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SSD Buying Guide [part 2]

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The first post of this thread is a WikiPost and can be edited by anyone with the appropiate permissions. Your edits will be public.
I have a question to pop in here, as I am using Yosemite now on my 2010 MacBook Pro, I have lost the Trim Enabler app for my Samsung SSD 830 Series. I see I can use it again if I disable the 'kext singing' security feature of Yosemite but even the app developer advises not to do this.

So is their any other way to enable trim at all?
 
apolloa said:
I have a question to pop in here, as I am using Yosemite now on my 2010 MacBook Pro, I have lost the Trim Enabler app for my Samsung SSD 830 Series. I see I can use it again if I disable the 'kext singing' security feature of Yosemite but even the app developer advises not to do this.

So is their any other way to enable trim at all?
Click to expand...

- Nope. That's the only way on Yosemite.
I use the same SSD (albeit on a 2011 model), and in my experience disabling kext signing and running with TRIM doesn't cause any problems at all in normal use. Not even when updating OS X.
 
Goodness, I'm reading all this thinking that I really ought to replace the SATA disk on my MBP-mid2010.

It's slow as molasses in January now with Yosemite.

Because I know absolutely nothing about SSDs, and am too scared to do it myself, where can I look up the best information for what I can replace the SATA with, how much for parts/labour etc?

And would I really get a big boost in the performance?
 
ifixit.com and youtube are your sources ;) I've never read of anyone complaining after an SSD upgrade. If you can, update RAM as well.

snifferdogx said:
Goodness, I'm reading all this thinking that I really ought to replace the SATA disk on my MBP-mid2010.

It's slow as molasses in January now with Yosemite.

Because I know absolutely nothing about SSDs, and am too scared to do it myself, where can I look up the best information for what I can replace the SATA with, how much for parts/labour etc?

And would I really get a big boost in the performance?
Click to expand...
 
Wreckie said:
Does anyone know if the SSD in Macbook Air Mid 2013 is compatible with MBPr mid 2014? Both should be PCIe.
Click to expand...

I'm not 100% sure, but those two may be slightly different in mechanics and one may not be used for the other's place. Best way to be sure is to find out the respective Apple part numbers. If the said part numbers are identical, then bingo!...:)

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snifferdogx said:
Goodness, I'm reading all this thinking that I really ought to replace the SATA disk on my MBP-mid2010.

It's slow as molasses in January now with Yosemite.

Because I know absolutely nothing about SSDs, and am too scared to do it myself, where can I look up the best information for what I can replace the SATA with, how much for parts/labour etc?

And would I really get a big boost in the performance?
Click to expand...

If you have residency in USA (or say North America) you can check with the OWC website. They have all kinds of replacements, upgrades inc. in-house modification service with some additional cost. But it's a turnkey type of service, which should put you on the safer side since you're saying you're inexperienced.

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snifferdogx said:
I've got 4Gb RAM. But obviously more is better. Especially considering the resource hungriness of Yosemite.

BTW, I'm in Australia. Does that make a difference?
Click to expand...

Just noticed that you're in Australia. Well, OWC can still help you out partly: you can purchase a SSD and additional RAM modules from OWC at a reasonable cost and receive them in Australia. I hope you can find a local Mac experienced "private" repair/service shop who can help you out with the installation and data transfer. There should be one, if you're living in one of the big owns...;)
 
@ snifferdog :

Maybe first you can take a look at this info, to see if your 2010 MBP matches with the given data.

http://www.everymac.com/systems/app...7-2.8-aluminum-15-mid-2010-unibody-specs.html

Then you can start sniffing into OWC's website to find the appropriate replacement/upgrade parts. It looks like that you can replace the 500GB mechanical HDD with a 512GB (actually 480GB) SSD or one with higher capacity; depending on your budget. But for the RAM side, you're not that lucky. Your laptop seems to have 2 RAM slots, each housing a 2GB RAM module. So no slots are free... In that case, you'll have to purchase 2x4GB RAM modules for the upgrade and throw away the the ones that Apple has used originally.

One final reminder: As your Mac is already 5 years old, what is the health status of your battery? Have you checked how many cycles (charge & discharge cycles) you have reached so far? If it's already in the range of 400-500 cycles, then the battery health should be down to (nearer to) 80-85% which means time to replace the battery is coming... Well, you're lucky in this case: your model's battery can be easily replaced by a technician. For the battery: check out with ifixit site. They provide reliable quality replacements.

