Testing the BEST upgrades for used MacBooks! 

Don't forget to disconnect the battery before follow this steps. This is very important to avoid any kind of electrical issues on MacBook.

There's something super satisfying about upgrading old machines like this

Reminds me of when I upgraded my company PC with a new NVME SSD. I also used a similar enclosure and besides having to reinstall Windows 10, the process wasn’t too bad. Very straightforward! It had a very slow HDD before! Made all the difference!

The 2 tb upgrade is still very nice to have from the stock 200-500gb, and for the thermal paste its definitely based on the design of the cooler that Apple uses

I used to work as a Macbook technician (I used to fix them). And the biggest difference after repasting macbooks the biggest difference is in acoustic performance. And you completely omitted this aspect!

if you think about it, its really impressive the thermal paste they were using that long ago is holding up against the modern stuff. there has been some real advances in thermal paste in that time. It almost makes me think that someone may have already put something fresh in there. if not thats really impressive.

Take note that Luke installed Monterey before swapping out SSD for the non proprietary one. There are a lot of threads in Apple community about SSD crashing after upgrading to Monterey. According to one poster, Monterey Installer contains an EFI Boot ROM that verifies if an Apple Original Drive is the Destination Drive which the Western Digital Drive is NOT. The EFI Boot ROM must Flash the Computer and NOT the Drive itself. Without the Flashing of Computer process taking place - the Installation may fail or abort or in your case Crash the System.

Appreciate the effort! Very helpful to those of us with that era of Macbook Pro. I haven't upgraded my SSD yet, but it's on the list. One of the most recommended NVMe SSDs for the Macbook Pro is the SK Hynix P31 Gold. According to what I've read, it offers excellent performance and outstanding power management. If you want to run on battery for as long as possible, it's a good candidate.

I repasted my 13" Macbook Pro and it made a huge difference. Before that the fan was spinning at full speed all the time and I noticed a bad performance (audio CPU demanding applications). After repasting everything went incredibly smoother, performs a lot better and the fan now is always quiet. Be aware of fake branded thermal paste flooding the market, though.

Just completed my 1tb SSD upgrade on my 15 inch mid 2014 Macbook Pro. Got a 1tb Samsung 970 Evo Plus. Double the read/write speed of the Apple SSD. 😃

Watching this on my Mid-2015 15" Retina MacBook Pro. I love the screen size. Will perform these upgrades to keep it going strong!

Watching your videos helped me pick out the right mac. I super happy with my Mac Studio. I got the low model and Logics and all my plugins work phenomenal. Kudos to you and your videos. Subbed

I bought a macbook this exact model and did the ssd upgrade. I was shocked and in disbelief how cheaply it was engineered and designed! The thing that gave it away cheaply was the fragile, extremely short screws. Plus the rubber and plastic around the screen was melting off due to heat.

I upgraded my 2013 laptop from a 500GB HDD to a 500GB SSD and upgraded my wife's older laptop's 256GB HDD to 256GB SSD with amazing results! I love getting large performance gains from small upgrades! I would not think of upgrading paste for the CPU. I'm thinking about going with a MacBook 16" Pro next time because of the efficiency and quiet fan. My laptop can make a lot of noise with it's i7 when it gets hot!

I swear, the layout of the inside of a MacBook Pro is suitable for framing. It's just pretty.

Honestly, one really shouldn't expect a performance boost from repaste, but I treat it as a maintenance item. In theory, yes, OEM paste should last a while, but you also have no idea what the previous owner did to it, if the paste really is still good, etc. Doing it is cheap insurance on your end; it's now a known quantity that you know is good. Throw it on the yearly maintenance schedule and enjoy your newly refurbished kit.

For my executive day job, I still use a 2015 15" MBP, maxed out - 16gb & 2tb. I did the same upgrade about 3-years ago. This use-case does not require any post-production processing, only MS Office desktop & web applications. I was able to get a second matching MBP as a backup. I do not see a need to upgrade my office MBP until it dies. I would have upgraded my desk to a 13" M1 MBA, but due to the lack of native dual-monitor (external) support, it is not a viable option. Should the rumored 15" M-series MBA come with native dual-monitor support, then that might be worth a change. For my photography work, I use a maxed out 16" M1 Max MBP.

