SSD Buying Guide

iArch said:

Hi gang,
I'm thinking about sprucing up my mid 2010 13" MBP by swapping over to an SSD. It's the base 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo model with the 250 GB hard drive, and I've already upped it to 8 GB of RAM. This little laptop serves my needs well, but I wouldn't mind a performance bump, along with an increase in storage capacity. FWIW, I do wish to retain the optical drive. Snip...

Click to expand...

OK, so my my 500 GB Samsung 840 will be here tomorrow. I know it's been covered before and have searched, but so much comes up, I just wanna ensure that I'm on the right track. Here's my plan...

My MBP runs fine and is set up the way I like, so I'll use CCC and this SATA to USB cable to clone my HD onto the new SSD, then swap it into my MBP. No worries going this route, right?

Afterwards, I'll enable Trim using Trim Enabler.

Assuming all of that is correct, is there anything I should do to prep my existing drive beforehand?

iArch said:

Cool, thought so. That takes any interest in the Pro model off the table. Since the regular (non-Pro) 500 GB 840 is now a good bit less expensive than the 512 GB 830 on Amazon ($399 vs $499), I'm gonna go ahead order the former. I traded in a couple of iPhones to Amazon a few weeks back and have a bunch of credit there anyway.

Appreciate the help!

Click to expand...

The 840 is slower than the 830. The 840 Pro is faster though, but also more expensive.

Weaselboy said:

Nope. Looks you have a good plan.

Click to expand...

Thanks!

Here's what I'm working with at present, so even if I can only bump that up to the lowly limits of my SATA II MBP, it should prove to be a huge seat of the pants improvement.

And here's the first test of my refreshed old MBP's speed...

LixLev said:

Hey SantaRose. I'm thinking of getting the same SDD for the same laptop. The only thing that I'm worried about it how to get everything from my old HDD onto the new SDD. My question is, if I put the new SDD into an enclosure before installing it, and use 'Carbon Copy Cloner' to copy my HDD onto it, when I install the SDD, will it be good to go with the same OS and all my documents and data, or will I have to do anything else?

Click to expand...

I simply installed the new drive, then did the Firmware update via the disk I made before I installed the drive. Then installed ML via the bootable USB thumb drive I made. Formatting the SSD, before the install of course.

As soon as ML installs then simply use your your Time Machine back up and install everything back as it was before the swap. Quite simple, The one thing that ML does do well is Time Machine restore from external disk.

THe 512 Crucial M4 is great and I only had one problem with my Iphoto library, could not find the path to the photo files. I looked it up and turns out it is a common problem with Iphoto. I tried deleting the app and reinstalling to no avail...I ended up having to delete my entire Iphoto library in finder and re-importing all my photos to Iphoto.

THat was the only hickup I had with the installation. It's worked great and is so much snappier. Well worth the $320 I paid for the 512gb drive.

I also enabled trim as well with trim enabler and that is showing in system profiler as Trim enabled.

Here are the numbers I got on Black Magic with the new SSD

and My old Baseline from the original HDD

K4LK said:

SantaRosa, how did the Crucial 512 do in your early 2011 MBP?

Click to expand...

here you go... before and after

Anyone in here bought the Samsung 840 Pro?
Ive heard its the fastest SSD with over 500 read and write.
Anyone tried it before?

yusukeaoki said:

Anyone in here bought the Samsung 840 Pro?
Ive heard its the fastest SSD with over 500 read and write.
Anyone tried it before?

Click to expand...

I just took the plunge and bought one, however it hasn't delivered yet. I'll be sure to send reports on it when I get it!

shmonkus said:

I just took the plunge and bought one, however it hasn't delivered yet. I'll be sure to send reports on it when I get it!

Click to expand...

Thanks! Ill be looking forward

yusukeaoki said:

Anyone in here bought the Samsung 840 Pro?
Ive heard its the fastest SSD with over 500 read and write.
Anyone tried it before?

Click to expand...

I think the 840 pro is way to expensive. You can get a Vertex 4 for a lot cheaper and it has similar performance plus a native Mac updating tool.

jvpython said:

I think the 840 pro is way to expensive. You can get a Vertex 4 for a lot cheaper and it has similar performance plus a native Mac updating tool.

Click to expand...

Actually you are correct.
I just did some research and found at 128GB model of 840 as Read of 520mbps and write of only 400mbps.
And the price is 160USD on Amazon as well.

Comparing that for Vertex 4, 128GB model has 560mbps read and 430mbps write.
And the price of 90USD on amazon...
256GB model has 560read and 510write.
Price gets doubled to 190USD on amazon
but still cheaper than 840 pro's 256GB model which is 270USD on amazon.

Yet V4 seems to out perform the 840...
What the hell was I looking at.
Thanks for the heads up.

