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Best SSD

Epic Xbox Revie

Epic Xbox Revie

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 15, 2010
788
7
Washington, D.C.
2011 2.0 i7 MBP 15", 8GB RAM.. I've upgraded the RAM, and now I'd like to make the final upgrade to my MBP, with a SSD.

I don't really know the best way to find out which one will work in my computer, for the best price.... I plan on buying an external hard drive, copying my current setup over to that, and then copying back after I change out the hard drives. I will also use the external for backups. Also, can I use an external to boot (for Windows), I'd like to keep as much room free on my MBP SSD, but I need windows for a couple applications, should I just make a small partition for it, or use the external? Thanks in advance.

Please provide experience with SSD's and a link to the product on Amazon, or other website, and a link on how to install.

Thoughts?
 
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I've heard good things about OWC and Intel SSDs.
I wouldn't install Windows to an external hard drive. It may cause degraded performance, especially if it's over USB.
 
I've found a "NEW CRUCIAL M4 256GB 2.5" SSD 6Gb/s SATA 3 CT256M4SSD2" for $399.99. Is installing this fairly simple, and would my transferring work? Currently, I have a 400GB/100GB partition.... when I transfer can I transfer each partition to smaller sizes..? This seems a little more complicated than it should be... Would I be better off just copying OS X, and reinstalling windows she/if I need it, i don't have any programs on windows yet.. (using it for college in a month)
 
Epic Xbox Revie said:
I've found a "NEW CRUCIAL M4 256GB 2.5" SSD 6Gb/s SATA 3 CT256M4SSD2" for $399.99. Is installing this fairly simple, and would my transferring work? Currently, I have a 400GB/100GB partition.... when I transfer can I transfer each partition to smaller sizes..? This seems a little more complicated than it should be... Would I be better off just copying OS X, and reinstalling windows she/if I need it, i don't have any programs on windows yet.. (using it for college in a month)
Click to expand...

I'm not really sure how you should transfer your data, but personally I would make a time machine backup of your files on an external HDD. Then I would reinstall the OS and restore from Time machine. Then I would just reinstall Windows completely (since you don't have anything on there anyways). There might be an easier way to make the transition, but I'm not sure on what that method might be.

Installing a new HDD is easy. Since you have upgraded the RAM, you might be fairly familiar with it. You can look on youtube and find a video on upgrading the HDD. If i remember correctly, you need a Torx 6 to remove the HDD.
 
I have a 2010 MBP i7 with 8GB RAM running OS X Lion. In my setup are two OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSDs in RAID 0. One is a 60 GB model (which I purchased first, since I don't need a lot of storage space) then later swapped out the superdrive for a 120 GB SSD. I combined the SSDs into a 120GB partition for all the Mac system files and personal folders, and use the remaining 60 GB partition for a VMWare Fusion Windows 7 virtual machine instance. Certainly not the ideal situation, but I worked with what I had.

Here's a link to OWC's SSD drives: http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/OWC/Mercury_6G/

(OWC provides detailed install guides on their site and when the drive arrives).

If you're also swapping out the superdrive (as I did), get the OWC Data Doubler bracket kit: http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/drive_bracket/datadoubler/

I did A LOT of research on SSDs before settling on the OWC drives. Without getting into all the technical details about the controllers, etc. the OWC SSDs -- at the time -- seemed to have the best reviews and performance overall. I've not looked recently, so things may have changed. I know OCZ ranks very high as well.

I've not had any issues at all with the SSDs or the RAID setup, but of course everything backs up to a Time Capsule just in case.

If I had to do it over again, I'd keep everything just on a single 240GB SSD, especially since prices dropped considerably in the last year or so since I originally purchased my SSDs.

I'd suggest making another, small partition for your Windows install. You'll take a considerable performance hit trying to run it off an external drive. Otherwise, just let OS X auto-create a Bootcamp partition for Windows and install from there. Depends on your desired setup. I love having Windows as a virtual machine off my SSD. Very speedy.

In terms of backup, just initially setup the external drive as a Time Machine, then do a complete backup to that. After installing the SSD, *simply* restore your machine from the Time Machine. It should work.
 
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Ok got it for $400 including all the tools I need to house my 'old' hard drive as well as open my MBP up. Awesome. Guess this is what I'm doing with my iPad money :p
 
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