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Project: Salvaging a MD101

I'm thinking up a new project...

My partner's 2012 MacBook Pro 13in aka "MD101", has been having constant Beach ball of Death issues for the longest time. I suspect it's bad RAM or a bad HDD.

Since she will be upgrading to a different machine, I am thinking of salvaging her old machine and upgrading some components. Specifically the 500Gb 5400rpm HDD to 480Gb SSD, and the RAM from 4Gb to 16Gb.
  • 2.5" 480Gb SSD 6Gb/s SATA3
  • 8Gb x2 PC3-12800 DDR3L 1600MHz SO-DIMM 204 Pin CL11
True, it is an old machine but it is also one of last MacBook Pros that can be easily upgraded.

With these upgrades I am hoping to have a workable machine with better performance. I am also toying with the idea of having dual storage drives (replacing the built-in SuperDrive with a second HDD) but for now I am retaining the optical drive.

I plan on running both MacOS Sierra and Windows 10 via BootCamp.

I have already made inquiries on the components and hope to have some idea on the cost soon. My budget should not exceed 15,000.00 Php (if prices stick) for all the upgrades I think that's doable.
Once I have a stable second machine with current ports I think I will be more willing (albeit not in a hurry) to upgrade my 2012 Retina MacBook Pro to the USB-C only 2016 MacBook Pro.

Afterthought: what if the Beach Ball of Death isn't fixable by RAM and SSD upgrades? Should I just skip this step and trade-in the old MD101 for a new MD101 or a more modern system all together? I think it would be more pratical to get the trade-in values for both the MD101 and my MC975 from Ynzal before purchasing components as the RAM and SSD for the MD101 won't work with my MC975, and I don't have any systems that can make use of the components.

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