Ocz however are going through seriously tough times, with the CEO resigning, the company debt-ridden and their future uncertain.

While their current crop of drives are top of the line, their future support is quite uncertain, I weighed this up in my decision to buy the 840 pro, as whittled the drives down to between the V4 and the 840. I'm not sure I would want to risk it.

Each to their own though!

Optical drive hardware?

Hi all - great thread here. I am about to put a 512GB SSD (probably Crucial) in my late-2010 MBP. I will move the HDD to the optical bay. One thing has me confused: to put the HDD in the optical bay, why would I need the Optibay products vs. a cheap ~$10 drive caddy from Amazon just to make it fit the space?

Thanks in advance.

reckoner said:

Hi all - great thread here. I am about to put a 512GB SSD (probably Crucial) in my late-2010 MBP. I will move the HDD to the optical bay. One thing has me confused: to put the HDD in the optical bay, why would I need the Optibay products vs. a cheap ~$10 drive caddy from Amazon just to make it fit the space?

Thanks in advance.

Click to expand...

You don't. You could use sticky tape for all it matters - You only need to secure it properly. I think I payed around 5$ for the one I use in my MBP, found on Amazon over a year ago.

T'hain Esh Kelch said:

You don't. You could use sticky tape for all it matters - You only need to secure it properly. I think I payed around 5$ for the one I use in my MBP, found on Amazon over a year ago.

Click to expand...

Perfect - thanks

Just bought a Samsung 256 830 for my 2012 13" mbp and just need some advice.

I will be putting my 500gb Momentus XT Hybrid drive where the superdrive was.


I use my mbp for a lot of audio and video work, what would be the best way to set these up for this?

yusukeaoki said:

Thanks! Ill be looking forward

Click to expand...

It arrived today, and did a disk test. Here you go, it's a screamer!

shmonkus said:

It arrived today, and did a disk test. Here you go, it's a screamer!

Click to expand...

That is extremely fast!
Thanks for the update!!

yusukeaoki said:

That is extremely fast!
Thanks for the update!!

Click to expand...

Yeah, I can hardly believe it to be honest!

Glad I opted for the 840 pro now after seeing those numbers.

It has a 5 year limited warranty too, so if it fails, Samsung send you a replacement! Something I feel that may not happen with OCZ and their current coloured financial situation!

logicpro7 said:

Just bought a Samsung 256 830 for my 2012 13" mbp and just need some advice.

I will be putting my 500gb Momentus XT Hybrid drive where the superdrive was.


I use my mbp for a lot of audio and video work, what would be the best way to set these up for this?

Click to expand...

Hi!

There's a few things you can do to start with. First, you would need to acquire a hard drive caddy to fit into the area that your superdrive used to occupy. These are pretty cheap and can buy them from places like Amazon etc.

Then you would need to use a tool such as Carbon Copy Cloner to clone your existing drive onto the SSD. Or, alternatively, you can install a fresh copy of Mountain lion onto the SSD. The latter is probably your best bet.

With the old drive, once you have backed up your data, connect it to your mac using a Sata to USB caddy, and back up any data you have.

Then, format the drive using the HFS+ Extended file system. You can then partition this down depending on your usage for it. Personally, I partitioned 30Gb for the Photoshop Scratch Disk and Virtual Memory, as these can cause heavy write to your SSD, however it's not really that necessary.

Once the new hard drive is in place, fit it into your mac, and put the SSD into the space once occupied by your old drive.

depending on what you chose (to clone or not to clone) the next steps are to install Trim Enabler to enable TRIM on the OS, to move your home folder to the second hard drive and to check that your SSD is running on the 6Gbps link, rather than the 3Gbps link. Instructions for this can be found by using the search feature above. I did this and everything is grand!

Good luck!

#edit#

I noticed that there are kits available to turn your slot-loading Superdrive into a USB Superdrive online, I found one for about £14, just waiting for delivery. Could be useful if you ever get software that needs to be installed via CD.

the 840 Pro (256) is a fast drive

Mine is an early 2011 MBP 15", 16GB RAM, 2.2GHz.

The speed test results are very satisfying.

chmodme said:

Mine is an early 2011 MBP 15", 16GB RAM, 2.2GHz.

The speed test results are very satisfying.

Click to expand...

Very nice! Mine's the late 2011 version with same processor but half the memory. That's incredibly satisfying to see!

Can someone recommend a good ssd for my MacBook Pro 13 inch late 2011. I'm looking for large capacity of 500gb thanks!

adam044 said:

Can someone recommend a good ssd for my MacBook Pro 13 inch late 2011. I'm looking for large capacity of 500gb thanks!

Click to expand...

Vertex 4 has great speeds and is reasonably priced for the 512GB version