Best SSD for 2010 Unibody Mac 7.1

[Big Ron]

Hi all:

I'm just about to purchase a 2010 MacBook 7.1, Ive seen lots of threads regarding a SSD upgrades therefore:

Can anyone advise me of the best 256Gbyte SSD upgrade?
Have you upgraded yourself, how did it go, do you regret it and has it extended the life of your MacBook with respect to OS upgrades/useability?

Thanks in advance

 

[XoFu]

840 evo

I am in the same situation I bought a 2010 MBWhite a few weeks ago as a second computer and installed a samsung 840 evo of that capacity.
Runs pretty well, although is set by the system to sata II speeds.

Good luck
X

 

[Big Ron]

Thanks XoFu

I will check that make out, did you transfer the original drive to a caddy & replace the Super Drive as well?

Caddies for those are only £10 in the UK and it would make sense to do both changes at the same time.

 

[Altemose]

Thanks XoFu

I will check that make out, did you transfer the original drive to a caddy & replace the Super Drive as well?

Caddies for those are only £10 in the UK and it would make sense to do both changes at the same time.

Samsung 840 Evo here. Did not put the hard drive in the caddy as I did not need the extra space. Works great in my mid-2012 cMBP.

Stay away from any Verbatim parts. The quality sucks and they have no support.

 

[XoFu]

Thanks XoFu

I will check that make out, did you transfer the original drive to a caddy & replace the Super Drive as well?

Caddies for those are only £10 in the UK and it would make sense to do both changes at the same time.

In my case, no caddy. I have enough space in the ssd for my stuff.
X

 

[Visionblue]

Crucial M500 has high marks. I just got one yesterday. I have the 120 but the 240 is priced around $100 on B&H and Amazon right now which seems like a good price. Same 2010 white macbook and pretty happy with the investment. Its blazing fast now . Also swapped the opti drive for a dual drive caddy. Nice to have my cake and eat it too!

 

[matthewscott661]

I upgraded to a PNY XLR8 120GB last week and it's done really well so far. Was about $65 after tax for the 120GB but they had a 240 available as well for around $110 I think. I've had no issues with PNY memory before and they are one of the only brands I've used, hoping their storage drives prove to be as reliable

 

[Big Ron]

Thanks to all for their advice.

I picked up a late 2009 6.1 Macbook last night off eBay UK.

It comes with Mavericks, MS Office, 8Gbyte of RAM and a 500Gbyte hard drive so there is not too much to do to it. I shall definately replace the spinner with a SSD and move it to an internal caddy.

 

[brdeveloper]

I upgraded to a PNY XLR8 120GB last week and it's done really well so far. Was about $65 after tax for the 120GB but they had a 240 available as well for around $110 I think. I've had no issues with PNY memory before and they are one of the only brands I've used, hoping their storage drives prove to be as reliable

Hello,

What Mac do you have? I'm planning buying a SSD for my 2010-Mini (Core2Duo, SATAII), but I'm not sure this SATAIII SSD can work as a SATAII one as the Samsung 840EVO. What speeds you get from Blackmagic's Speed Test? Thanks!

 

[matthewscott661]

Hello,

What Mac do you have? I'm planning buying a SSD for my 2010-Mini (Core2Duo, SATAII), but I'm not sure this SATAIII SSD can work as a SATAII one as the Samsung 840EVO. What speeds you get from Blackmagic's Speed Test? Thanks!

I have a late 2006 black macbook with SATA I and my SSD is SATA III. SATA is fully backwards compatible, so any newer drive should work on an older SATA version. The only caveat is that the drive will only be able to work at the lower SATA speed of the older interface, meaning lost potential from the faster drive. For me it still made a huge difference, and even though I won't get the full speed, I opted for the newer SATA III drive because I plan on upgrading to a newer MacBook soon and I may use the drive in that computer.

I don't know that test but on my xbench test I got the following for the disk test

Disk Test 163.72
Sequential 111.61
Uncached Write 199.71 122.62 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 98.94 55.98 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 65.33 19.12 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 184.59 92.77 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 307.13
Uncached Write 199.04 21.07 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 187.66 60.08 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 1508.10 10.69 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 498.01 92.41 MB/sec [256K blocks]​

That's for a SATA III SSD on a SATA I interface

 

[brdeveloper]

I have a late 2006 black macbook with SATA I and my SSD is SATA III. SATA is fully backwards compatible, so any newer drive should work on an older SATA version. The only caveat is that the drive will only be able to work at the lower SATA speed of the older interface, meaning lost potential from the faster drive. For me it still made a huge difference, and even though I won't get the full speed, I opted for the newer SATA III drive because I plan on upgrading to a newer MacBook soon and I may use the drive in that computer.

I don't know that test but on my xbench test I got the following for the disk test

Disk Test 163.72
Sequential 111.61
Uncached Write 199.71 122.62 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 98.94 55.98 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 65.33 19.12 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 184.59 92.77 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 307.13
Uncached Write 199.04 21.07 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 187.66 60.08 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 1508.10 10.69 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 498.01 92.41 MB/sec [256K blocks]​

That's for a SATA III SSD on a SATA I interface

Thanks for sharing this data. However, there are reports that some SATAIII SSDs downrate to SATAI when they find a SATAII interface. That's why I asked you... if you had a SATAII Mac, it would solve the question. At the moment I'm more likely to buy a 840 EVO since I have one in my Macbook and it works at SATAII.