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Help with an SSD for MBP

tobefirst ⚽️

tobefirst ⚽️

macrumors 601
Original poster
Jan 24, 2005
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St. Louis, MO
I'm looking for an SSD to speed up my wife's aging 13" MacBook Pro (Core i5 2.5 13" Mid-2012). I've never replaced a hard drive with an SSD before, so I'm not exactly sure what to look for. I don't need the highest end drive as we'll likely be replacing the computer in a year or so...I just need something to get her through until then.

What do I need to look for to make sure the drive is compatible? Can you recommend any ~250GB drives that can be had cheap? How much should I expect to spend? I've seen a variety of prices from $45 to over $100. Thoughts?

Thanks for your help!
 
You can use any SATA-III SSD drive made for laptops... that happens to be most of them.

They're super easy to install in a non-Retina Mid-2012 MBP. I have one of those. If you're at all handy with a screwdriver, it should be pretty obvious what you need to do when you open up the laptop. If you're not, just peruse a walkthrough like the video posted by TrvIngnrs or go to iFixit.com and find the HD install walkthrough there.

I'd say it's more challenging transferring the data than it is to install the SSD. You might not need a new computer in a year. Put a decent SSD into a 2012 MBP and it'll fly.
 
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Thanks for the help so far. Do I need to worry about TRIM support? I've heard that term before but am not sure what it means. :) What is the easiest way to copy everything over?
 
tobefirst said:
Thanks for the help so far. Do I need to worry about TRIM support? I've heard that term before but am not sure what it means. :) What is the easiest way to copy everything over?
Click to expand...

If you have to ask (about TRIM support), then the answer is no. TRIM just won't be enabled on your SSD and it might be just a tad slower than it would be otherwise. It's not that big of a deal.

SuperDuper and Carbon Copy Cloner are both good disk cloning tools.
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html
 
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tobefirst said:
Thanks for the help so far. Do I need to worry about TRIM support? I've heard that term before but am not sure what it means. :) What is the easiest way to copy everything over?
Click to expand...

Well the easiest way is with a SATA enclosure ($10 online) just stick the SSD in the enclosure and use carbon copy closer to copy your hard drive to the SSD, then open it up and swap them over.

Trim is needed and can be enabled in El Capitan using some terminal commands look them up there are many guides for enabling online. If you are using an older OS X then use trim enabler a free app that will enable trim for you.
 
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smirking said:
TRIM is nice to have, but it's not necessary and if you enable TRIM on the wrong SSD, you can be at risk of losing data so you're best off not worrying about getting TRIM support unless you know what you're doing.
Click to expand...

It is necessary just take a look at the threads about ssd's on here those without trim eventually experience serious slow downs, inbuilt garbage collection just doesn't cut it over an extended time period

There are very few ssd's that are currently produced that don't support trim. And if the op is going for a sensible Samsung Evo or crucial mx200 series SSD they both support trim as do all the sandisk ones.
 
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This forum is the best! Is @Trvlngnrs suggested drive the one to go with or are there others I should consider? Anything cheaper? (Just asking...$70 definitely isn't out of the budget, but if I could save money...)
 
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