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Just Installed: 2x Samsung 850 Pro 512gb + 16gb replacement RAM, Late 2011 MacBookPro

L

lip5016

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 11, 2014
173
26
Hey guys, I've got a:

MacBook Pro "Late 2011" (was purchased apr. 2012) (MacBookPro8,2)

and I just installed, the following components:

***2x Samsung 850 Pro 512gb SSD (both internal)***
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LF10KTO/ref=twister_B00M0QYEWC

***16gb replacement RAM - patriot 16gb ddr3 1333hz 10600 SO-DIMM***
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006BMBUAA/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I used the OWC Data Doubler to remove my SuperDrive/Optical Drive, and mount in my 2nd Samsung 850 Pro 512gb SSD..

I flashed a 64gb USB drive with the OSX Recovery thing, so I just went ahead and installed both SSD's at the same time.. The weird thing was that the OSX Recovery Assistant window came up, with the standard options on it "Reinstall OSX, Disk Utility, etc, etc.." I partitioned both drives with 1 partition, made sure GUID, tried to do the Install OSX from the menu, kept getting error message when selecting a drive, went back and made only 1 of the GUID, and just reformatted the other one "Mac Journaled Extended", tried again, still no luck..

Luckily for me, I had an Apple Time Capsule with several recent backups of my HDD on it, so I gave the "Time Machine Backup" a try, and luckily for me, everything booted up perfectly.. I was planning on doing a fresh re-install (not a restored Time Machine backup), so I went ahead and ran the system wipe from the beginning, since now it has a stable OSX to do so from..

So far, I've ran hardware tests, both the short and extended ones that OSX offers.. everything came back working properly, including both of the SSD's and additional memory I had added..

I have also purchased the "TRIM Enabler 3.0 Pro" from:
http://www.cindori.org/software/trimenabler/

I have it turned ON, and it's showing everything in working, positive, successful order.. so that's good..

This is my first MacBook Pro, as well as my 1st laptop upgrade experience.. I would say that it's a fairly simple task but may not be suitable for the novice..

Is there anything else I should be doing to further optimize this upgrade installation?
Here are the things I've done:
-Ran both OSX hardware tests, regular and extended, both 100% success
-Ran Fix Disk Permissions
-Installed all updates in App Store
-Installed "TRIM Enabler Pro" (100% successful reports)

This is my first time with a MacBook Pro and I just want to make sure I've covered all my bases and that there's nothing that I've left out.. Thanks everyone! :)
 
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
The dGPU of the 2011 models has failed on a number of people over time. It's not certain that it will happen, but I think it's safe to assume that the failure rate increases as more stress is put on the GPU (generally this means heat from heavy usage). You might consider installing gfxCardStatus to see when the system uses the dGPU (and optionally set the system to iGPU-only mode).

The same is supposed to be true of the 330m in my 2010 model, but so far it hasn't had any issues. I don't use the machine for any gaming or other 3D tasks so I basically never put any serious strain on the GPU.

If the dGPU does ever fail on you it's not the end for the laptop as it should still work in iGPU-only mode (though external displays will no longer work as they operate only through the dGPU).
 
Freyqq said:
RAID 0? they are suppose to be so reliable, you can probably risk it.
Click to expand...

I was trying to read up on that but was a little confused by some of the literature.. I know that RAID could theoretically double me up to 12Gigabits/s, but I read that if one drive fails, it's "FATAL".. I'm not sure if that means "fatal" in the sense that you lose all your information on both, or "fatal" as in, the drive is done and you're out $359? I'm kind of interested in trying it since I backup my information VERY frequently (external thunderbolt and an Apple Time Capsule 2TB which backs up Macintosh HD as well as the thunderbolt drive, which is also backing up Macintosh HD haha).. Any further clarification on this? Thanks!
 
In RAID 0, if one drive fail, you will lost all your data, but not all your drives.

Since you should have proper backup anyway. Therefore, the so call "extra risk" is not that important for a normal home user.

However, if you use that computer to work. Since either SSD fail will cause your system can't boot and affect your productivity. So, you may think twice to use that on a working computer. And should have proper plan B when required.
 
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lip5016 said:
I was trying to read up on that but was a little confused by some of the literature.. I know that RAID could theoretically double me up to 12Gigabits/s, but I read that if one drive fails, it's "FATAL".. I'm not sure if that means "fatal" in the sense that you lose all your information on both, or "fatal" as in, the drive is done and you're out $359? I'm kind of interested in trying it since I backup my information VERY frequently (external thunderbolt and an Apple Time Capsule 2TB which backs up Macintosh HD as well as the thunderbolt drive, which is also backing up Macintosh HD haha).. Any further clarification on this? Thanks!
Click to expand...

