Which hard drive? Help.

[stjerzay]

Hey All!
Would love some help deciphering which is the best hard drive for my Macbook Pro 2012...

I'm looking at revamping my Macbook Pro. I have a 2012, 15", 2.6ghz, 8gb RAM, i7 quad core. Currently it just has a 1tb hdd)

I use it for everything but I do a lot of video & photo editing in premiere and photoshop.. It's definitely a lot slower these days and I'm seeing that spinning ball a lot more than I'd like too. Start up time takes forever and loading Premiere also takes a while.

I wanna speed things up and I'm looking at a few drives but am confused at which would be the smartest choice for the work I do and also the mac model I have...

The drives I'm interested in are:
The OWC Mercury Electra™ 6G SSD

The Samsung 860 EVO SSD Drive

The OWC Mercury Extreme® Pro 6G SSD (Which is significantly pricier..)

I'd love to hear all your thoughts and appreciate the help in advance!
J

 

[Audit13]

Given the age of the MacBook, just about any SSD will work.

I have used crucial, Samsung, corsair, Adata, Intel, and Kingston in various 13" and 15" MBPs from 2010 to mid-2012 with great success.

You might consider replacing the dvd with a caddy to accommodate your existing mechanical drive and use the SSD for the os and programs.

 

[mikzn]

I'm looking at revamping my Macbook Pro. I have a 2012, 15", 2.6ghz, 8gb RAM, i7 quad core. Currently it just has a 1tb hdd)

I have a mid 2012 i7 and upgraded the HDD to SSD a few years ago with the Samsung EVO - huge difference in speed - like a new machine - works great.

I would go with one larger ssd drive and skip replacing the DVD ( just my preferece) nice to have everything on one drive - and having 2 drives is a pain ( moving files copies them and you end with duplicates etc.) 2.5" SSD's are fairy cheap now

I have done this upgrade for several times on different computers - very easy to do and strait forward.

Get an enclosure like this - Insignia - 2.5" Serial ATA Hard Drive Enclosure for the old HDD drive and that will be your back up drive / bootable drive.

 

[stjerzay]

Thanks so much for the reply!

Did you go with the samsung evo or evo pro? Which is better?

I have a mid 2012 i7 and upgraded the HDD to SSD a few years ago with the Samsung EVO - huge difference in speed - like a new machine - works great.

I would go with one larger ssd drive and skip replacing the DVD ( just my preferece) nice to have everything on one drive - and having 2 drives is a pain ( moving files copies them and you end with duplicates etc.) 2.5" SSD's are fairy cheap now

I have done this upgrade for several times on different computers - very easy to do and strait forward.

Get an enclosure like this - Insignia - 2.5" Serial ATA Hard Drive Enclosure for the old HDD drive and that will be your back up drive / bootable drive.

[doublepost=1545965760][/doublepost]Thanks Audit13! Great to hear it worked

Given the age of the MacBook, just about any SSD will work.

I have used crucial, Samsung, corsair, Adata, Intel, and Kingston in various 13" and 15" MBPs from 2010 to mid-2012 with great success.

You might consider replacing the dvd with a caddy to accommodate your existing mechanical drive and use the SSD for the os and programs.[/QUOTE

 

[mikzn]

Thanks so much for the reply!

Did you go with the samsung evo or evo pro? Which is better?

It was just a regular EVO and was the 850 EVO, I have another 15 rMBP i7 2015 that I also upgraded with the Samsung 970 pro supposedly much faster drive and it is, but to be honest the evo 850 is fast enough and hard to notice the difference (between MBP's) unless comparing with benchmark software like Blackmagic etc.

Hope that helps, Evo 850, Evo 860 pro or not - I would buy the biggest drive for the $$ - Samsung makes a great drive and good value

I noticed that you have 8g memory RAM - I upgraded the memory too (up to 16g) - but did not notice any difference from the oringal 8g RAM. Most likely the 8g RAM will be fine. FWIW

 

[snaky69]

Hey All!
Would love some help deciphering which is the best hard drive for my Macbook Pro 2012...

I'm looking at revamping my Macbook Pro. I have a 2012, 15", 2.6ghz, 8gb RAM, i7 quad core. Currently it just has a 1tb hdd)

I use it for everything but I do a lot of video & photo editing in premiere and photoshop.. It's definitely a lot slower these days and I'm seeing that spinning ball a lot more than I'd like too. Start up time takes forever and loading Premiere also takes a while.

I wanna speed things up and I'm looking at a few drives but am confused at which would be the smartest choice for the work I do and also the mac model I have...

