Expecting a 2010 Mac to work with 2017 software (which I infer from your bothering to post here) seems a bit of a stretch. And all hard drives were slow back then. Any variance between models then is lost in the noise when comparing against SSDs, which were not generally available in 2010.
But it should definitely refrain from bricking the machine... that’s a bummer.
I've got Windows 10 installed and working on a 2006 MacBook 1,1. It just got an update to 1709 Fall Creators Update, and still gets the usual weekly security patches. Something is awry when Microsoft is able to provide support & security patches for Apple devices longer than Apple itself.
SSD’s were generally available but extremely expensive from Apple so I went for the extra space on the desktop. For some reason Apple makes it difficult to upgrade their hard drives. I bought an SSD MacBook Pro at the same time. It was much faster with only a Core i5 vs the iMac’s i7. Barely used now because I bought another laptop in 2013.
Now, I wanted to wait for the next Intel refresh. No point in getting less than 32GB in a laptop in 2018 when I got 16gb in 2013. Because of the slow change in Intel revs, I’m probably better off cracking open my 2010 iMac and putting in an SSD.
Hey, thanks for taking me back and explaining how it was “back then”. I miss the late 90’s back then when I spent $800 on several hundred megabytes of 10,000 rpm Cheetah SCSI drive, and had that thing screwed in within 5 minutes.
The bottom line is you will basically live with your Apple hardware as you bought it for 5-10 years. Better buy at the proper Intel revision and get the upgrades at purchase. That 1 port on your new MacBook Pro won’t go far
Then what are you complaining about? It isn’t magic, things do break sometimes.