2010 MacBook Pro or 2012 Macbook Air

[Dyno-Dylan]

I have a mid 2010 MBP with a 2.4ghz core 2 duo processor. Running mountain lion. I upgraded the ram to 8gb and its been working well. I'd like to speed it up a bit and was planning on installing a 120 GB SSD from OWC.

First, I believe my Mac is only capable of sata ii so would the electra 3g be a better buy versus the 6g since my mac cant take advantage of the faster 6g speed?

Second, how much of a speed improvement would a 2012 macbook air with a 2.0ghz i7 and 8gb of ram be over my current system?

 

[anynamewilldo]

You could always plan ahead. Buy the 6G for the current machine and plan to transport it into something else later - although with prices always coming down, that may be ill-advised. Of course, you could always take such a drive and use it in an enclosure too.

I doubt you would see a huge performance increase of a 2012 MBA vs a 2010MBP as you describe. You'd be better off putting more memory in the 2010MBP if you can (2012 takes 16GB, not sure about the older ones).

A 2010 machine is not very old. I would be disinclined to replace it with another machine that is limited to 8GB. In your situation, I'd start off by maxing out the ram (if it will take more) and putting in an SSD. If you're still not happy with it, at least you can put the SSD in a newer MBP (not air), or use as an external.

Generally, I'll let a machine get at least 3 years old before replacing it.

 

[wolfpuppies3]

Short answer, my 13" 2012 MBA 2 GHZ dual core i7, 8GB RAM, 512 GB SSD is almost exactly eight times faster than my 15" 2010 2.66 GHZ i7, 8 GB memory, 500 GB 7200 HDD. My 2011 11" MBA, 1.8 GHZ dual core i7, 4 GB memory, 256 GB SSD is four times faster.

A lot of the speed difference is in the SSD, something you should carefully consider.