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<blockquote data-quote="chas_m" data-source="post: 1699106">I have this same model you have, Kevin (welcome by the way), and in most ways it is the exact same machine Apple continues to sell to this day as the non-Retina 13-inch machine. It's both extremely capable -- with most of the current technologies like support for Bluetooth 4, 802.11n (but not ac), USB 3.0, and Thunderbolt -- and modifiable. I have opted to remove the optical drive (never used it much anyway) and replace that with SSD storage, when then prompted me very shortly after to replace the boot drive with SSD. I also increased the RAM to the maximum, 16GB.In short, this machine runs everything I throw at it very well, though I should mention I don't do any top-line video gaming (more of a casual or mid-level gamer on the rare occasions I can at all). It's actually faster than it was when it was new by a considerable margin, and won't NEED to be replaced for many years yet (WANT is of course a different story ...).As mentioned earlier, your actual only practical choice is to jump to El Capitan; none of the other options are easily available to you. I'd suggest upping the RAM to 8GB and I'd also suggest replacing the boot drive with an SSD for maximum performance, but you'll know your budget for this better than I do. The mods I did to mine have completely transformed into a &quot;current&quot; non-Retina MacBook Pro and really improved my productivity on this machine, which I use far too much every day.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="chas_m, post: 1699106"] I have this same model you have, Kevin (welcome by the way), and in most ways it is the exact same machine Apple continues to sell to this day as the non-Retina 13-inch machine. It's both extremely capable -- with most of the current technologies like support for Bluetooth 4, 802.11n (but not ac), USB 3.0, and Thunderbolt -- and modifiable. I have opted to remove the optical drive (never used it much anyway) and replace that with SSD storage, when then prompted me very shortly after to replace the boot drive with SSD. I also increased the RAM to the maximum, 16GB. In short, this machine runs everything I throw at it very well, though I should mention I don't do any top-line video gaming (more of a casual or mid-level gamer on the rare occasions I can at all). It's actually faster than it was when it was new by a considerable margin, and won't NEED to be replaced for many years yet (WANT is of course a different story ...). As mentioned earlier, your actual only practical choice is to jump to El Capitan; none of the other options are easily available to you. I'd suggest upping the RAM to 8GB and I'd also suggest replacing the boot drive with an SSD for maximum performance, but you'll know your budget for this better than I do. The mods I did to mine have completely transformed into a "current" non-Retina MacBook Pro and really improved my productivity on this machine, which I use far too much every day. [/QUOTE]

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