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i have a Macbook Pro, 15”, mid 2012, with CD player - it’s not longer supported by Apple, I want to be able to upgrade to the latest software and avoid a large cost in buying a new one. I am a novice when it comes to such things as replacing parts and don’t want to create more problems by doing it wrong. I already have a maximum memory of 18GB. We replaced the battery only a few months ago, but the macbook still sometimes shuts down after only a few minutes after being unplugged. I don’t know how to change the hard drive and retain the current information to transfer over. I don’t know what the best change over might be - I do a lot of family tree via Ancestry and family tree maker, I also play Elder Scrolls online via Steam. I would appreciate some advice from those who has already done this. If not - I would appreciate recommendations for a replacement either Apple or Windows. thank you :-)
Oh! I wish it was as simple as a desktop! It’s not! You’ve got the best logic board that will work in your system. You’ve got the best display that will work. The RAM is limited to 16GB and your systems drive ports are both SATA III (6.0 Gb/s). So unless you’ve got less than 16GB of RAM and/or have a spinning rust drive (HDD) then you could upgrade the RAM and swap out the drive to a faster better SSD drive. That only leaves the OS which I strongly recommend you stick with macOS Sierra (10.12.6) as the highest you could go with. The reason is the file system is upgraded in High Sierra (10.13.6) from HFS+ to APFS which just doesn’t run well on SATA based systems. Many of the features the newer OS’s offer require more powerful processors and upgraded WiFi and Bluetooth services which are just not possible in your system. Now here’s a fun fact the system I’m banging on right now is a 2012 15” MacBook Pro! It is still my favorite do most everything system. I have a pair of 15” retina systems and Mac Pro for processing my photography images. But everything else is off this system! So I think its safe to say your system is more than fine for most people.
