13" MBP 5,5 (mid-2009, EFI 1.7) - Looking to upgrade to SSD - what's compatible?

[SaturnX]

Hey everyone!

So I'm looking to breathe a little more life into my 13" Macbook Pro 5,5 (mid-2009) by upgrading to an SSD (I'm already on 8GB of RAM)

I've been trying to research what make/model to go with, but with the well known and well documented issues with replacing the hard drives on the MBP 5,5 on EFI 1.7 (i.e. beach balling, freezing, hang-ups, etc...) I'm wondering if there's actually an SSD available that'll work with the system?

Has anyone with an MBP 5,5 upgraded to an SSD and are running Mountain Lion or higher (OSX 10.8+)?

What make and model drive has worked for you?

Thanks for the support!

Note: I experienced all the freezing, hang-up issues with traditional WD Blue and Black drives and was forced to upgrade to a Hitachi drive that could be forced to SATA I (1.5Gb/s) using a utility provided by Hitachi - so that's why I'm trying to track down what SSDs other people have successfully used.

 

[w00t951]

I've upgraded a 2009 13" Pro with a Samsung 830. Any SATA III 2.5" SSD should work. Make sure you enable TRIM - a quick Google search will help you there.

 

[yjchua95]

Hey everyone!

So I'm looking to breathe a little more life into my 13" Macbook Pro 5,5 (mid-2009) by upgrading to an SSD (I'm already on 8GB of RAM)

I've been trying to research what make/model to go with, but with the well known and well documented issues with replacing the hard drives on the MBP 5,5 on EFI 1.7 (i.e. beach balling, freezing, hang-ups, etc...) I'm wondering if there's actually an SSD available that'll work with the system?

Has anyone with an MBP 5,5 upgraded to an SSD and are running Mountain Lion or higher (OSX 10.8+)?

What make and model drive has worked for you?

Thanks for the support!

Note: I experienced all the freezing, hang-up issues with traditional WD Blue and Black drives and was forced to upgrade to a Hitachi drive that could be forced to SATA I (1.5Gb/s) using a utility provided by Hitachi - so that's why I'm trying to track down what SSDs other people have successfully used.

Any SATA2 or SATA3 2.5" SSD will work.

I recommend the Crucial MX100 or the Samsung 840/850 Evo.

 

[SaturnX]

Thanks for the insight - I was concerned because I had read some people we're experiencing issues with the Crucial M500 series of drives and the mid-2009 MBPs.

But it seems those issues were resolved with a firmware update?

(Therefore I'm guessing the MX100/200 and BX100 would also be fine as they're newer than the M550?)

 

[Woochoo]

Thanks for the insight - I was concerned because I had read some people we're experiencing issues with the Crucial M500 series of drives and the mid-2009 MBPs.

But it seems those issues were resolved with a firmware update?

(Therefore I'm guessing the MX100/200 and BX100 would also be fine as they're newer than the M550?)

MX100 is a great one (I've it on my MBP 2010), I bet you won't have any issue since they have the lastest firmware, and you don't have any need of a beast SSD with 550MB/s of read and writting since you have Sata 2 (max 300MB/s, you'll get aprox. 240-260MB/s), so any Sata 3 SSD will do in performance terms.
And NO, don't enable TRIM if you get a Samsung, a MX100 or any other one that have garbage collector (similar function as TRIM done by the own SSD). Just do a bit of research of TRIM and newest SSD models.

 

[levaps]

I have Crucial M500 for a month already on the same model, really like it.