New MacBook Pro day Just bought mid 2012 MacBook Pro I5 8gb 500gb hd Catalina .£275

hollywoodrox

Hi I just got this for GarageBand IMovie  so I can one day film a cover or two or the odd demo .
  Will only be used for music. Use my 2007 iMac for torrents/streaming/general practice ,etc

i will update it with a crucial mx500 SSD most likely , someone on another post suggested this
unless anyone knows of a cheaper alternative , around £30 would be ideal .

ive seen YouTube videos of people using a 2010 one with logik so I’m thinking my relatively simple 
needs might be met with this. I know you can freeze tracks too to make things easier .

Battery cycle count is only 226 .

do you think it will be ok running Catalina when I add an ssd or should I look at downgrading it to Mojave or high Sierra (I don’t relish this as it looks tricky )

cheers Paul 

Sorry to bore you with my old computer purchase  , 

JezWynd

If it currently runs okay then it should be fine. The SSD upgrade is a sensible move. Downgrading these days does seem tricky, esp if the disk system has gone over to the new format, though if you’re installing a new disk that might simplify matters.

hollywoodrox

Thank you 

andy_k

I think you should be good to get 16gig ram in there too, I could be wrong, but it looks to be the same model as mine.

hollywoodrox

andy_k said:

I think you should be good to get 16gig ram in there too, I could be wrong, but it looks to be the same model as mine.

I will give it a try next year when I have more money , I have read unofficially that the 2012 should take 16gb . I am getting a chap is crucial mx500 ssd for it to be going on with  going to look up how to clone it on YouTube.

from looking carbon copy or super duper look good or disk utility .

Kittyfrisk

Hey, congratulations & not boring at all 
You can downgrade the OS if you want, as Catalina was not the OS that the Mac came with from new, but if Catalina will work for you then just keep it.
You can take it to 16GB RAM too, but if cash is tight, you can replace just one of the 4GB sticks with an 8GB, then repeat this at a later date.
Anything we can help with, just ask.
Enjoy it :-D

hollywoodrox

Thank you very much ,appreciate it , I’m quite chuffed to get it , the 2012 seems very well thought of ,along with the 2015 .    It will be a cool bonus if I can use airdrop on it so I can transfer say a video from my iPhone SE (old version)   GarageBand 10 will be great though .

thanks again 

andy_k

If you are not precious about it, you can get a superdrive hard disk adaptor, so you can remove the DVD drive and install a second hard drive.
I did this with mine, and tried to keep OS and essential stuff on the SSD, and use the new 2tb metal disk for archiving and sample libraries.
I haven't been very good at sticking to that, but it would be a good practice.
It does make the fans kick up sometimes, but there is an app for that.
You will have no problems with Garageband, but if you go up to Logic, you will be downloading some pretty big sample libraries that soon eat up disk space.
I'd recommend using Reaper as a DAW, just because I always do-it is excellent. 

Kittyfrisk

You should be able to use Airdrop, although speeds can be variable. I love my old SE too 
 https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT203106#:~:text=Select AirDrop in the sidebar,recipient shown in the window.

https://www.macworld.com/article/3052874/how-to-transfer-files-between-a-mac-and-iphone.html

TheBigDipper

My MBP is a mid-2012 that looks just like yours. It's been fab. I run Catalina and use Logic and iMovie without too much fuss - but I'm not pushing either of them too hard. I recently did my first "wipe and reinstall from scratch" exercise (after 5 years of use) and it's made things run a bit quicker than before, so I don't need an SSD just yet. Airdrop works fine on my machine. 

I don't think we're going to be offered the next release of macOS for this machine, so Catalina is probably where it stops. 

Kittyfrisk

TheBigDipper said:

My MBP is a mid-2012 that looks just like yours. It's been fab. I run Catalina and use Logic and iMovie without too much fuss - but I'm not pushing either of them too hard. I recently did my first "wipe and reinstall from scratch" exercise (after 5 years of use) and it's made things run a bit quicker than before, so I don't need an SSD just yet. Airdrop works fine on my machine. 

I don't think we're going to be offered the next release of macOS for this machine, so Catalina is probably where it stops. 

TheBigDipper said:

My MBP is a mid-2012 that looks just like yours. It's been fab. I run Catalina and use Logic and iMovie without too much fuss - but I'm not pushing either of them too hard. I recently did my first "wipe and reinstall from scratch" exercise (after 5 years of use) and it's made things run a bit quicker than before, so I don't need an SSD just yet. Airdrop works fine on my machine. 

I don't think we're going to be offered the next release of macOS for this machine, so Catalina is probably where it stops. 

Yes, Catalina is to be the last OS update for 2012 vintage macs (like mine). 
Shocking isn't it? Only 8 years of support & free OS's   
Plus it doesn't mean they'll not work after the last update too, I'm keeping mine until the bitter end...& maybe I'll find a way to prolong things even then 

hollywoodrox

andy_k said:

If you are not precious about it, you can get a superdrive hard disk adaptor, so you can remove the DVD drive and install a second hard drive.
I did this with mine, and tried to keep OS and essential stuff on the SSD, and use the new 2tb metal disk for archiving and sample libraries.
I haven't been very good at sticking to that, but it would be a good practice.
It does make the fans kick up sometimes, but there is an app for that.
You will have no problems with Garageband, but if you go up to Logic, you will be downloading some pretty big sample libraries that soon eat up disk space.
I'd recommend using Reaper as a DAW, just because I always do-it is excellent. 

