SSD Buying Guide [part 2]

[Weaselboy]

Hi Weaselboy, As a newbee I'm on a steep learning curve and although it worked i did wonder what other maybe minor issues i might need to look at, Sleep for instance,Had heard it can end up with a wiped drive, I saw a reference to suggest trim is not an issue in Yosemite,And something called garbage looks after the ssd, Im working await at it tho and can see astonishing read/write numbers with the pro in my A1286.

Sleep won't cause any issues at all. The only real decision is if you want to enable TRIM or not. Garbage collection is built into the drive firmware and although similar to TRIM, not the same thing. I really you would want TRIM enabled. Some have opted not to use TRIM under Yosemite as it can lead to a no boot situation if one is not careful.

 

[Yeoboy]

Hmmm,As i am so new to macintosh i questioned the wisdom of installing the ssd,If i left it as is and workjing great is enabling trim something i can do later perhaps with El Capitan and my hopefull extra knowledge, Given i can research this more, Thanks for your input.

 

[snifferdogx]

Sleep won't cause any issues at all. The only real decision is if you want to enable TRIM or not. Garbage collection is built into the drive firmware and although similar to TRIM, not the same thing. I really you would want TRIM enabled. Some have opted not to use TRIM under Yosemite as it can lead to a no boot situation if one is not careful.

To enable TRIM you have to compromise an entire layer of security in Yosemite, and it is most probably not worth the trade off. And Yosemite does not support any third party SSDs, and Apple refuses to allow third party manufacturers to create apps that would help with the clean up. Funny that Microsoft Windows supports TRIM regardless of make. Not happy with Apple's approach here. The philosophy seems to be, "If you don't buy our stuff from us we will make sure your computer is stuffed." Nasty. And anti-competitive.

 

[Yeoboy]

There are indications that El Capitan will address the third party ssd trim function,But yes, Apple has its foibles but as an owner of 2 iMacs,An I7 macbook pro ,iPhone 4s and iPad the quality is superb,I installed Blackmagic and my I5 iMac read/write was around 85mps,I checked my I7 macbook pro and it was around 490/550!!

 

[davidlv]

To enable TRIM you have to compromise an entire layer of security in Yosemite, and it is most probably not worth the trade off. And Yosemite does not support any third party SSDs, and Apple refuses to allow third party manufacturers to create apps that would help with the clean up. Funny that Microsoft Windows supports TRIM regardless of make. Not happy with Apple's approach here. The philosophy seems to be, "If you don't buy our stuff from us we will make sure your computer is stuffed." Nasty. And anti-competitive.

See this thread and post #220 and the link on post #232. https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-ssds-for-improved-performance.1891936/page-9
Problem solved by an enterprising forum member Temptin!
It works on my Mac Pro with an SSD in Bay #1 and it seems to work as long as the SSD is connected to a normal PCI connection. Some PCI cards may not be compatible if they require drivers.

 

[snifferdogx]

Oooo! I'm happy now! El Capitan supporting TRIM would be jolly good!

 

[priitv8]

To enable TRIM you have to compromise an entire layer of security in Yosemite, and it is most probably not worth the trade off.

What layers of security exactly? Could you elaborate on this? When I hacked my old MBP with the very early TRIM-enable shell script, it only did overwrite one string in the driver. I'll be thankful, if you can enlighten me, what security aspects did I compromise with that act.

EDIT: Of course, I forgot the driver signing aspect of Yosemite, if that was what you meant.

 

[snifferdogx]

What layers of security exactly? Could you elaborate on this? When I hacked my old MBP with the very early TRIM-enable shell script, it only did overwrite one string in the driver. I'll be thankful, if you can enlighten me, what security aspects did I compromise with that act.

EDIT: Of course, I forgot the driver signing aspect of Yosemite, if that was what you meant.

I only know about the kext signing, and that it's a security layer, from what I've read in here. See earlier in this thread for previous discussions about kext and security.

 

[tuck4x4]

Before I make a purchase, please help me make sure I am ordering the correct SSD. I have a Macbook11, 1. The mid 2014 128gb rMBP.

Am I correct that it is an xp941 that I need to buy from eBay to upgrade to 256gb?

 

[oldmacs]

I'm looking to get a 1TB SSD for my 2012 Macbook Pro (Non Retina). I'm choosing between the Crucial BX 100 and the Samsung Evo 850… Which should i choose? The Samsung will be Slightly cheaper…

 

[balamw]

MOD NOTE: Continued from this thread started in 2011. The first post was made into a Wiki, so that it can potentially be updated by others than the OP and all posts after January 2015 were brought here.

B

 

[madeirabhoy]

this is a long but informative thread.
im thinking of as a first step, putting an SSD in my wife's 2010 macbook. she's not into gaming and if she needs movies for travelling i can use a usb stick, so size isnt too important.

local Worten has a Sandisk 240gb for €80 it just says Sandisk SSD Plus on it, its half the price of a kingston, is this okay to use?

ive swapped out drives before on various models of powerbook, mac mini, mac towers, so im not a complete novice, but i just want to make sure there's nothing difficult about that model.

im not going to clone the disk as she has too much crap on it, can i just make a usb stick with el capitan on it, open the macbook, pull out the drive, stick the SSD in it, turn it on, install el capitan and we are done? or am i thinking its easier than it is?

