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Thinking about upgrading 2011 MBP with an SSD and I have a few questions

W

warvanov

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 13, 2011
504
12
I have an early 2011 13" 2.3GHz MacBook Pro that I upgraded a while back with a 1TB internal hard drive. At this point I am considering removing the internal optical drive and replacing it with an SSD, and I have a few questions.

1) I understand that with the latest version of OSX that it's possible to create a fusion drive using seperate SSD and HDD drives. Is that correct? Would I need to reformat my existing HDD to create a fusion drive with a new SSD?

2) Considering total space won't be an issue with an existing 1TB internal drive, how big of an SSD should I think about getting? I'm primarilly concerned with boot and application launch times. I do some audio editing, some photo editing, and lots of web browsing on my MBP.

3) What brand SSD should I get, or is there anything else that I should be looking for when shopping for an SSD? I've never used an SSD before so I want to be sure of what I may be getting into.

Thanks for any advise that you can give me!
 
simonsi

simonsi

Contributor
Jan 3, 2014
4,851
735
Auckland
1) I understand that with the latest version of OSX that it's possible to create a fusion drive using seperate SSD and HDD drives. Is that correct? Would I need to reformat my existing HDD to create a fusion drive with a new SSD?
Click to expand...

Possible but when I did exactly this (inc 1TB HDD) in my 2011 MBP I opted to essentially manually set what would be on the SSD and HDD rather than let the Fusion Drive (FDD???) do it.

2) Considering total space won't be an issue with an existing 1TB internal drive, how big of an SSD should I think about getting? I'm primarilly concerned with boot and application launch times. I do some audio editing, some photo editing, and lots of web browsing on my MBP.
Click to expand...

I used a 120GB SSD, it holds Mavericks, Apps and Dropbox. My 1TB holds everything else (Aperture library, iTunes media etc etc)

3) What brand SSD should I get, or is there anything else that I should be looking for when shopping for an SSD? I've never used an SSD before so I want to be sure of what I may be getting into.
Click to expand...

I used a Crucial M500 120GB,as the early 2011 supports 6G speed in both the optical and HDD bays I opted to put the SSD in the optical caddy and the 1TB HDD in the standard bay (where the HDD was beforehand in pre-SSD config). All works like a dream. In the future I may replace the HDD with a 1TB SSD but at the moment it is a great machine to use.
 
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