In raid 0, if either drive fails, both drives are unreadable. This is because RAID 0 indiscriminately stores parts of files on both instead of the entire file on a single drive. The non-failed drive can still be formatted and used again, but the data is lost. If you use time machine regularly, your data is safe... so it doesn't really matter.

Sounds like the perfect situation to use raid 0.
 
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Are you getting reads and writes of more than 1,150MB/s?



lip5016 said:
Hey guys, I've got a:

MacBook Pro "Late 2011" (was purchased apr. 2012) (MacBookPro8,2)

and I just installed, the following components:

***2x Samsung 850 Pro 512gb SSD (both internal)***
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LF10KTO/ref=twister_B00M0QYEWC

***16gb replacement RAM - patriot 16gb ddr3 1333hz 10600 SO-DIMM***
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006BMBUAA/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I used the OWC Data Doubler to remove my SuperDrive/Optical Drive, and mount in my 2nd Samsung 850 Pro 512gb SSD..

I flashed a 64gb USB drive with the OSX Recovery thing, so I just went ahead and installed both SSD's at the same time.. The weird thing was that the OSX Recovery Assistant window came up, with the standard options on it "Reinstall OSX, Disk Utility, etc, etc.." I partitioned both drives with 1 partition, made sure GUID, tried to do the Install OSX from the menu, kept getting error message when selecting a drive, went back and made only 1 of the GUID, and just reformatted the other one "Mac Journaled Extended", tried again, still no luck..

Luckily for me, I had an Apple Time Capsule with several recent backups of my HDD on it, so I gave the "Time Machine Backup" a try, and luckily for me, everything booted up perfectly.. I was planning on doing a fresh re-install (not a restored Time Machine backup), so I went ahead and ran the system wipe from the beginning, since now it has a stable OSX to do so from..

So far, I've ran hardware tests, both the short and extended ones that OSX offers.. everything came back working properly, including both of the SSD's and additional memory I had added..

I have also purchased the "TRIM Enabler 3.0 Pro" from:
http://www.cindori.org/software/trimenabler/

I have it turned ON, and it's showing everything in working, positive, successful order.. so that's good..

This is my first MacBook Pro, as well as my 1st laptop upgrade experience.. I would say that it's a fairly simple task but may not be suitable for the novice..

Is there anything else I should be doing to further optimize this upgrade installation?
Here are the things I've done:
-Ran both OSX hardware tests, regular and extended, both 100% success
-Ran Fix Disk Permissions
-Installed all updates in App Store
-Installed "TRIM Enabler Pro" (100% successful reports)

This is my first time with a MacBook Pro and I just want to make sure I've covered all my bases and that there's nothing that I've left out.. Thanks everyone! :)
Click to expand...
 
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
lip5016 said:
I was trying to read up on that but was a little confused by some of the literature.. I know that RAID could theoretically double me up to 12Gigabits/s, but I read that if one drive fails, it's "FATAL".. I'm not sure if that means "fatal" in the sense that you lose all your information on both, or "fatal" as in, the drive is done and you're out $359? I'm kind of interested in trying it since I backup my information VERY frequently (external thunderbolt and an Apple Time Capsule 2TB which backs up Macintosh HD as well as the thunderbolt drive, which is also backing up Macintosh HD haha).. Any further clarification on this? Thanks!
Click to expand...

Who cares? You do frequent backups, you have a couple of 850 Pro SSDs. If one SSD fails, you still have another 512GB one which you can restore a Time Machine backup.

The important question is: are you getting something near 1GB/s? This is a big achievement from a SATAIII Mac.
 
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Isn't the optical bay SATA 2 on these machines? I wonder about the performance characteristics of RAID 0 when having one drive on SATA 3 and the other on SATA 2. It's possible you're better off not using RAID in this situation, but I'm not sure.
 
Just Installed: 2x Samsung 850 Pro 512gb + 16gb replacement RAM, Late 2011 Ma...

Milk both are sata 6gbit/s
 
Thank you for sharing your experience with us.
But… are you really shure that you need (and feel) the Theoretical more speed of the 2 SSD?

Since the EVO 850 is outperforming the pro (look for Tom´s Hardware and Anandtech) in speed I will cancel my project of double-SSD (= replace the original KIngston 512 GB build-in by apple because only SATAII-speed) and soon nothing but upgrade a 850 EVO 2 TB (SATA III) - and if I really need more space or a internal backup - add later on another SSD in the optical bay…

I am very happy that Samsung released the 2 TB-EVO… and I am nearly shure they will go further with a 4 TB 850 next year or at least in 2017..
 
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