I did the same tests on a 2015 MacBook Air. I unscrewed the fan and cleaned its inside. Then I replaced the thermal paste with a really good quality one. That made the MacBook 5% better in benchmarks. I also installed software to control the fan speed. Why? Because Apple intentionally keeps the fan very low as not to disturb you. But this drastically sacrifices performance. Most of the time even with a higher speed you still won’t hear the fan. That gave it another 5%. In the end the score increased by about 10%. But my machine was also very dirty on the inside. Still, I think everyone should do this on their computers from time to time. Even if there is no speed increase, a cooler chip is a chip that lasts longer.

The thing that drives me more insane than anything is the anti reflective coating coming off these. I thought nothing of it when I bought my perfect example and it STILL happened to me. I had to buy a whole new screen and sell my old one cause I even tried using the Listerine method and some of the coating still wouldn't come off. Highly recommend a screen protector for anyone interested in these.

Good video, you may want to try a better Thermal Paste. A lot of people use Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut Extreme has better thermal conductivity of 14.2KW which may help you out, a good video to see which works better. also, the new Samsung 990 PRO SSD are out they say best best power efficiency and made it alot better. Maybe a good head-to-head to see does speed thing up. keep the videos coming

Wouldn’t it be better to test the same MacBook before and after, rather than compare it to a different MacBook? Even if they are the same model and specs, there might be slight variations in performance, especially if they are older and well-used.

The stock fan curve from Apple is not good for the CPU temps. I would try using Macs Fan Control app to keep temps around 60-70C to see if performance is better with the new thermal paste. Thanks for the Intel Power Gadget, now I can monitor CPU details better :)

I did these same upgrades (+ new battery) to mine a few years ago and there is a slight benefit to repasting, but only on lighter loads or very quick heavy loads. The system will idle at lower temps and boost for longer. But for long duration heavy loads, my results are the same as yours: it's effectively a wash.

Don't forget the battery. I just replaced the battery in my 2014 MacBook Pro and it made a world of difference. Mine was shot anyway. Luckily Apple had the part in stock so I got the OEM battery. iFixit sells a battery replacement kit too.

Next time upgrade the AirPort as well, extra content and great improvements; such as unlocking with apple watch/faster wifi-bt etc.

Yeah the thermal paste upgrade definitely won't show much improvement if you can't tweak the fan curves as well. Heat dissipation from the cpu die to the heat sink might be more efficient, but if the fans can't dissipate that heat from the heat sink fast enough then what's the point.

When I changed the thermal paste on two of these the fans stopped blowing constantly to once in while.

Thanks a lot, upgraded my MacBook Pro 13 late a1502 to 1TB nvme, I’m very excited

6:26. Please... unplug your Mac's internal battery before doing any work inside of it. This is basic stuff and will help you avoid a disaster. And you need to clean both the CPU die and heatsink with 91% or greater Isopropyl alcohol, before re-applying the thermal paste.

Hey Luke! One thing to always keep in mind is to disconnect the battery before doing any other work inside the machine. Aside from that, I found that you can't update the system firmware with 3rd party SSDs. Apple being apple, only lets you update the firmware with an Apple SSD in the Mac. This probably wouldn't be a problem if you're already on the latest version of Monterey. I'm stuck on Big Sur on my 2015 13", and I can't update to Monterey just because I can't update the firmware. So, keep the original SSD with you, just incase.

My experience with Thermal Grizzly is different than with your thermal paste. Temperatures were lower all around with less fan noise. Also, I've been using Thermal Grizzly for years and it stays good for at least three years while the Apple stock paste dries out. So, Thermal Grizzly, at least, is an upgrade in thermal paste quality. However, overall speed remained similar between the stock paste and Thermal Grizzley. This is because MacOS will run the CPU at the limits and then becomes more power limited rather than temperature limited. Since thermal paste is pretty cheap, as even a small tube is good for many applications, I think the lower temperatures and less fan noise are worth the small amount of work to change the thermal paste for these older MacBooks. My son changed to Thermal Grizzly and cleaned his fans on a gaming laptop. Again no notable speed difference, but the temperature went down over 25 degC and his fan noise went way down. New MacBooks where the logic board has to be removed to change the thermal paste the calculus might be different but if you have to remove the logic board for some reason (like changing the battery) then I think it's always a good idea to change the paste to something like Thermal Grizzly. No I don't work for Thermal Grizzly. I just really like it.

