Installing new SSD in late 2011 MBP

The apple page is never updated. even though it is proven that 16GB is the mac.

If you keep using your old HDD then more Ram is going to make your mac faster as Csound1 (hi IH) says, but if you install a SSD the speed increase is so great that you wil almost not notice the Ram increase, but for reasons said above I advise to increase Ram to 8GB or 16GB what ever you can get.

The simplest method will be to clone the internal drive to an external, replace the drive as you want to and then restore the clone to the new drive.

More RAM will be an additional point of improvement.

Use Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper to make the clone.

A Mac will substitute storage space for RAM when it runs out of RAM, storage space is slower than RAM, with only 4GB of RAM you will run out of RAM, causing your Mac to run slower than it would be capable of if it had enough RAM.

A 2011 MBP has a Sata 3 connection bus.

If you are going to refresh the hardware in your MBP then do it all at once and never mess with it again.

16gb ram upgrade ( 2 8gb modules ). Crucial.com ram work fine.

SSD ( Crucial MX-300 or BX-200 ) will do fine.

New battery since you have your MB open.

This can all be done from $300 - $400

I performed a hardware refresh on my Mid-2012 MBP two years ago and have never messed with it again.

Works great.

With an SSD the larger the capacity the longer life it will have.

So a 500gb SSD will endure twice that of a 250gb SSD.

That is because it has more Nand flash ram to write to.

At 5gb writes per day a 250gb SSD will can endure over 100 years.

Far outlasting the life of the Macbook.

8gb of ram is fine, 16gb. is just max.

Only use OEM certified batteries and chargers.

You do not need to enable "trim" support on the Cruical MX-300 or BX-200 SSD as they have built-in trim support.

Both SSDs are good. Buy the one that is on offer. Crucial BX300 is a very good choice for your mac.

1. Make a bootable CLONE on an external disk (do this everyday afterwards, a good backup procedure when something goes wrong).

2. Connect the new SSD externally, Partition/Format with Disk Utility: GUID Partition Table, Mac OS Extended (journaled).

3. Make a bootable clone onto the SSD, including the RecoveryPartition. When done shutdown the mac. Restart while holding the Alt/Option key, choose the (still outside) SSD. When it works and starts up correctly, shutdown again.

4. Now switch the drives, be very careful with the connector inside.

Close the mac before you start up again. If everything is gone right, you will notice an enormous speed increase.

When you have OS HighSierra it may install the apfs file system the first time over the HFS+ that you did in step 2.

5. Enjoy

6. About the Ram: adding Ram is not a bad idea, because 4GB is borderline for the later OS. And Ram is cheap (if you find it, search macsales.com, or the Crucial website), buy 2x4GB or even 2x8GB chips. They should have the exact specs for your mac! Take out the old chips, and put in the new chips, make sure that they are seated fully. You will not notice a speed difference when the SSD is already in (because of the speed of the swap out on the SSD). The lifetime of the SSD is related to the number of writes on the SSD, so you want to avoid writing by the system as a.o. the swap-ots when you have too little Ram.

Note: cloning with: CarbonCopyCloner latest version, this one can include the Recovery Partition.

bombich.com

Lex

It's all marketingspeak, try not to fall for it. There is one and one only specification for RAM in an MBP, if Crucial can not explain it to you it is time to find a different vendor.

Apple do not rewrite specifications for older products, when the 2011 MBP came out it was many years ago, 8GB chips had not been made available yet so 16GB in an MBP was not possible, 8GB chips are now available so you should use 2 of them in your MBP.

Lexiepex wrote:

The apple page is never updated. even though it is proven that 16GB is the mac.

If you keep using your old HDD then more Ram is going to make your mac faster as Csound1 (hi IH)

Hi there Lex.

It is possible, but some speed will be lost by using a mismatched pair. Your money, your choice. Only you know how the current Ram is fitted, you should check before you buy. It will only work if you have 1 x 4GB fitted.

Apple never recommends any configuration unless they have not tested it extensively. If changes in the memory landscape happen AFTER a model is no longer sold, then Apple NEVER goes back to update the specs of a model no longer "current".

To successfully buy and Install more than 8GB of RAM in that Mac:

Do not buy RAM from a department store or electronics outlet -- they do not know Macs and cannot provide the extended support needed to exceed the Apple specs.

Buy EXACTLY what is recommended by a particular Mac-centric Vendor for that specific Mac. Then if it does not work as advertised, the Vendor will replace it or otherwise make it right (or refund your money).

"It works in your MAC,

or your money BACK!"

The SSD will make a difference but so will the memory. I'd opt for both for sure. Also I think I'd go for the "older" SSD model because just because.