 

[Weaselboy]

local Worten has a Sandisk 240gb for €80 it just says Sandisk SSD Plus on it, its half the price of a kingston, is this okay to use?

That drive will work just fine and the steps you outlined will do the trick.

 

[madeirabhoy]

That drive will work just fine and the steps you outlined will do the trick.

cheers mate, will try it at the weekend

 

[MarvinHC]

Can't make up my mind. The HDD in my son's MBP 2012 just died and I want to replace it with a SSD. Here's what prices I can get:

(all are 250GB)
Crucial
- MX200 $88
- BX200 $80
- M550 $99
- M500 $90
Samsung
- 850 EVO $92

Any opinions?

 

[Tsuchiya]

Does anyone have any info whether there are any SSD upgrades on the horizon for a late-2013-present rMBP?

I've got a 15" 11 2 with a paltry 256GB SSD which isn't enough. I've got to constantly keep transferring content across an external drive which is kind of a pain.

 

[alex0002]

Can't make up my mind. The HDD in my son's MBP 2012 just died and I want to replace it with a SSD. Here's what prices I can get:

(all are 250GB)
Crucial
- MX200 $88
- BX200 $80
- M550 $99
- M500 $90
Samsung
- 850 EVO $92

Any opinions?

If your son didn't need to upgrade for performance reasons before now, the minor difference in performance between these drives will not matter.

Did you mean the Crucial BX100 rather than BX200 in that list of drives?
If so I'd get the BX100 which has the lowest power consumption and great performance.

In fact, my overall recommendations for mid 2015 are:

* Money is no object - just give me the best !!!!
Why are you even in this thread? Just get the Macbook Pro Retina 15 inch with the 1TB PCIe drive.

* I'm looking for the best performing (and reliable) SATA-III drive and I'm willing to pay a little more.
Get the Samsung 850 Pro.

* I'm looking for a balance of low power consumption, decent performance and value.
The Crucial BX100 is the drive for you.

 

[Weaselboy]

Does anyone have any info whether there are any SSD upgrades on the horizon for a late-2013-present rMBP?

I've got a 15" 11 2 with a paltry 256GB SSD which isn't enough. I've got to constantly keep transferring content across an external drive which is kind of a pain.

Both OWC and Transcend keep saying they are "working on it", but there have been no updates. Honestly, I doubt if the products are coming at all.

 

[MarvinHC]

If your son didn't need to upgrade for performance reasons before now, the minor difference in performance between these drives will not matter.

Did you mean the Crucial BX100 rather than BX200 in that list of drives?
If so I'd get the BX100 which has the lowest power consumption and great performance.

In fact, my overall recommendations for mid 2015 are:

* Money is no object - just give me the best !!!!
Why are you even in this thread? Just get the Macbook Pro Retina 15 inch with the 1TB PCIe drive.

* I'm looking for the best performing (and reliable) SATA-III drive and I'm willing to pay a little more.
Get the Samsung 850 Pro.

* I'm looking for a balance of low power consumption, decent performance and value.
The Crucial BX100 is the drive for you.

Thanks, yes, I meant the BX100, sorry for the mistake. And this is what I got in the end and it seems to be working very well. Very easy to put Mac OS on it, a pain in another place to put Windows on it.... (which he needs for his all important Minecraft....). I tried to copy the windows bootcamp partition of another (same) macbook, but no success. Had to do a clean install after all.

 

[m4v3r1ck]

I tried to copy the windows bootcamp partition of another (same) macbook, but no success. Had to do a clean install after all.

Have you ever tried Winclone to transfer a (bootcamped) Windows setup to another / new partition? Great tool, format the new partition with Disk Utility in FAT format and then copy the Winclone saved file to it. It can even work for a smaller partition as with Winclone you can shrink the filesystem of your excisting Windows Partition!

Get a trial version here:

https://www.twocanoes.https://www.v...on/fusion-evaluationcom/products/mac/winclone

Note: it is adviced before creating a Winclone to run chkdsk first on your excisting Windows setup!

Good luck!

Cheers

 

[MarvinHC]

Have you ever tried Winclone to transfer a (bootcamped) Windows setup to another / new partition? Great tool, format the new partition with Disk Utility in FAT format and then copy the Winclone saved file to it. It can even work for a smaller partition as with Winclone you can shrink the filesystem of your excisting Windows Partition!

Get a trial version here:

https://www.twocanoes.https://www.v...on/fusion-evaluationcom/products/mac/winclone

Note: it is adviced before creating a Winclone to run chkdsk first on your excisting Windows setup!

Good luck!

Cheers

Thanks for your reply, I did in the end set it up from scratch since all the attempts to clone it did not manage the boot sector properly. Just showed me (again), how much easier it is to setup OSX vs. Windows.
My biggest challenge in the end was that the Windows 7 I had on hand was 32Bit while Bootcamp5 for that Mac normally only supports 64 bit. In the end I found a (more or less) compatible Bootcamp4 version and after some error messages in the first startup and some drivers not found, after some updates all appears to work smoothly now.