So, you got an upgrade kit that didn't work in your MacBook without an adapter, with an external case that doesn't work with the removed SSD?

So where can we get the same OEM paste Apple uses? And, the paste is made to last a long time, but it doesn’t last forever. So at what point should the cpu be reposted regardless ?

one upgrade you could have tried with the 15 inch pro is thermal pads on the heatsink much like the mods done on the m1 mba's and it gives some performance

Great video and timely since I just purchased two 2015 MBP 15" and I love em! They both have a 1TB stock drive but I could benefit from a 4TB (2TB will not buy me enough space). I'm wondering if there is enough room to add a 4tb SSD rather than a 2TB. I haven't heard anyone talk about adding a 4TB SSD and am thinking the 4TB SSDs may be double sided and will not fit. I guess it is possible that the machine will not address 4TB. Any idea?

The thermal paste is a good shout, I'd never thought of that. Just bought my daughter a used macbook air.

Last year I switched to Mac but I still have my old Windows PC laying around as a backup for data transfer and other stuff even though it was running very slow. I had an HDD inside of it and it failed, but since it was still functioning I tried to swap it for an SSD and it just blew my mind: not only it's esponentially faster but it's also the quietest it has ever been, and it took me 20 euros and 10 minutes to do the upgrade without having opened a PC in my entire life.

I've seen everywhere that the max on these is 1tb, I should be able to throw 2tb in my mid 2015 15in right?

Killer resource video for me. I’m finally upgrading my dual 2012 mbp 15’s. I’m actually between a 2019 & 2015. Leaning newer. Cheers!

So, just to be sure - connect the new SSD, erase it, clone it, and then just put it in the MacBook and it starts up normally, exactly as would the old one?

Great video, as always. Thanks

hi,luke,thank you!Merry Christmas to you!

coming from a bench technician, oem uses the cheapest garbage paste that will last long enough for you to buy another machine. you completely missed how long the stock machine stayed at a higher temp than the repaste. i just did this today and the paste was as dry as clay. noctua nt-h1 to save the day.

Windows system can also do the same process you are saying. Windows systems can be cloned and can be run on an external drive, you can use minipartition tool to do the cloning process. It is useful for storage upgrade.

Aside from the upgrades mentioned, what other experimental component replacements or upgrades could one attempt on the Retina MBPs? Is there an aftermarket battery that may have more amp hours, or more modern speakers with better bass response?

On this "old" machines you can also use a hand full of thermal pads to let the MacBook dissipate heat through the bottom cover (at the CPU itself and where the fan fins are). Combined with Macs Fan Control (custom fan curve) you can always improve temps by at least 10° to 15° and gain up to 20% performance (in the most used benchmarks).

Your the best! Thanks

Love these kind of videos!

While yes, you CAN just clone your drive with Disk Utility, it's actually more advisable - since some folk who are watching this are going to be upgrading a drive that they've been actually USING on their MacBook for ages and just want a bigger drive - to do a fresh install on the new SSD, and use Migration Assistant to move your personal effects and settings. There's a reason for this; because you leave behind a lot of the root and system level crap, caches, etc, when you use Migration Assistant and choose just Applications and the User. Your fresh drive will run MacOS better, verified, with a fresh install, not just a clone of a long-used boot drive.

The 2015s do not support macOS Ventura so using Opencore Legacy Patcher will let you patch macOS Ventura on them.

Just curious, especially with unsupported Macs like stuff from 2008, would you consider making a video about installing Linux on them and comparing a lightweight Linux Distro like Mint/Lubuntu/Linux Lite versus MacOS?

I was thinking of doing a repaste using Thermal Grizzly. Do you think it's a waste of time/a hassle?

I got a mid 2012 MBP with 16GB of ram for free. Ended up putting in the SSD from my 2010 plastic MacBook and updating to Monterey with open core legacy patcher. Is there anything else I should upgrade

Excellent. Did the same and mine is a Rocket .