Good luck!...:cool:
 
mafaky said:
I'm not 100% sure, but those two may be slightly different in mechanics and one may not be used for the other's place. Best way to be sure is to find out the respective Apple part numbers. If the said part numbers are identical, then bingo!...:)

----------



If you have residency in USA (or say North America) you can check with the OWC website. They have all kinds of replacements, upgrades inc. in-house modification service with some additional cost. But it's a turnkey type of service, which should put you on the safer side since you're saying you're inexperienced.

----------



Just noticed that you're in Australia. Well, OWC can still help you out partly: you can purchase a SSD and additional RAM modules from OWC at a reasonable cost and receive them in Australia. I hope you can find a local Mac experienced "private" repair/service shop who can help you out with the installation and data transfer. There should be one, if you're living in one of the big owns...;)
Click to expand...

I'm in Melbourne, but I don't know of anyone apart from Apple authorised resellers, e.g. MyMac, to get any parts.
 
New M500, to be installed to mid 2009 MBP 13 inch

Hi,

I have a Crucial M500 480gb SSD installed to my windows PC as storage drive but it wasn't much use. So, i intend to upgrade my mid 2009 MBP with it.

I understand i have to format it prior to connecting it (via usb-to-sata cable) to the macbook.

Thing is...Before I connect to the MBP, do I have to enable it in Windows, under Disk Management by clicking on New Simple Volume? Because it's showing black/inactive status now.

Appreciate any help! :)
 
reeveah said:
Hi,

I have a Crucial M500 480gb SSD installed to my windows PC as storage drive but it wasn't much use. So, i intend to upgrade my mid 2009 MBP with it.

I understand i have to format it prior to connecting it (via usb-to-sata cable) to the macbook.

Thing is...Before I connect to the MBP, do I have to enable it in Windows, under Disk Management by clicking on New Simple Volume? Because it's showing black/inactive status now.

Appreciate any help! :)
Click to expand...

You can just connect it straight away onto your MBP and use your Leopard/Snow Leopard disc that came with your MBP, boot it from the disc and run Disk Utility and format it from there... Make sure it is set to GUID instead of Master Boot Record, and format it as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Or if you have a bootable USB drive of Mavericks or Yosemite, you can do that as well on their respective Disk Utility app.

I'm not familiar with Windows Disk Management, but even if you format it from there, you will still need to run Disk Utility from your startup disc/boot drive and re-format into GUID and Mac OS Extended...
 
Eithanius said:
You can just connect it straight away onto your MBP and use your Leopard/Snow Leopard disc that came with your MBP, boot it from the disc and run Disk Utility and format it from there... Make sure it is set to GUID instead of Master Boot Record, and format it as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Or if you have a bootable USB drive of Mavericks or Yosemite, you can do that as well on their respective Disk Utility app.

I'm not familiar with Windows Disk Management, but even if you format it from there, you will still need to run Disk Utility from your startup disc/boot drive and re-format into GUID and Mac OS Extended...
Click to expand...

Thanks! Upon further reading, i realized, yes since i have the disc, there isnt a need to create a bootable usb huh.

And since im not performing any migration/backingup/transferring, i dont even need to bother on the old 160gb ssd right?

just insert the disc and follow the instructions you mentioned will do, yeah?
 
reeveah said:
Thanks! Upon further reading, i realized, yes since i have the disc, there isnt a need to create a bootable usb huh.

And since im not performing any migration/backingup/transferring, i dont even need to bother on the old 160gb ssd right?

just insert the disc and follow the instructions you mentioned will do, yeah?
Click to expand...

You'll need a bootable USB drive if you want a clean install of more recent versions of OS X. Unless you don't mind installing Leopard, upgrade to Snow Leopard and update to 10.6.8, then download Yosemite...

Wait, I just noticed you mentioned you're upgrading your MBP to an SSD... Here's another option. Might as well you format your SSD externally from your Mac, install whatever OS X you want externally, then swap it later with your internal HDD... If you have a copy of Mavericks or Yosemite already downloaded from the Mac App Store, you can run the installer and redirect your install to the external SSD after reformatting it...

OR...

Once done formatting your external SSD, use Carbon Copy Cloner and clone your entire content of your HDD into your SSD, but make sure your content on your HDD does not exceed your SSD capacity.

What version of OS X are you running on your MBP by the way...?
 
Hi all. Joining This party. My Late 2011 MBP is about filled on the 500HDD. I have a large Seagate spinning backup drive that has time machine in use.

