CLEAN THE COOLING FINS behind the fans (unscrew but don't disconnect fans) and the machine will run much cooler. So you can use or OtherWorld Computing and order 2 - 8GB RAM sticks and the tools to open the machine up.

The Early 2011 MacBook Pro's can accept 16GB of RAM, not 8 (Apple only says 8 because there was no 16GB at the time). Yes the boot time is not as fast as a SSD but that is really not a big deal in the day to day performance as most files are small and load into RAM quickly even on a hard drive. With this I avoided the whole SSD + Trim Enabler mess as Apple doesn't enable TRIM by default and it breaks at OS X updates. On Windows I use the free Glary Utilities to optimize/defrag and send large files and many users files to the bottom of the first partition where it doesn't affect Windows or program performance. OS X was cloned to the second partition using Carbon Copy Cloner, it also defrags and does some optimization in the process.

Naturally 10.6 is slower due to the slower sectors, but I don't use it much anymore anyway as Win 7 has way more software and later OS X versions are bloated and turning into iOS more each year. I also 50/50 partitioned the drive, Windows 7 is installed in the first partition and OS X in the second partition (flipped). But what I did do is a 0x-3x secure erase on the entire hard drive, this maps off bad sectors which hinders performance. I can secure erase the hard drive, not the SSD. Left the stock 5,400 RPM, boot time is ~40 seconds with OS X 10.6 or Windows 7, good enough and not worth spending the money for a SSD.

Replace ram on macbook pro early 2011