Question Macbook Pro mid 2012 Catalina OS running slow

[jimmyo68]

Hello, I'm helping my neighbor solve a slow performance issue on a macbook pro (mid-2012) 8GB Ram 320 GB HDD. Long story short I reviewed his performance issue and he had several AV tools (mcafee, avira and malwarebytes installed). I removed those and still slow performance. Ran etrecheck tool and he is only getting 30 - 40 ms read write performance on the internal HDD. He said the problem started about six months ago. He is running Catalina OS 10.x. From what I can gather the HDD needs to be replaced for acceptable performance. I need some advice on the best SSD kit for a vintage MacBook Pro. Thanks for any guidance!

Jim O.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

Older laptop hard drives haven't aged well performance wise. I did some research and it seems any 2.5in SATA SSD should be a drop in replacement for your old hard drive.

What is your budget for the upgrade?

A 500gb WD blue SSD would be a good upgrade. https://pcpartpicker.com/product/LRkj4D/western-digital-blue-500gb-25-solid-state-drive-wds500g2b0a

 

[hang-the-9]

Swap the drive for an SSD, any SATA one will work, just plug in where the old drive was. Samsung EVO are pretty much the standard, not much more expensive than the budget ones.

 

[jimmyo68]

Older laptop hard drives haven't aged well performance wise. I did some research and it seems any 2.5in SATA SSD should be a drop in replacement for your old hard drive.

What is your budget for the upgrade?

A 500gb WD blue SSD would be a good upgrade. https://pcpartpicker.com/product/LRkj4D/western-digital-blue-500gb-25-solid-state-drive-wds500g2b0a

Thanks for the reply, he wants to keep the cost under $150 if possible.

Jim

 

[jimmyo68]

Swap the drive for an SSD, any SATA one will work, just plug in where the old drive was. Samsung EVO are pretty much the standard, not much more expensive than the budget ones.

Thanks! I have to dig out my old USB/SATA connector so I can clone his current (boot) drive. Have not done this with a Mac. Is it straightforward?

Jim