Mid 2015 MBP SSD Upgrade

[10G]

I'm hoping someone can help, I've read different things about upgrading the SSD in mid 2015 MBP Retina 15".

I need to upgrade the SDD to 1TB and the only option I can find (in Oz) is an OWC unit that costs close $1K.

Are there other options available? I did read a post that in the newer MBPs the SSD interface was proprietary Apple and upgrades were difficult. I have no idea if that's true or not.

Thanks for any help.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Yep that's the only option or one taken from another Mac from eBay, to be honest I would go the eBay route. The OWC one is half the speed and doesn't support trim and has a few other issues not least the price.

 

[tubeexperience]

You can either get a used SSD from eBay and other sources or get the aftermarket from OWC.

Those are the only options.

OWC drives also have certain limitations: no Boot Camp, no TRIM, etc.

Apple's greed has no bound.

 

[10G]

No Boot Camp, eek, glad I asked, that's what I want to do with the MBP.

If I look on eBay, and this may be a dumb question, but what do I look for? Is there a particular model number or code I should look for? Or do I just look for a 1TB SDD taken out of a MBP?

 

[Samuelsan2001]

You want to look for rMBP SSD 2015.

Here are the ones available for the 2015 only one in Australia it seems.

http://www.ebay.com.au/sch/i.html?_..._nkw=1tb+ssd+for+retina+macbook+pro+&_sacat=0

 

[Fishrrman]

Your best options are:

a. Sell what you have now and buy new with the additional storage space "already there".

b. Keep what you have now, and get an external SSD for "the overflow stuff". Also, do some careful re-thinking about what's really important and needs to be on the internal drive, vis-a-vis what can be "off-loaded" to the external one ...

 

[throAU]

Your best options are:

a. Sell what you have now and buy new with the additional storage space "already there".

b. Keep what you have now, and get an external SSD for "the overflow stuff". Also, do some careful re-thinking about what's really important and needs to be on the internal drive, vis-a-vis what can be "off-loaded" to the external one ...

What he said.

If you flip the machine for a new one you shouldn't take a huge hit, it's still pretty current.

 

[10G]

Thanks for the really good advice guys, much appreciated.
As I mentioned, I want to use Boot Camp as most of my work involves knowing Windows pretty well. When I use Boot Camp will it tell me how much space I can assign to a Windows partition?

For example, on my 500GB disk, I'm hoping I can use 100GB for OSX and 400GB for Windows, will it allow me to do that or will it just split it down the middle and give each OS 250GB?

Thanks again.

 

[Erdbeertorte]

For example, on my 500GB disk, I'm hoping I can use 100GB for OSX and 400GB for Windows, will it allow me to do that or will it just split it down the middle and give each OS 250GB?

I think that should work but I can't try it myself because I don't get to that step without the optical drive in my Late 2011 MBP.

You need an ISO-file of Windows and a USB stick for the Boot Camp drivers and just launch the Boot Camp Assistant to try it, if it does not work just click on maybe cancel or close the assistant.

 

[JTToft]

For example, on my 500GB disk, I'm hoping I can use 100GB for OSX and 400GB for Windows, will it allow me to do that or will it just split it down the middle and give each OS 250GB?

- You can allocate the amount of space you want for each. Bootcamp Assistant probably has a minimum value for each system in the vicinity of 25 GB, I'd guess, but beyond that you're free to do as you please.

 

[MacInTO]

$800, TX, eBay, http://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-Samsu...778092?hash=item1c5bb69aac:g:9~0AAOSwZ1lWetSi

 

[throAU]

$800, TX, eBay, http://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-Samsu...778092?hash=item1c5bb69aac:g:9~0AAOSwZ1lWetSi

I suspect that once you take into account your lack of warranty from opening and modifying your Mac, risk that the new one doesn't work - it will be more cost effective to just change the machine.

And yes, the boot camp wizard will let you split the drive as you please.

 

[tubeexperience]

I suspect that once you take into account your lack of warranty from opening and modifying your Mac, risk that the new one doesn't work - it will be more cost effective to just change the machine.

And yes, the boot camp wizard will let you split the drive as you please.

What lack of warranty?

If he needs to take it in for warranty, he can just put the old SSD back in.

 

[10G]

Your best options are:

a. Sell what you have now and buy new with the additional storage space "already there".

b. Keep what you have now, and get an external SSD for "the overflow stuff". Also, do some careful re-thinking about what's really important and needs to be on the internal drive, vis-a-vis what can be "off-loaded" to the external one ...

I'm going with this advice, there's got to be stuff I can leave on an external drive that I won't need to access each time I fire up the Mac.

So my next question. Are Thunderbolt ext drives much faster than USB3 drives?

 

[throAU]

So my next question. Are Thunderbolt ext drives much faster than USB3 drives?

Potentially yes.

USB will top out at about 500 megabytes per second in my experience.

PCIe SSDs can be much faster than that (e.g. the internal mac drives these days can do >1.4 gigabytes per sec - probably a little less over thunderbolt)

If the drive is a SATA3 SSD though (rather than M.2 or PCIe) then it will be made for the SATA3 bus speed of 6 gigabit (~500-600 megabytes per second) and USB is near enough to that speed ("5 gigabit") that you won't notice a huge performance hit).

 

[Samuelsan2001]

I'm going with this advice, there's got to be stuff I can leave on an external drive that I won't need to access each time I fire up the Mac.

So my next question. Are Thunderbolt ext drives much faster than USB3 drives?

Also consider a NAS solution where you can access your files from anywhere with wifi.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP asked:
"So my next question. Are Thunderbolt ext drives much faster than USB3 drives?"

NO.

Just buy a USB3 external drive and plug it in.
If you get a USB3 external SSD, I predict that you will be VERY HAPPY with it.

Something like this would do you well, and NOT a lot of money, either:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00ZTRY532?tag=delt-20