092 The Old Mac That Wasn't Old: How an SSD and More RAM Can Change Everything

There is something satisfying about taking a computer that someone has given up on and discovering that it really isn't finished at all.

Over the years, I have been given quite a few older Apple computers. I have also purchased plenty of Macs myself, taught a couple of Mac classes, repaired operating-system problems, replaced batteries, and even changed a MacBook motherboard just for the fun of seeing if I could bring the machine back to life.

At one point, I had enough older Macs that I seriously considered creating a small Mac museum.

Space eventually won that argument.

The older desktop Macs and especially their monitors took up a lot of room, and I realized that someday simply disposing of all that equipment might become expensive. Reluctantly, I recycled much of the collection.

But I kept many of the laptops.

And that led to one of my favorite discoveries about aging computers:

Sometimes the computer isn't slow. Its storage is slow.

My 30-Minute Rule

When an older Mac comes my way, I don't immediately start buying parts for it.

First, I spend roughly 30 minutes with it.

I boot it. I look around. I clean up unnecessary files and software. I check the display, keyboard, ports, battery, operating system, and general behavior.

Most importantly, I try to answer one question:

Is this fundamentally still a good computer?

If the answer appears to be yes, then the fun begins.

On Macs that allow the upgrades, my favorite combination has been simple:

Install an SSD and add more RAM.

Those two changes can completely transform an older computer.

The SSD Changes Everything

Many older laptops originally used mechanical hard drives.

It is easy to forget how much was happening inside those drives. Platters were physically spinning. A mechanical actuator was moving the read/write heads. There was vibration, noise, heat, power consumption, and—most noticeably—waiting.

Then you replace that hard drive with a solid-state drive.

No spinning platters.

No moving read/write head.

No drive noise.

Much faster access to information.

Less power consumed by the storage system.

Less heat generated by the drive.

And no mechanical hard drive worrying about every bump the laptop encounters while traveling.

The difference can be remarkable.

I had one older MacBook that was painfully slow. I cleaned it up and improved things somewhat, but booting could still take more than a minute.

Eventually I installed Ubuntu Linux on it, upgraded the RAM, and replaced the old drive with an SSD.

The transformation was almost comical.

Instead of waiting more than a minute for the computer to start, it could be ready in roughly 15 seconds.

Same old computer.

Same processor.

Completely different experience.

Don't Forget the RAM

The SSD gets much of the attention because the difference is so immediately noticeable, but additional RAM can be equally important on machines that allow it.

When a computer doesn't have enough memory for everything it is doing, it has to move information back and forth between RAM and storage.

With an old mechanical hard drive, that can become painfully slow.

Give the machine enough RAM and fast solid-state storage, and suddenly the processor isn't spending nearly as much time waiting for everything else.

That taught me an important lesson.

An old processor isn't necessarily a useless processor.

Sometimes it has simply been waiting on an old hard drive for years.

There Was Another Benefit I Didn't Expect

The speed was wonderful, but another change became just as noticeable.

The computer became cooler and quieter.

An SSD itself generates far less of the mechanical heat, vibration, and noise associated with a traditional hard drive. The Mac still has cooling fans because the processor, graphics hardware, and power circuitry can generate heat, particularly under heavy workloads. But during ordinary use, the whole machine can feel much calmer.

Less heat inside a computer is also generally a good thing for the surrounding electronics and battery.

So the SSD wasn't merely making an old Mac faster.

It was making the machine more pleasant to use.

Why I Number My Macs

When you accumulate enough silver MacBook Pros, names such as "the silver MacBook" stop being particularly helpful.

So I number them.

The laptops get an Apple logo decal with a number, and their drives receive corresponding names.

That system recently brought us to Mac72.

Mac72 is a 13-inch Late-2016 MacBook Pro that had belonged to my mother. She decided she was going to use her iPhone instead—although when Apple releases a new iPhone, she also tends to decide that she needs the new one!

The MacBook is thin, light, and potentially an excellent travel computer.

There was just one problem.

It crashed.

Playing video could make it restart. Trying to upgrade macOS could make it restart. Eventually it began crashing while doing very little at all.

That didn't seem right.

So we started investigating.

Mac72 Becomes a Detective Story

We ran Apple Diagnostics.

No issues found.

We booted into Recovery and ran Disk Utility First Aid on both the startup volume and the physical SSD.

Everything passed.

We booted into Safe Mode and played video.

It crashed.

Then we found the real clue.

Mac72 had accumulated numerous kernel panic reports. Instead of guessing about what might be wrong, we opened them.

Again and again, they contained variations of the same message:

nvme: "Fatal error occurred..."

A couple were even more revealing:

nvme: "InitializeNVMe error..."

Every kernel panic we examined pointed back toward the NVMe storage subsystem.

Suddenly all the apparently unrelated symptoms began to make sense.

Video wasn't necessarily the problem.

The browser wasn't necessarily the problem.

Even the old operating system wasn't necessarily the problem.

Activities that placed demands on the computer were exposing an intermittent problem with the SSD or its storage subsystem.

And because Mac72 is one of the 2016 MacBook Pro models with a removable SSD, the story may have a very satisfying ending.

Mac72 may simply need another SSD.

The Irony Is Perfect

For years, one of my favorite ways to rescue an old computer has been:

Put an SSD in it.

Now Mac72 already has an SSD.

And what may rescue it?

Put another SSD in it.

Technology changes, but apparently some solutions remain remarkably consistent.

Computers Can Become Tools Instead of Containers

My approach to computers has changed in another important way over the years.

My primary files now live on an external SSD, with additional backups on laptops and another SSD.

That means I am much less dependent on any individual computer.

If one machine develops a problem, I can grab another.

The computer becomes the tool used to work with the information rather than the only place where the information exists.

That makes keeping older machines useful much more practical.

One Mac can run macOS.

Another can run Ubuntu.

Perhaps another will eventually get Pear Linux.

As long as the machine can do the job comfortably and securely, it can still have a purpose.

Not Every Old Computer Should Be Saved

There is also a point where repairing an old computer stops making sense.

That's why I like the 30-minute evaluation.

If a machine has a failing display, bad logic board, damaged case, dead battery, keyboard problems, and obsolete hardware, throwing money at it probably isn't wise.

But if the basic computer is sound?

An SSD, some RAM, a clean operating system, and a little attention can sometimes give it years of additional useful life.

And there is something I like about that.

We live in a world where replacing things is often easier than understanding them.

But sometimes an old computer isn't asking to be replaced.

Sometimes it is simply waiting for someone to figure out what is actually slowing it down—or what small part has finally worn out.

Mac72 isn't ready for retirement yet.

It may just be waiting for its next SSD.