I did encounter however another challenge that I will need to tackle eventually (away from home now for a couple of weeks). Since my clone attempts did not succeed on the drive connected via USB, I took the original one out of the Macbook and put the SSD in to set it up this way (installing yosemite and Windows). After all that was completed I put the original back in which itself had a Mac OS partition (Mavericks) and Windows. The Windows partition still works fine but the Mavericks one absolutely wants to go into recovery mode. Any trick to avoid this? The partition itself seems to be fine and when I boot from another device I can access the file system. I foolishly didn't do a time machine backup before I took it out and I could lose a fair bit of data I am worried that if I go the recovery router all will be deleted?

 

[m4v3r1ck]

Thanks for your reply, I did in the end set it up from scratch since all the attempts to clone it did not manage the boot sector properly. Just showed me (again), how much easier it is to setup OSX vs. Windows.
My biggest challenge in the end was that the Windows 7 I had on hand was 32Bit while Bootcamp5 for that Mac normally only supports 64 bit. In the end I found a (more or less) compatible Bootcamp4 version and after some error messages in the first startup and some drivers not found, after some updates all appears to work smoothly now.

I did encounter however another challenge that I will need to tackle eventually (away from home now for a couple of weeks). Since my clone attempts did not succeed on the drive connected via USB, I took the original one out of the Macbook and put the SSD in to set it up this way (installing yosemite and Windows). After all that was completed I put the original back in which itself had a Mac OS partition (Mavericks) and Windows. The Windows partition still works fine but the Mavericks one absolutely wants to go into recovery mode. Any trick to avoid this? The partition itself seems to be fine and when I boot from another device I can access the file system. I foolishly didn't do a time machine backup before I took it out and I could lose a fair bit of data I am worried that if I go the recovery router all will be deleted?

If I were you I would hook it to that other device that can read the partition and copy all valuable data to another HDD/SSD before going the trail-and-error route.

I'm not so techie to be able to help you with the 'lost' boot and recovery mode, SORRY! But I'm sure that there are enough techies on MR that will be able to sort it out for.

So for the time now, have some patience until somebody with knowledge will chime in.

Good luck!

BTW For future fail-safe computing I can highly recommend:

1.Carbon Clone Copy a bootable clone & incremental backup application, saved my bacon (user errors) so many times. I don't rely on Time Machine that much. See http://bombich.com for more info's

2. Winclone for making clones of your bootcamp Windows partition. See https://twocanoes.com/products/mac/winclone for more info's

Cheers

 

[ThisOldMacHead]

Wow... Can't believe how long it's been since I've posted on here! Anyway... I just recently upgraded my 2011 15" HR MBP and I'm surprised to see the sheer number of people who only recommend Samsung and/or Crucial SSDs. After weeks of searching and researching, I finally settled on the Sandisk Extreme Pro 480GB drive, which I picked up off of Amazon for $189 (I always check CamelCamelCamel when buying from Amazon, and I saw $189 was the cheapest in it's history - it's back up to $199 currently). That along with a single 8GB ram stick and my machine is screaming. While Crucial and Samsung drives are also good, it was the top notch performance consistency and 10-year warranty that sealed the deal for the Sandisk. I realize that the 850 Pro meets and slightly beats the Extreme Pro in a few categories - but it certainly wasn't worth the extra $60 for a similar capacity.

All in all, I am more than thrilled with this drive and I'd highly recommend it to anyone reading this.

 

[alex0002]

Wow... Can't believe how long it's been since I've posted on here! Anyway... I just recently upgraded my 2011 15" HR MBP and I'm surprised to see the sheer number of people who only recommend Samsung and/or Crucial SSDs. After weeks of searching and researching, I finally settled on the Sandisk Extreme Pro 480GB drive, which I picked up off of Amazon for $189 (I always check CamelCamelCamel when buying from Amazon, and I saw $189 was the cheapest in it's history - it's back up to $199 currently). That along with a single 8GB ram stick and my machine is screaming. While Crucial and Samsung drives are also good, it was the top notch performance consistency and 10-year warranty that sealed the deal for the Sandisk. I realize that the 850 Pro meets and slightly beats the Extreme Pro in a few categories - but it certainly wasn't worth the extra $60 for a similar capacity.

All in all, I am more than thrilled with this drive and I'd highly recommend it to anyone reading this.

The Sandisk Extreme Pro appears to be a good drive and you got it for a good price. I believe that some people tend to stay away from the Sandisk SSDs, because the earlier Sandisk Extreme II had some compatibility issues with the MBP. I don't think those problems happen with the Sandisk Extreme Pro, but you might want to search some posts on this earlier in the thread.

Other reasons could be (i) there simply isn't as much experience with Sandisk as there is with Samsung and Crucial and (ii) when Sandisk and Toshiba drives have been factory fitted to Macs, they appear to have had more problems and/or worse performance than the Samsung sourced drives.

 

[tmiw]

Both OWC and Transcend keep saying they are "working on it", but there have been no updates. Honestly, I doubt if the products are coming at all.

Any ideas what the problem(s) could be that's preventing something from being released?