learn Robotics.
Hello, I’m about to upgrade my wife’s 13” mid 2012 MBP as it is barely usable running macOS Catalina. It has 4gb of ram and the 500gb hard drive. I read through all of the comments and I see that a lot of people are upgrading to 16gb ram (2x8gb). From what I’m reading on Apple’s technical specification page, 8gb (2x4gb) is the maximum.
I’m finding conflicting sites selling 16gb kits and 8gb kits stating that’s the maximum respectively. I’m just looking for someone that can actually confirm that 16gb will indeed work properly because I’d much rather take it to the Max and call it a day! I appreciate any input on this. Here’s the link stating 8gb is maximum from Apple –.
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