Which SSDs compatible with MacBook Pro?

I'm on for switching SSD when prices fall as well.

However, right now different brands (and of-course different prices) of SSDs lead to very different performance. Some brands are even slower than normal HDDs.

Manatee said:

Does any website keep track of which available SSDs are compatible with Apple notebook models?

I see more and more SSDs available from on-line sellers, but I don't see much information on compatibility. I'd consider getting one for my MacBook Pro, but I'd need to know which ones will work in it. As the prices of SSD fall, I guess there will be lots of threads on forums like this about swapping in a SSD -- but right not I'm not seeing much.

Thanks,

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Any 2.5" SATA SSD will work.

Thiol said:

Any 2.5" SATA SSD will work.

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Any? Not with Bootcamp!

dnjmarlboro said:

Any? Not with Bootcamp!

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The OP didn't ask about Bootcamp. Nonetheless, isn't Parallels or VMVare a workaround to some extent?

Thiol said:

The OP didn't ask about Bootcamp. Nonetheless, isn't Parallels or VMVare a workaround to some extent?

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Of Course.
But i think it would be better to buy a SSD which is FULLY supported.

why doesn't it work in bootcamp?

Didn't know that some SSDs are not supported in Bootcamp *o*

Intels really fast X25 SSD will not work with bootcamp:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1820385&tstart=150

Must be an EFI Prob.

We should have an up to date list for macbook and macbook pro's.

and a list showing also which ones are fastest - slowest from reviews and tests.

that would be real useful for others who want to upgrade to SSD's or get faster ones that work ok with Apple's bios/efi or bootcamp.

All SSDs are compatible with the mbp.

I have a Patriot Warp V2 128 in mine. Been there for a few months now without issue. Much faster than the old HDD and silent.

DaveOZ said:

I have a Patriot Warp V2 128 in mine. Been there for a few months now without issue. Much faster than the old HDD and silent.

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I have this same disk in mine, and have run into some problems. For the most part the drive is AWESOME in my MacBook Pro and I love the performance. However here are the problems I have had, and I am wondering if anyone else has seen this, or if perhaps my drive is flaky:

1) Power management does not work right. If I close the lid on my MacBook, and come back a few hours later, the battery is dumped and the system has locked up. It is acting kind of like Mac OS tried to suspend the disk and failed, and then the system got stuck in a mode and dumped the battery.

2) Sometimes when I got go boot into Boot Camp, the boot fails and I have to hard shutdown the machine, and cold boot. Then it works.

3) These drives SUCK in Windows. Period. Windows has a really nasty habit of causing the entire system to get stuck for periods of time when running under boot camp, mostly when lots of writes are going on (ie: when you are using Outlook . I have read about others having the same problems with Windows on these drives, and the odd thing is, the same thing actually happens in Mac OS if you are running Windows under the emulator. If Windows is not running, there are no problems, so the disks don't like the kind of disk access patterns used by Windows, but has no problems with the way Mac OS uses it.

Anyway, I just did a fresh install and restore of my Time Machine backup onto a normal WD 7200rpm 320G disk, and it appears the power management is working flawlessly now.

Once I get everything back up and running on my new disk, I plan to do a time machine backup of it, and then put the SSD back in and do a fresh install of the OS, restore from Time Machine and see if the problem persists. It is possible something was fragged in my OS install causing this problem, so I plan to find out if it is the disk, or the OS

This OCZ vertex is well reviewed including by MacBook and MacBook Pro users:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ark=False&VendorMark=&Page=1&Keywords=macbook

But pricey !!

rjt1000 said:

This OCZ vertex is well reviewed including by MacBook and MacBook Pro users:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ark=False&VendorMark=&Page=1&Keywords=macbook

But pricey !!

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+1 for the vertex series.

i got a 120gb for my alum mb.

they are always developing for the vertex. there have been a few firmware updates. the latest one is very stable and they are always helping users out through their support channels and forums

elfxmilhouse said:

+1 for the vertex series.

i got a 120gb for my alum mb.

they are always developing for the vertex. there have been a few firmware updates. the latest one is very stable and they are always helping users out through their support channels and forums

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How did you upgrade your firmwire with the vertex? From what I recall, you need a windows machine to be able to do so.

