Best SSD for Unibody MBP

[cutlercollin99]

Hello,
I recently purchased a '11 15" Macbook Pro and am looking to upgrade the SATA Disk with a SSD. I've looked up various SSD's and can't seem to find one that everyone is leaning towards. I'm looking for something that is cheap, fast, and reliable.

Can anyone help guide me whether that is to another thread or post, or simply state some that you recommend. All of the help is appreciated.

 

[mj_]

I've looked up various SSD's and can't seem to find one that everyone is leaning towards.

Because there is no single best SSD for all usage scenarios.

That's like asking for the one vehicle that everyone is leaning towards. Or the one dish. Or the one type of cookie. Or religion. Etc. pp.

In my personal experience, anything with a Samsung or an Intel badge is recommendable. I've also recently (about a year ago) purchased a 525GB Crucial MX300 SSD for an older ThinkPad that is now being used in my wife's Acer notebook and haven't had any trouble with it at all. In other words: it doesn't matter what you get as long as it's not the cheapest stuff you can find on eBay or Alibaba. Well-known brands are usually risk-free when it comes to SSDs.

 

[cutlercollin99]

as long as it's not the cheapest stuff

I'd figure that. The biggest brands that I'm leaning towards is Samsung or Crucial. I want to use my laptop for video/photo editing mainly. What is an upper level read/write speed for one?

 

[Audit13]

Congratulations on your purchase. Please be aware of the fact that the radeon gpu in the 2011 15" macbook pro can fail and is a common problem with an expensive fix. I experienced a gpu failure this past summer.

I think the Samsung 850 evo and crucial mx300 are good candidates.

 

[casperes1996]

Congratulations on your purchase. Please be aware of the fact that the radeon gpu in the 2011 15" macbook pro can fail and is a common problem with an expensive fix. I experienced a gpu failure this past summer.

Yeah. My 2011 died like 4 months before Apple's official repair program. Had to go out and buy a 2014 then. Luckily the repair program at least gave me the option to sell the 2011 for a decent chump of cash.

To the OP, well, video editing on a machine that is known to have GPU failures sounds like a bit of a doomsday scenario. If you have the cash you might want to look into getting a 2012 or newer (or hell, even older). Otherwise, perhaps disabling the Radeon GPU and only running off of the iGPU although that'll obviously limit performance.

I think the Samsung 850 evo and crucial mx300 are good candidates.

Both excellent options. Those two are certainly among my most recommended as well, but another brand to look out for is SanDIsk, They make great stuff as well.

 

[mroy16]

My 2011 15" died about a month after I put an SSD in it. What a bummer.

I used a WD Blue 250 GB SSD, but any of the others mentioned will work just fine.

 

[Audit13]

I have had good results with the corsair neutron xt, adata sp600, and others from silicon power, Intel, and hynix.