The drives I'm interested in are:
The OWC Mercury Electra™ 6G SSD

The Samsung 860 EVO SSD Drive

The OWC Mercury Extreme® Pro 6G SSD (Which is significantly pricier..)

I'd love to hear all your thoughts and appreciate the help in advance!
J

I'd venture a guess that you're running out of RAM as well. Have you looked at activity monitor during your normal video and photo editing to see if the memory pressure graph showed green?

 

[stjerzay]

It was just a regular EVO and was the 850 EVO, I have another 15 rMBP i7 2015 that I also upgraded with the Samsung 970 pro supposedly much faster drive and it is, but to be honest the evo 850 is fast enough and hard to notice the difference (between MBP's) unless comparing with benchmark software like Blackmagic etc.

Hope that helps, Evo 850, Evo 860 pro or not - I would buy the biggest drive for the $$ - Samsung makes a great drive and good value

I noticed that you have 8g memory RAM - I upgraded the memory too (up to 16g) - but did not notice any difference from the oringal 8g RAM. Most likely the 8g RAM will be fine. FWIW

Thanks so much for that!
[doublepost=1546207149][/doublepost]Yes - premiere seems to be sucking the life out of the ram when I'm using it so I'll be adding another 8gb when I upgrade I think

I'd venture a guess that you're running out of RAM as well. Have you looked at activity monitor during your normal video and photo editing to see if the memory pressure graph showed green?

 

[mikzn]

Thanks so much for that!
--- Post Merged, 11 minutes ago --- Yes - premiere seems to be sucking the life out of the ram when I'm using it so I'll be adding another 8gb when I upgrade I think

I did the RAM upgrade too - why not - its' not much more $$ to max the specs out!

But FWIW - SSD's are a virtual extension of RAM - IE virtual memory and all that - so my feeling and experience it that it did not make a difference - I bought the memory just to know that it was maxed out - lol - would do it again too!

 

[snaky69]

I did the RAM upgrade too - why not - its' not much more $$ to max the specs out!

But FWIW - SSD's are a virtual extension of RAM - IE virtual memory and all that - so my feeling and experience it that it did not make a difference - I bought the memory just to know that it was maxed out - lol - would do it again too!

RAM is still much faster than a SSD. You're better off not running out of it in the first place. I do agree that having a SSD helps tremendously once you do hit the limit.

 

[The Oak]

More RAM will eat more battery so keep that in mind if you are remote a lot. Those types of applications however will certainly appreciate the extra RAM.

(With a laptop of that age however, I am guessing you have replaced the battery and/or keep it plugged in most of the time.)

 

[MSastre]

I totally agree with switching to an SSD and maxing out your RAM, but no one has asked you how much free space you have left on your hard drive. For normal use, you should keep 10-20% free space on whatever drive you are using. Video takes up a lot space. Best practice is to keep your media on a separate drive, or at least transfer all your finished projects and and media to an external drive. Don't forget the render files after you are done.

 

[robvas]

Hey All!
The drives I'm interested in are:
The OWC Mercury Electra™ 6G SSD

The Samsung 860 EVO SSD Drive

The OWC Mercury Extreme® Pro 6G SSD (Which is significantly pricier..)

IMO the OWC drives shouldn't even be considered anymore. They are all based on Sandforce chipsets, which while good at the time have been long eclipsed in performance and wear and capacity by the newer Samsung stuff. Those drives based on the SF-2200 are using tech from 2010-2011!

 

[Ploki]

Samsung EVO, you cant miss

 

[Zepher]

Hey All!
Would love some help deciphering which is the best hard drive for my Macbook Pro 2012...

I'm looking at revamping my Macbook Pro. I have a 2012, 15", 2.6ghz, 8gb RAM, i7 quad core. Currently it just has a 1tb hdd)

I use it for everything but I do a lot of video & photo editing in premiere and photoshop.. It's definitely a lot slower these days and I'm seeing that spinning ball a lot more than I'd like too. Start up time takes forever and loading Premiere also takes a while.

I wanna speed things up and I'm looking at a few drives but am confused at which would be the smartest choice for the work I do and also the mac model I have...

The drives I'm interested in are:
The OWC Mercury Electra™ 6G SSD

The Samsung 860 EVO SSD Drive

The OWC Mercury Extreme® Pro 6G SSD (Which is significantly pricier..)

I'd love to hear all your thoughts and appreciate the help in advance!
J

Any SSD will work, but I'd stay with Samsung for the best performance. Or Crucial.