Upgrading an early 2011 MacBook Pro

[Ricochet J]

I need a laptop, and my girlfriend has a MacBook Pro that she no longer needs.

It's:
- Early 2011 MacBook Pro
- 2.3GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor
- 4GB (two 2GB SO-DIMMs) of memory
- 320GB 5400-rpm Serial ATA hard drive

I'm thinking of taking the laptop and upgrading it with:
- 8GB (two 4GB SO-DIMMs) of memory
- 1TB Solid State Drive

Are there any issues with this? How much should I expect to pay for the parts? Will my upgrade transform the laptop?

Thank you

 

[DampCat]

This is an old thread, i'm sure you've done it now...

I just ordered a single SODIMM 8gb by Komputerbay (manufacturer) for £40, with the intent on getting another for £40 if it was any good. Pulled out the 2x2, stuck in a single 8 and everything is super. I'll probably get the other 8gb stick next month.

No idea on the drive im afraid.

 

[lamboman]

As above, even though the thread is quite old, there shouldn't any issues doing this, with the 8GB of memory costing around £35 or so, however the 1TB SSD is extremely expensive and probably unnecessary. Not worth putting that into such an "old" machine IMO (technology moves on, so I'd probably go mechanical with a smaller SSD now and buy a 1TB SSD in my next machine if I were you).

 

[Ricochet J]

This is an old thread, i'm sure you've done it now...

I just ordered a single SODIMM 8gb by Komputerbay (manufacturer) for £40, with the intent on getting another for £40 if it was any good. Pulled out the 2x2, stuck in a single 8 and everything is super. I'll probably get the other 8gb stick next month.

No idea on the drive im afraid.

Hi! I haven't done the upgrade yet. I'm going to do it this week!

Does the early 2011 13" MBP support 16GB RAM?
Thanks

 

[Skyboat]

Yeah it does.

Be careful if you replace the SuperDrive though as the data cable doesn't support SATA3 speeds, even though the system reports that it can. You'll get data corruption.

 

[Fallen god]

I would not waste money on a 1TB SSD, there just far too expensive to make sense. I would pick up a Samsung 830/840 either 128/256gb. Then remove the DVD Drive and get a HDD thats 1TB. Works out way cheaper.