apple support

A SSD replacing a rotation drive will make the computer much faster. While you are at it you can also upgrade the RAM depending on how much it currently has.

That said, I would not spend any money on an obsolete/vintage computer.

Vintage and obsolete products - Apple Support

dirk134 wrote:

My current system is running macOS Sierra version 10.12.6

this is the latest compatible one I can get to download.

Really? Apple says that High Sierra (10.13) should be compatible with any MacBook Pro of a 2010 or later model. It's also where APFS becomes available, which is really designed to boost the performance when using an SSD.

How to upgrade to macOS High Sierra - Apple Support

MacBook introduced in late 2009 or later

MacBook Air introduced in late 2010 or later

MacBook Pro introduced in mid 2010 or later

Mac mini introduced in mid 2010 or later

iMac introduced in late 2009 or later

Mac Pro introduced in mid 2010 or later

Your computer will not run Mojave:

https://support.apple.com/kb/SP777?locale=en_US

So I'd say it has all ready happened.

dirk134 wrote:

Thanks all for the sad news!

Makes me wonder why I continue to buy Apple?

You machine was released 8 years ago. It still works. That's just kind of the way things are. Providing indefinite software support could leave complaints that the new updates don't work very well.

dirk134 wrote:

Thanks...since my machine is slowing down would you say it makes sense to upgrade to an ssd for $2-300 even though the operating system will remain old?

If you're on High Sierra then absolutely. I've got a mid-2012 which was performing rather poorly, even with a 7200 RPM hard drive that I used to replace my original drive after the boot volume became corrupted after one too many forced power downs. And I was force to do that a lot. It wasn't very usable with a hard drive. Even with the faster replacement it would freeze when I tried to close applications and would take about a minute for something as simple as a right-click to select an alternate application to open a file.

Once I got my new SSD it was like a completely new machine. I never upgraded anything before other than a replacement hard drive, and it still only has the OEM 4 GB.

However, $200-300? Granted my first SSD cost $130, but that was early 2018. The same 512 GB SanDisk Ultra 3D I got then is now $70. Similar drives cost $60-80. If you want something with more capacity (1 TB), there are a couple I like for less than $120. You can check the prices of different capacities. I've installed variations of these two, which are essentially the same thing since SanDisk is just a division of Western Digital now. Not sure why they sell under both brands other than product differentiation and where the WD version has a longer warranty.

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/sandisk-ultra-1-024-tb-internal-sata-solid-state-drive/5969508.p?skuId=5969508

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/wd-blue-1tb-internal-sata-solid-state-drive/6025900.p?skuId=6025900

$200 ??

check current listings. Even OWC.net does not charge that kind of money. If you are in the US, think US$80 for a 500-ish GB drive.

You may need to replace the drive cable as well.

Apple tends to supply security updates for the current version plus the two most recent older major versions. If they decide to stay with that tradition, when 10.15 Catalina drops this fall (2019) they will likely still continue security updates for 10.14 Mojave and 10.13 High Sierra for at least another year.

If you have less than 8GB of RAM you have the ability to upgrade that model by adding RAM (by the each DIMM) up to an 8GB DIMM in each of the two slots for a total of 16GB

You have the ability to upgrade the boot drive by replacing an SSD drive. A "regular" SSD drive is about ten times faster than the best rotating drive.

Either or both will improve the speed.

It will not be able to update to macOS Catalina which is scheduled for release in October. See the "See if your Mac can run macOS Catalina." section of macOS Catalina - Apple