What is the easiest way to increase storage on my MacBook Pro, early 2011?

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Level 1

8 points

What is the easiest way to increase storage on my MacBook Pro, early 2011?

I have a slower running 13", Early 2011 MacBook Pro with a 2.3 GHz Intel Core i5 that has 8 GB RAM and only 152GB of storage left of the 319 total GB. I currently am running on OS X Yosemite, Version 10.10.5 and would like to upgrade to El Capitan, but hesitate with only half my laptop's storage left and the slow speed history of my laptop.

Increasing the original 4GB of RAM to 8 definitly helped the speed of my laptop and I also moved the largest storage item (pictures, videos, & movies) from the laptop hard drive to an 1T external drive which also helped with the slow speed. However, to access all my photos & movies, now I have to go to the external drive which is a hassle. Moving the picture library has also made it very difficult to store new pics in my iTunes library so I've just kept them on my iPhone6 as it has 128 GB of storage.

I've read about increasing my storage by buying and installing a SSD card. I hesitate to do this rather advanced choice as I feel it may be beyond my rather basic computer expertise. Is buying and installing a SSD card my BEST choice or is there an easier way to increase my laptop's storage?

Mac Pro, OS X Yosemite (10.10.5), Will low storage affect El Capitan?

Posted on Oct 1, 2015 1:10 PM

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Answer 1

lllaass

Level 10

210,519 points

Oct 1, 2015 1:17 PM in response to kafrank

Your Mac supports 16 GB of memory see:

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/Apple_MacBook_MacBook_Pro/Upgrade/DDR3_133 3MHz_SDRAM

The have videos for how to replace the memory

Here is a video for how to replace the hard drive.

http://eshop.macsales.com/installvideos/macbookpro_13_unibody_early11_hd/

Installing a 500 GB SSD will speed the up the Mac

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Answer 2

kafrank Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 1, 2015 1:21 PM in response to lllaass

Thank you for the helpful links!

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Answer 3

KiltedTim

Level 10

227,364 points

Oct 1, 2015 2:10 PM in response to kafrank

Your machine also contains a Secure Digital slot, which can be used for storage. High speed high capacity SDXC cards are readily available. Amazon has numerous 256GB cards available for $100 to $150. You can get up to 512GB, though the price goes up rather sharply.

Best of all, installing it is as easy as sticking the card in the slot on the side of the machine, and you can easily carry multiple cards with you.

Cheaper and 'safer' than trying to install an SSD, though the SSD will arguably give you a big performance boost.

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