Pig backing...

Mac Book Pro mid 2009 & Kingston SSD

About 3 months after installed, the computer froze. I took it to the Apple store and they formated it. I re-installed everything from the time machine. After a couple of months, the same happened.

I never had this problem with the HDD that came with the laptop.

I never had bootcamp. I used parallels version 5.

Anyone had a similar issue?

What specific model of the Kingston drive do you have? It is one of the new 6G models, or an older 3G model? I would be wary of any 6G drives right now, in a 6G capable system as I have had a TON of problems in my PC systems with 6G drives, so I decided against upgrading my 3G drive in my MacBook Pro 17". It appears a lot of hard disk controllers that are '6G' really can't handle higher performance SSD disk. I am running the same drives that gave me fits on 6G controllers (lock ups, performance problems, dropping out of RAID arrays, blue screens etc) on a 3G channel and they work flawlessly.

The drive I am using in my MacBook Pro is the 480GB one from Other World Computing (the 3G model), and I absolutely love that thing. It has been flawless for me for a long time now:

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/internal_storage/Mercury_Extreme_SSD_Sandforce/Solid_State_Pro/

I have two of the 240G models for my desktop which was intended to run in RAID-0 on my PC at work, and I had all kinds of issues. I sent it back to them and they sent back the same drive with firmware updates, which made it run longer (weeks instead of days) before it would crash again and blue screen Windows on a new Core i7 2600K system with an Intel motherboard.

I actually thought maybe my Mobo was at fault, so I ended up putting together a new system with a Core i7 990X CPU which does not use an Intel chipset for the 6G channels, but rather uses a Marvel one. My machine would not even run for a few hours before it blue screened with that chipset.

I then went back to the Core i7 2600K system and have the drive running on 3G, and it is flawless. Super fast, and no issues at all.

But this weekend Windows 7 decided to blue screen itself into oblivion on my MacBook Pro. After restoring it twice and having the same **** happen again, I discovered it was a bad update from Windows update. So I blew away Boot Camp, upgraded my Snow Leopard install to Lion and brought back my old Parallels install. Not as fast as native Windows, but I am sick of the crashes.

I am ditching the Core i7 system and going back to Lion and my old Mac Pro with the two drives in RAID-0 on 3G (should be flawless). I can't wait for the new Mac Pro to come out that supports 6G, but on the other hand I sure hope they solve this problem or I might have to downgrade to a couple of 3G drives

Done

Put an Vertex 3 (£139) into my merom MBP 2,2 (late 2006), Lion 10.5.3, TRIM on, which has SATA 1 with 1.5Gbps bus speed. (I thought it worth trying, if it doesn't work I could put the vertex 3 into my new iMac). So, it worked, really really well. Application startup faster, Safari performance improved, bootup time <35 sec, shut down time ~1 sec. I felt like my MBP reborned. definitely worth the money.

Not had the greatest luck with Vertex myself, also OCZ are very poor on Mac support with firmware upgrade tools etc.

Crucial M4 is very quick, very stable and works fine in a MBP.

I have a late 2006 Macbook Pro.

Just wondering if there are any drives now, that aren't worth buying? Here i'm thinking about bandwith of SATA1 vs. the high read/write speeds of newer SSD's.

T'hain Esh Kelch said:

I have a late 2006 Macbook Pro.

Just wondering if there are any drives now, that aren't worth buying? Here i'm thinking about bandwith of SATA1 vs. the high read/write speeds of newer SSD's.

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It'd probably still be faster than the old spinning platter hard drive than you have now, but you wouldn't get the "full benefits" of an SSD.

One thing to consider is that you'd be able to transplant it into a future notebook.

I have the Intel 320 Model and I have 120GB, 300GB, and thinking of getting a 600GB when the price drops a bit, however Intel is not as fast as some others, but very easy to setup and get working, also keeps working well.

Can not speak about other brands