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500 or 512GB SSD for MBP13" 2011 model.

Thor774

Thor774

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 14, 2007
223
30
I have a Corsair 128 SSD from the time I bought the MBP. It was a nightmare to make it to work with sleeping. It had a known bug that was corrected after almost a year by Corsair with a firmware update. After this it has worked flawlessly.

The machine has 8GB RAM and it is still very fast. It is the last model that came with an internal DVDRW drive, something that I still appreciate and still use sometimes.

The hard disk is now very small to hold OSX, programs and pictures. I am constantly deleting things so the time to upgrade has come. I want a >500GB SSD drive to replace it, and I want it to be fast.

I appreciate your recommendations as I want to be sure that whatever I end up buying is not going to produce me headaches like the Corsair drive I bought in 2011. At the same time I want something fast and do not want to buy directly at Apple. last time I checked prices for their SSD upgrades they were horrendous!

Thanks!
 
ScubaCinci

ScubaCinci

macrumors 68000
Jul 11, 2008
1,644
289
OH
Look for drives that specifically state that they are compatible with OS X, which I believe is most these days. Note that adding a third party SSD will prevent native TRIM from working correctly and you'll need to install the TRIM enabler if you haven't already. Although with Mavericks, this may no longer hold true (I hope).
 
Weaselboy

Weaselboy

Moderator
Staff member
Jan 23, 2005
34,137
15,602
California
Many users here have had success with the new Samsung EVO SSDs and they are very reasonably priced.
 
Thor774

Thor774

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 14, 2007
223
30
Weaselboy said:
Many users here have had success with the new Samsung EVO SSDs and they are very reasonably priced.
Click to expand...

I ended up with the 840EVO 750GB.
Excelent disk.
have not yet enabled TRIM but the disk is working great even without this.
 
Thor774

Thor774

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 14, 2007
223
30
Beware of enabling TRIM with this EVO on Mavericks!

I enabled TRIM using this procedure:

https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=18262191#post18262191

Although OSX reported TRIM as on and everything appeared to be working fantastically well I started getting random kernel panics every 2 or 3 days. I cannot remember when was the last time I saw a kernel panic on this machine before, I could almost bet that I got maybe 1 during the last hole year, so what I ended doing was reverting the last major change I had done on the machine and I disabled TRIM. Voyla, the kernel panics totally disappeared.

It is a mystery to me why Apple does not let you freely enable TRIM on disks that are not sold by them, but after this experience I am starting to believe that there is really something wrong in the way OSX interacts with some SSDs. Maybe there is a combination of factors that bring up this kind of fail. I am sure Apple know about it and decided to only let TRIM be on on their own tested SSDs.

I think it is really a pity that Apple does not come clean with a clear statement about what is really happening here and give us a list of drives tested by them with whom OSX doesn't break. There really has to be something wrong in OSX because Windows does not have any problem in letting their users enable TRIM on all the SSD devices that support the command.

I did not have the chance to benchmark the disk with and without TRIM so don't really know what the impact of enabling TRIM would do to this system. I guess it's in the long run that TRIM will show its benefits. Really sad that I cannot enable it because it will help a lot with the garbage collection and with the life of the drive.
 
A

alex0002

macrumors 6502
Jun 19, 2013
495
124
New Zealand
Thor774 said:
I enabled TRIM using this procedure:

https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=18262191#post18262191

Although OSX reported TRIM as on and everything appeared to be working fantastically well I started getting random kernel panics every 2 or 3 days. I cannot remember when was the last time I saw a kernel panic on this machine before, I could almost bet that I got maybe 1 during the last hole year, so what I ended doing was reverting the last major change I had done on the machine and I disabled TRIM. Voyla, the kernel panics totally disappeared.
Click to expand...

Did you check the hexdump before and after the patching? I'm kind of pedantic about making backups and checking everything, so I modified my files in a temporary directory and checked them first. The following is for OS X 10.8.5.

Code: 
hexdump -C IOAHCIBlockStorage.orig > dump1
hexdump -C IOAHCIBlockStorage > dump2
diff dump1 dump2
3783c3783
< 0000f3c0  69 6f 6e 61 6c 00 41 50  50 4c 45 20 53 53 44 00  |ional.APPLE SSD.|
---
> 0000f3c0  69 6f 6e 61 6c 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |ional...........|

Most people seem to have good luck with the 840 EVO, so perhaps you were unlucky.
I'm using the Crucial M500 and haven't had any problems either.

Thor774 said:
It is a mystery to me why Apple does not let you freely enable TRIM on disks that are not sold by them, but after this experience I am starting to believe that there is really something wrong in the way OSX interacts with some SSDs....

.....I think it is really a pity that Apple does not come clean with a clear statement about what is really happening here and give us a list of drives tested by them with whom OSX doesn't break.
Click to expand...

I think you have kind of answered your own question, because if they if give a list of drives that 'work' with OS X and someone gets a kernel panic with a drive that apple said will 'work', then apple will get the blame.

Having said that, I don't know why they can't make TRIM a parameter that can be switched on or off with a simple config file edit and reboot (similar to linux ext4 file system and others).
 
U

UBS28

macrumors 68030
Oct 2, 2012
2,893
2,340
Thor774 said:
I have a Corsair 128 SSD from the time I bought the MBP. It was a nightmare to make it to work with sleeping. It had a known bug that was corrected after almost a year by Corsair with a firmware update. After this it has worked flawlessly.

The machine has 8GB RAM and it is still very fast. It is the last model that came with an internal DVDRW drive, something that I still appreciate and still use sometimes.

The hard disk is now very small to hold OSX, programs and pictures. I am constantly deleting things so the time to upgrade has come. I want a >500GB SSD drive to replace it, and I want it to be fast.

I appreciate your recommendations as I want to be sure that whatever I end up buying is not going to produce me headaches like the Corsair drive I bought in 2011. At the same time I want something fast and do not want to buy directly at Apple. last time I checked prices for their SSD upgrades they were horrendous!

Thanks!
Click to expand...

edit: Never mind, I saw you bought the Samsung 840 EVO in a later post. Excellent choice :)
 
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