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Installing SSD on MBP 2010 13"

ohla313

ohla313

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 24, 2010
778
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A little planning ahead but I want to put an SSD in my MBP when Lion comes out. I'd like to keep Snow Leopard on my stock drive then when Lion comes out put in a SSD and install a fresh OS on that. My question is..what SSD works and what is best?

I was looking at the Intel X25- M (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167035)

But am not sure if it will fit? Seems all the Intel drives are SATA II but don't I need SATA?

Thank you!
 
Any 2.5" S-ATA HDD with a maximum height of 12.5mm will work.
That SSD is most probably 9.5mm high and uses an S-ATA 3.0 Gbps (S-ATA II) interface, the same interface can be found in the 2010 MBPs, as even my 2009 MBP has that interface. Take a look at System Profiler > Hardware >> Serial-ATA for confirmation.

Btw, S-ATA I is the same as S-ATA 1.5Gbps, S-ATA II is the same as S-ATA 3.0 Gbps, S-ATA III is the same as S-ATA 6.0 Gbps.
And as SSDs offer speeds of more than what S-ATA 1.5 Gbps can provide, S-ATA 3.0 Gbps or S-ATA 6-0 Gbps is needed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA
 
There will most likely be newer SSDs out when Lion hits the shelves so impossible to say anything now.
 
Thank you simsaladimbamba and Hellhammer for your advice!

So the drive I linked to would work with my MBP? I was reading the reviews and it seems solid. I was just looking at it for now and will probably search again when Lion is released.
 
Hellhammer said:
There will most likely be newer SSDs out when Lion hits the shelves so impossible to say anything now.
Click to expand...

What companies will offer the most bang for buck in the future after Lion hits shelves?
 
Mr. Chewbacca said:
Out of curiosity. What do you use?

That would be a pretty big endorsement IMO :)
Click to expand...

I only got iMac (640GB WD Caviar Blue) and MBA (128GB Toshiba SSD), so I have no personal input on this matter :eek: Intels seem to be the most reliable and trouble-free but are slower and more expensive than SandForce based drives for example. However, SF based drives have suffered from several issues with OS X and at least OCZ's SSDs have had a fairly high failure rate.
 
The Intel OP linked is a very solid drive, I had the 80GB Intel in my 13" MBP for several months before deciding to "upgrade". I went with the OCZ Vertex 2 b/c it's one of the fastest on the market and for the Sandforce Controller. The importance of it is it does automatic garbage collection. At the moment, OSX does not support TRIM which is software garbage collection to keep speeds constant. My Intel degraded in speed slightly over time and me being a nut, this annoyed me so I had to format the drive into Windows just to run trim.

So keep this in mind, although we all hope that Lion will support software Trim in the OS so this won't be an issue. But yeah this bothers me so the SF1200 drives are the best for keeping great speeds over time since it does a "hardware" type of garbage collection. Good luck!!
 
Hellhammer said:
I only got iMac (640GB WD Caviar Blue) and MBA (128GB Toshiba SSD), so I have no personal input on this matter :eek: Intels seem to be the most reliable and trouble-free but are slower and more expensive than SandForce based drives for example. However, SF based drives have suffered from several issues with OS X and at least OCZ's SSDs have had a fairly high failure rate.
Click to expand...


Thanks!
 
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