13" 2009 MPB SSD questions

[DKatri]

My MBP is starting to feel its age and I was considering replacing the current drive I have with an SSD, I just have a few questions after reading around.

Compatibility: Are there any models/brands that won't be compatible with my laptop?

Recommendations? I've done a bit of searching and the Samsung 830 256GB looks to be a good deal, I don't want to go any smaller than 256GB if I can help it.

It it just as easy to install as a HDD? I've installed 2 different ones before so its not too much of an issue, just wondering if there are special considerations for formatting ect.

Will it effect battery life?

What is the life of an SSD expected to be? I've had one HDD die on me and thats really f***in annoying.

Any input welcomed. Cheers

 

[jigsb007]

Hi,
I have just replace my HDD with SSD. i bought OCZ 240gb for $139 from compusa.
its very easy to change. just uncrew couple screws and then u r one.

Just make sure to make bootable USB ML Key. its easy too. you can find the documentation on iclarified.com.

Enjoy your SSD. it will be much much faster then HDD.

 

[geoffreak]

One thing to keep in mind is that you will likely be limited by your SATA connection speed. You can see what SATA speed your MBP supports by doing the following:

• Launch the "System Information" application. On Mountain Lion you can just do a spotlight search or go to the menu, "About This Mac", "More Info...", then "System Report...". Other versions of OSX will have similar steps.
• In the left panel, under "Hardware", select "Serial-ATA"
• On the right side lower panel, look for "Link Speed". 1.5 is SATA I, 3 is SATA II, and 6 is SATA III.

While all SATA drives are backwards compatible, you will be unable to achieve the full speeds a modern SSD can offer without a SATA III connection. If you only have a SATA II connection, look into SATA II SSDs which have slower connection speeds but are cheaper. SATA I just isn't really worth the SSD price IMHO.

 

[cjred]

My MBP is starting to feel its age and I was considering replacing the current drive I have with an SSD, I just have a few questions after reading around.

Compatibility: Are there any models/brands that won't be compatible with my laptop?

Recommendations? I've done a bit of searching and the Samsung 830 256GB looks to be a good deal, I don't want to go any smaller than 256GB if I can help it.

It it just as easy to install as a HDD? I've installed 2 different ones before so its not too much of an issue, just wondering if there are special considerations for formatting ect.

Will it effect battery life?

What is the life of an SSD expected to be? I've had one HDD die on me and thats really f***in annoying.

Any input welcomed. Cheers

i bought an OCZ Vertex 3 for my MBP 15" 2009. though can only utilise 3GBPS bandwidth, but overall it's speedy! Just backup regularly.

 

[robvas]

SATA I just isn't really worth the SSD price IMHO.

I disagree. You're still going to get double the performance of the low-end drives Apple used. Plus the random 4k performance won't be over 150MB/s anyway.

 

[themumu]

SATA I just isn't really worth the SSD price IMHO.

I disagree. You're still going to get double the performance of the low-end drives Apple used. Plus the random 4k performance won't be over 150MB/s anyway.

I installed Crucial M4 SSD into my 2008 MBP with SATA I and it is absolutely worth it. Although it is often suggested to not store media files on an SSD, I put my hunky iPhoto library on it and now my iPhoto opens up much quicker. As I browse pictures I can keep going next-next-next indefinitely and it does not skip a beat, renders a full screen image as soon as I lift my finger off the keyboard. It used to take a full few minutes for iPhoto to launch and after clicking through about 5 images in quick succession it would start crawling, beach-balling and being overall nasty. I estimate that the speed up of my photo managing is about 10x compared to with a hard drive, which tells me there is much more going on than just raw read/write speeds. A benchmarking app tells me that the raw read speed of my SSD setup is only 2-3x faster than with the HDD I had. Some applications though seem a lot faster than just 3x.

 

[iarti]

My MBP is starting to feel its age and I was considering replacing the current drive I have with an SSD, I just have a few questions after reading around.

Compatibility: Are there any models/brands that won't be compatible with my laptop?

Recommendations? I've done a bit of searching and the Samsung 830 256GB looks to be a good deal, I don't want to go any smaller than 256GB if I can help it.

It it just as easy to install as a HDD? I've installed 2 different ones before so its not too much of an issue, just wondering if there are special considerations for formatting ect.

Will it effect battery life?

What is the life of an SSD expected to be? I've had one HDD die on me and thats really f***in annoying.

Any input welcomed. Cheers

I've already posted on other thread but I must say, from my experience, Samsung 830, at least my 512GB version, works without any issues with Mid-2009 MacBook Pro (My system is 15 inch 2.66Ghz MacBookPro 5,3). I am aware that there are compatibility issues with a handful of SSDs on Mid-2009 MBP but not Samsung 830. Always buy SSD from a reputable seller for warranty.