Thank you for the info , I looked at a few videos on doing that but it didn’t look as simple as the hard drive replacement ,but it’s a brilliant idea . Yes my music making will be very basic  eg guitar to a backing track for YouTube video ,or a basic demo .  

What I did see that pretty much blew my mind was, a chap had installed some sort of script so he could run an external graphics card , it was this huge monster of a thing in a metal box ,so he must game or mine bitcoins on it lol

hollywoodrox

Kittyfrisk said:

You should be able to use Airdrop, although speeds can be variable. I love my old SE too 
 https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT203106#:~:text=Select AirDrop in the sidebar,recipient shown in the window.

https://www.macworld.com/article/3052874/how-to-transfer-files-between-a-mac-and-iphone.html

Yes it was great for the money, I got it from CEX . I don’t have a sim in it lol I use it as a camera /video /portable computer gadget . I’m a weirdo who doesn’t use a mobile lol . Actually I do use WhatsApp over WiFi to let someone know if I,ll be in the cafe one day a week

hollywoodrox

TheBigDipper said:

My MBP is a mid-2012 that looks just like yours. It's been fab. I run Catalina and use Logic and iMovie without too much fuss - but I'm not pushing either of them too hard. I recently did my first "wipe and reinstall from scratch" exercise (after 5 years of use) and it's made things run a bit quicker than before, so I don't need an SSD just yet. Airdrop works fine on my machine. 

I don't think we're going to be offered the next release of macOS for this machine, so Catalina is probably where it stops. 

That sounds great , thank you , iMovie looks like a nice program , I used an old version a couple years ago to record a video with my boss gt1 and audacity , I can’t remember what I did now though lol, I remember something where I had to put my latency time in which was 170ms as I wrote it down

im going to have to start from scratch now lol 

thermionic

It says something about Macs - and modern computers in general - that an 8-year old machine is considered to be a perfectly good option. I’m on a 2011 iMac. It would be nice to upgrade, but there’s no immediate need.

Strangefan

Rams pretty cheap for your mac at the mo,  so it shouldn't cost too much you're lucky you didn't get a mid 2013 as they started to solder in the ram to the motherboards, so you basically got the mac just before they started to really hate thier customers  

axisus

Love my macbook pro!

Ran my last one for 18 years, now my daughter uses it. Macs are expensive but they can last a hell of a long time. My son needs a new PC laptop approx every 4 years.

JezWynd

Kittyfrisk said:

Plus it doesn't mean they'll not work after the last update too, I'm keeping mine until the bitter end...& maybe I'll find a way to prolong things even then 

I find the trick to keeping an old machine working is to not follow an upgrade path with software. It's the new features in the apps that require the new, latest plug ins and large RAM requirements that stress older machines. My 2007 Mac laptop can still edit video (720x576) and simultaneously handle multiple layers of motion graphics. What it can't do is surf the net; Safari takes minutes to load pages if they load at all. I took it it off the net and use it as a backup photo/music/video workstation with the handy inbuilt DVD drive for file transfers and CD rips.

hollywoodrox

JezWynd said:

Kittyfrisk said:

Plus it doesn't mean they'll not work after the last update too, I'm keeping mine until the bitter end...& maybe I'll find a way to prolong things even then 

I find the trick to keeping an old machine working is to not follow an upgrade path with software. It's the new features in the apps that require the new, latest plug ins and large RAM requirements that stress older machines. My 2007 Mac laptop can still edit video (720x576) and simultaneously handle multiple layers of motion graphics. What it can't do is surf the net; Safari takes minutes to load pages if they load at all. I took it it off the net and use it as a backup photo/music/video workstation with the handy inbuilt DVD drive for file transfers and CD rips.

My 2007 iMac is used for downloading torrents, streaming tv shows , practicing songS with the amazing slow downer program , stuff like that. All browsing is done mostly by iPad 

Kittyfrisk

JezWynd said:

Kittyfrisk said:

Plus it doesn't mean they'll not work after the last update too, I'm keeping mine until the bitter end...& maybe I'll find a way to prolong things even then 

I find the trick to keeping an old machine working is to not follow an upgrade path with software. It's the new features in the apps that require the new, latest plug ins and large RAM requirements that stress older machines. My 2007 Mac laptop can still edit video (720x576) and simultaneously handle multiple layers of motion graphics. What it can't do is surf the net; Safari takes minutes to load pages if they load at all. I took it it off the net and use it as a backup photo/music/video workstation with the handy inbuilt DVD drive for file transfers and CD rips.

Agreed, I should put "Don't be an early adopter' in my sig 
I'm not against progress, but I have lost count of how many times I have had to explain to people why their computer, phone etc. no longer works the way they want, as they had 'automatic updates' turned on. 

TheBigDipper

Kittyfrisk said:

JezWynd said:

Kittyfrisk said:

<snip>

Agreed, I should put "Don't be an early adopter' in my sig 
I'm not against progress, but I have lost count of how many times I have had to explain to people why their computer, phone etc. no longer works the way they want, as they had 'automatic updates' turned on. 

There's a reason it's sometimes referred to as "the bleeding edge"...  

But all those nice toys every new release gives us. How do we have the discipline to resist? :-) (And how often do we install it but never use those new shiny things?)