Will a Catalina SSD run if put in a 2010 Macbook Pro?

[macthekatt]

Hi everyone!
My cousin gifted me his old Macbook Pro 15" - 2,88 GHz processor, 4 GB RAM, 512 MB display, 500 GB HDD, battery with only 35 cycles.
I think it is a 2010 model. Not sure, as in "about this mac" it only shows "El Capitan" but no year at all.
I was thinking of replacing its El Capitan HDD with a SSD I have lying around, and which already has Catalina pre-loaded.
Will this work?
Any suggestions?
Thanks!

 

[rm5]

If it's a 2010, that won't work. You'd need to use a patcher to get Catalina on there. The DosDude Catalina patcher can be found here if you want to use it. You could create your USB installer, take out the hard drive, put in the SSD, and install it like that—that's my suggestion.

 

[macthekatt]

Ok thanks a lot. Will try to do that.

 

[MBAir2010]

Ok thanks a lot. Will try to do that.

in my experience, Catalina ran slow on my MacBook Air 2010 4gb-ram i3 Intel chip via a patcher
High Sierra runs smooth but as slow and fast as these specs can produce in 2023.
HS also airplays and plays better with my tv than el-captain.

since you will need to upgrade to High Sierra anyway to install Catalina.
therefore I would give high Sierra a couple days to see if that works.

I hoped this helped!