I want 960-1TB and to spend $300-400 tops. Initial research shows that SATA III is some sort of bandwidth/interface that will limit the speed of data transfer.

This Crucial drive is much cheaper than the Evo 850 ($330 vs $400) and I'm willing to give up a little bit of speed and 40GB to save the $70. However it doesn't say SATA III, is that a problem or is III implied? http://smile.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00BQ8RGL6?qid=1430112388&sr=8-2&vs=1

Any other suggestions welcome. Thanks!
 
Most storage devices, be it HDD or SSD already on SATA III...

I just got myself a Crucial M500 480GB with SATA III a couple of weeks back.

Nowadays you can hardly find SSDs with SATA II in it. :p
 
Ok thanks for the quick reply. I'll take that to mean most of the offerings on amzn are good to go.

Specific advise anyone?
 
Hank Meyer said:
This Crucial drive is much cheaper than the Evo 850 ($330 vs $400) and I'm willing to give up a little bit of speed and 40GB to save the $70. However it doesn't say SATA III, is that a problem or is III implied? http://smile.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00BQ8RGL6?qid=1430112388&sr=8-2&vs=1
Click to expand...

- The M500 is a pretty good drive, but it's also pretty old (more than 2 years), which is why it's so cheap.
And yes, it is SATA III.

Things you get for the extra $70 with the 850 EVO (in 1 TB sizes):
- Two more years of warranty (3 vs. 5 years)
- More than 100 MB/s higher write speed, and also higher read speeds.
- Twice the "official" write endurance (72 vs. 150 TB), and has been tested to withstand 2 petabytes. This likely won't make much of a difference in real use, though.
- Newer technology all around.

I am not aware of any advantages of the M500 over the 850 EVO aside from price (significant) - which is to be expected, really, considering the age.

Just some information to consider. :)

I am a bit partial to Samsung, as you can probably hear, but these are two of the best SSD brands on the market, and both will be high quality drives that should serve you well.
 
Hank Meyer said:
So the 850 Evo is the one to beat. Can it be done in a Crucial? Thanks for the comparison!
Click to expand...

- Really, the 850 Pro is the one to beat - it's the best SSD available, but it's very expensive and overkill for most people.

I don't think you can beat the 850 EVO in a Crucial SSD if you're going by anything other than price, no. As far as I'm aware, their best offering is the M550, which is still slower, has lower write tolerance, shorter warranty, and is older than the 850 EVO.

But like I said, both brands make excellent SSDs, and I'm sure you'll be happy with almost any model from either of them.
 
Thanks a lot buddy.

I just dropped off my MBP for yet another depot repair from the 2011 Radeongate so it may not be my current hard drive that is causing the haphazard a and shut downs but yet another faulty logic board. Perhaps they'll eventually give me a new 2015 model (with integral SSD)if this one keeps frying the logic boards.
 
SSD Upgrade

hi I have a mid 2012 macbook pro with Mavericks, I plan to add an SSD drive in replacement of the optical drive. I prefer to keep the orig. HDD in it's current location. Will I get less performance if I put the SSD in the optical drive slot? If the performance difference is minimal, i'll stick to my plan.
 
I did it.

I bought the 2.5" Samsung 850 Evo 250Gb, cloned my mac onto it, and installed it in my mid-2010 MBP.

The speed improvement is enormous, it's pretty close to the speed as when I first got it.

Thank you to everyone for suggesting it. It cost me AUD $180 all up, including a SATA-USB adapter.
 
Last edited:
sir.riel said:
hi I have a mid 2012 macbook pro with Mavericks, I plan to add an SSD drive in replacement of the optical drive. I prefer to keep the orig. HDD in it's current location. Will I get less performance if I put the SSD in the optical drive slot?
Click to expand...

- No. you should be fine. Your hard drive will benefit from the Sudden Motion Sensor in the main bay, too.
The 2012 models have SATA III in both bays, and to my knowledge there have been no reports of stability issues with the optical bay connection (which some 2011 models suffered from).
 
JTToft said:
- No. you should be fine. Your hard drive will benefit from the Sudden Motion Sensor in the main bay, too.
The 2012 models have SATA III in both bays, and to my knowledge there have been no reports of stability issues with the optical bay connection (which some 2011 models suffered from).
Click to expand...

great, thanks. That is what i'll do, and that is the reason why I want to keep the original HDD in it's location.
 
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