I dont use desktop thermal paste on a laptop, instead use something like honeywell ptm7950. Solid under 40c, liquid above that temp. Linus tech tips did review on it, basically performs like liquid metal without the risk of liquid metal.

Macbook pro 15 2015 dedicated graphics are still one of the most popular ones having a changeable ssd really does help its a shame macbooks were all soldered from that point there really is no need for it

two reasons to go with an earlier os are: 1. software compatibility 2. privacy concerns with telemetry and apple id requirements. example: quicktime 7 is needed for some work even in 2022. it is supported up to Mojave. 32 bit apps run better in certain situations.

Can you do a battery replacement on one of this without taking everything apart plz

My 2015 MacBook Pro late 2015 5.4 I installed a Fledging ssd Feather M13 2tb 2280 and put new past nest the battery, Thank You for your help with Video Ps to much past o'well.

Apart from price Is there any other reason you didn’t use a WD/Samsung M2 ?

Bro this video is gold thank you💪🏽

The problem of almost any notebook is not the thermal paste but the heatsink and the thermal exhaust power. Thats why it scored better in the first run. When the heatsink is still cold or rather not as hot the better thermal conductivity makes a difference. On sustained tasks that does not matter at all because the heatsink is the bottleneck.

Some thoughts: Same resulting temperature could be the result that the upgraded system can clock itself at stock a bit longer then the stock system? -> I'd also be curious what the heat transfer rate of your paste is, I tend to lean towards Grizzly Kryonaught extreme for its high conductivity rate which did return higher performance rates on my 2015 retina MacBook Pro. I'd have plugged in both machines as they can throttle themselves a bit while on battery. Fun side tangent, I used to have an 2015 MacBook Pro i7 (Intel Graphics sadly) and to reduce how quickly the system would hit max temperature from loading PHPStorm I bridged the gap between the heatsink at the fins and the metal bottom chassis with some high conductivity thermal pads. While the retinas have a lot of great things about them, personally I think the issues with overheating and intel MacBooks is just too much to justify. Super happy the platform has switched.

Haircut. Get one. - edit- but you do great work, thanks for the video. Keep it up.

How about the sleep/wake feature? I heard it's pretty much gone after you adapt 3rd party ssd into the machine

When you pulled out that second macbook pro, I got some Julia Child vibes like when she takes out the finished meal from the oven.

I took your video on the 2012 13" Macbook Pro and added 16 gigs of ram and a 512 meg SSD.

Thanks for the video! How does the Crucial 2TB drive hold up today? Asking because I am also thinking of doing just that, well still deciding if 1 or 2TB drive.

I can't get my 2015 MacBook Pro to accept the new Samsung NVME. Once it goes past the Apple logo, I get an icon of a folder with a question mark, and a URL. I've tried a bunch of different guides from YT with no luck. I'm on Monterey. Attempting to upgrade with a 2TB Samsung 990 Evo. Edit: The drive doesn't show up if I boot into Recovery mode. I'm curious if the adapter is junk.

Great video thanks Luke! My problem is for business I need to retain 32-bit application capability so I've stuck with Mojave OS 10.14 and can't run 10.14 using an adapter with a modern SSD. Catalina is no problem, but won't run 32-bit software. Wish I had a 1 or 2TB SSD that didn't require an adapter for my late 2013 Pro

That is a cool kit from iFixit but I chose another approach. I set up a home NAS a few years ago and it allows me to use MacBooks with small SSDs. It also makes old Macs with HDDs viable, as long as they have a lot of RAM. I still have a 2015 MacBook Pro as a backup but I am planning on selling it soon as my primary is a 2021 M1 Pro MacBook Pro 16 32/1 and it's just a fabulous system. I would consider keeping the 2015 if I could upgrade it to 32 GB of RAM.

My 2012 air with 4 gigs of ram chokes on Monterey. Had to install high Sierra and it works great!

I just got a MacBook Pro 2022 16 GB ram, fuck upgrades, fuck buying an old one and upgrading it, I love my laptop as is and I plan on using this puppy for then next 7 years non stop.

