Fresh install for MacBook I have a 2012 MacBook Pro. A1278. It’s getting very very slow. Boot up is 5 mins. Random freezing. I thought it was just old. But I’ve done research and apparently it’s either the hard drive failing or hdd cable so I’m gonna replace both. SSD is gonna be faster anyways.

Question is: do I need to do anything to do a brand new install when ssd is in as I haven’t got a disc or usb install for OS X? I don’t want to clone or anything as all my important stuff is in cloud. 

Thank you
What you need to do when you want a fresh install is to follow these steps on here:

How to create a bootable installer for macOS


and then boot from it (press and hold ⌥-Option while powering up) to install the OS.

Other then the above proceddure this formats the drive completly so I recommend to do a backup before even though you have everything in the cloud. Sorry, nevermind since you add a new SSD.

After finishing the installation keep in mind to enable TRIM since you installed a 3rd-party SSD!
Then you can copy all your needed files.