Resolved I have two questions....

[a-m-k]

How old is too old for a trade-in at the apple store for a MBP? I am not sure this applies, but how fast does it have to be? My MBP is a mid-2012, I had to replace the hard drive bracket (I can't remember the exact name, I think that is what it was called, and the power adapter. Other than that it's OK, I just get a lot of multi-colored beach balls and blue beach balls that have two shades of blue. I'm thinking of upgrading since it's so slow and it's been known to freeze, too.

Though, I want to make sure I am out of the "mid" year production. So I might hang on to this MBP a little longer.

Correct me if I am wrong, but Macs get too old for certain repairs. (For exsample, if I just replaced my HDD with a SDD instead, would it be worth it? I just recently passed six years.)

Thank you

 

[Audit13]

The beachball effect may be caused by a bad sata hard drive cable. A defective or failing hard drive cable is a common occurence for the 2009 to 2012 MBPs.

 

[Clix Pix]

This is the webpage for trading in at Apple (they use a company called Probio or something like that) and it's not like trading in an iPhone, you have to ship the computer to them, you can't just take it to the local Apple store. When you provide the requested info on the site, they'll offer an estimate of how much they will give you -- and I think it is only as credit, an Apple gift card, not cash. Just to let you know, you probably will not get much for your machine, just a heads-up. Much depends upon their final appraisal of the machine's overall condition and so on. If they determine that they won't be giving you any credit for your machine at all, they'll offer to recycle it for you or send it back to you. The nice thing about being able to do the estimate online first is then you can see the likely possibilities and options and from there decide whether to send it to them or to choose another company such as Gazelle. There are several online vendors which do take trade-ins -- Mac of All Trades is another one I can think of off the top of my head.

Apple's site:
https://www.apple.com/shop/trade-in

As for keeping the machine and giving it a new lease on life with a SSD transplant replacing the old HDD, that is certainly a lot less expensive than buying a new computer! If everything is fine with the computer this is certainly a possibility, although there are advantages to having a new machine, too. The older ones eventually no longer can be repaired, parts are not available, and also are no longer compatible with the OS. I think the 2012 machines are probably getting close to the point where they will not be able to use future versions of MacOS.

 

[a-m-k]

I’m more annoyed by the freezing....

 

[kohlson]

If this is the original 6-year-old HDD, that is almost certainly the cause of the freezing and beach balling. For a relatively modest amount of money - perhaps under $150 installed for 500GB SSD - you will be astounded at the difference. Better than new performance. There are several reasons for this:
- 6 year old HDDs in laptops are probably near end of life.
- Laptops of that era are often figured with HDDs optimized for battery life, not performance. They were slow to begin with.
- Starting several versions ago, (like 10.9) Mac OS X was optimized for SSD. One effect of this is many more read/writes/second. An HDD, even a new one, struggles to keep up.

Apple won't do this work, but a local computer shop will. It's very easy and straightforward. iFixit can show you how easy it is to do.

I am typing this on a late 2013 15-MBP, with an equipped SSD. I expect many more years of useful life from it.

You may want/need a new MBP for many reasons. But your 2012 still has some useful life in it.

 

[a-m-k]

If I will be replacing my MBP, I will be going for an MBA this time. I'm going to wait until it either gets too slow or it dies agin and won't turn on. (The light on the charger won't turn on. That has happened before. I forget what was wrong, but I think it was the hard drive bracket.)