I still think Apple should do with this era of MacBook what they did with the iPhone and reuse the chassis/some of the components. Ever heard of the iPhone SE range? How about 2015 MacBook Pro Retina 15" and 13" chassis with M1 Max and M2 chipsets in them? I'd take the crappier 720p FaceTime HD camera and less bassy speakers for the smaller but nicer feeling trackpad and that wonderful Retina keyboard, personally... you could call it the MacBook Pro SE or MacBook Pro Classic. I know for a fact Apple are still making these things because I had my top spec 2.8GHz QC i7/1TB Apple SSD/16GB RAM model recased for a battery replacement recently and the manufacture date of the top case is May 2022.

You didn’t cover battery drain Luke. In my 13” 2015 I must say I haven’t really noticed it running faster after the upgrade.

I can boot into Windows 10, installed on an external drive, on any of my 4 PCs (ranging from 2008 Samsung to 2019 Lenovo). What am I doing wrong? =)

When I try and restore it tells me “Operation couldn’t be completed (OSStatus Error 49153)”. Did I miss something?

What if the fans are not working at all.? I have only changed my battery to a new one and upgrded the RAM to faster ones, but still the same amount of GB's. My 2010 Macbook Pro turns itself restarts as it starts to do just a bit of work as I am hooking it up to my TV to do some keynote. It seems to work just fine if I want to play a DVD on it though. What could be the problem..?

really enjoyed this video and content

Don't forget to clean your internals from dust, especially the fans

2:35 i cant admit really, i downgraded the os from monterey to high sierra and the laptop is running way better

I still use my 2014 13” MacBook Pro daily.

6:16 Did you forget an important step, disconnect the battery?

Just got a MBP 2015 15 inch and I love it so far. It's a great laptop for being so old. A windows laptop of this era certainly isn't holding up as great. I downloaded Endurance and Istat menus to limit boost and make a custom fan curve so it lasts longer and runs cooler. Edit: 2915 to 2015 😜

I just inherited an old MacBook and the max is 16 GB for Ram.So I wonder if I change out the hard drive and added the Ram.Would it be worth it to keep?If anyone has an answer, let me know.Thanks

Plus that’d give you a fresh TBW fresh start.

The two most important components I want to know about are, Where to get the reliable Battery and the connector that makes it compatible with M.2 SDD to your Macbook Pro? Anyone pasting a link to those two will be greatly appreciated. Thanks

Nice job, but you forgot 2 most important tweaks: undervolting and tweaking fan speeds. And maybe dbrand skins, but that’s extra 😅

I’m confused why you didn’t test the machine before and after instead of getting two different machines, but overall helpful

You deserve more subscribers 🇨🇦🤗

Great video. Many years ago I saved a faulty 15inch macbook pro. I didn't start because the previous owner had spilled something and the liquid went inside on one of the sides (not on the keyboard) and damaged the motherboard. But overall it looks like it's in great condition. Thinking of maybe replacing the motherboard someday when I have the time and money. The screen looks intact, but i'm unsure about the battery though. I disconnected it as soon as I got the macbook.

Pity that the new MBPs can't be upgraded the same way, despite being faster and all, but the longevity of the system is in question, or need changes, sometimes all we need is more RAM or storage, no need to create more ewaste by buying an entire new system if the old was working fine.

I had an old unibody MBP it was so slow I thought it was the hardrive but it was the battery

4:25 Good idea!

I want Luke miani merch of the "Don't forget the hat"

How are the boot times ? I have no issues with Mojave or Big Sur. With Monterey my Macbook takes over 3 minutes to boot. I believe the trim function is broken with Samsung NMVe SSD’s. I’m using a 1TB Samsung Evo 970 non plus version. 2015 15 inch MacBook Pro , integrated graphics, 2.8 ghz CPU.

Hey Luke could you do a tutorial on how to intall a new version on Mac OS on a un supported Mac?

I’d like to see a video on how you prepare a Mac for resale. Also tips for listing and pricing on eBay. Thanks.

Hey Luke! Could you turn around the viewfinder? It’s distracting when you look not into the camera ☺️ Loved the video!

It’s a brand new computer. The kit looks really useful. On the M2 you can use the thermal for over heating.