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Late 2009: What type of SSD can I buy?
- Thread starter legaleye3000
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I'm learning the best way to get the full speed out of an SSD in a 2009 mini is through the optical drive connector.
Good point, the 9400M controller frequently has problems... running at 1.5Gb/s rather than 3Gb/s, for instance.
Do you know if the ODD SATA is natively 3Gb/s or 1.5Gb/s?
Just wanted to say my 2009 mini with a Crucial SSD just upgraded itself to full 3gbs link speed -- in the HDD connection. I was going to put the SSD in the optical drive slot until I noticed it was running at full negotiated link speed of 3GB/s.
I think what happened is it was in sleep mode for more than eight hours.
Crucial has said that powering the SSD without data transfer for eight hours will update the SSD to full negotiated link speed... but I had no idea they meant when it was installed in the mini.
Anyway, full link speed now. VERY fast for this old mac mini. NICE!
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Which model Crucial SSD do you have?
Did you talk to Crucial and they gave you the info or is it someplace on their support site?
I read it online somewhere but it was their support team who was quoted; it's the BX200 SSD
Very fast. Very nice.
If we're talking about the SATA connection, previous to the MX300, most recent Crucial drives didn't have a problem with the Nvidia MCP89, which is notorious for either not working or only working at SATA1 speeds with numerous SSD's. And you didn't have to do the 8-hour thing. So I wonder if that's an ODD connection issue or a BX200 issue.
It's a regular HDD connection, not the ODD. I installed the BX200 a few weeks ago and it initially reported 3gbs, then reverted back to 1.5gbs. After being on sleep mode for over a week, it posts as 3gbs negotiated link speed. I never did the optical drive swap or connection.
I wasn't aware of the BX200 issues but in looking on the Internet, it looks to be pretty common. While it's good that the 8-hour wait solution gets the BX200 to do SATA2 speeds, to me, one should look for SSD's that can do SATA2 speeds without doing the 8-hour wait. I also think that while it works for the BX200, I don't think it's likely to work for other SSD's (unless they have a controller similar to the BX200). But's it good that the California brought up the issue.
I initially put a Samsung 840 EVO in it. It did not work at full 3gbs. After a little research, the Crucials seemed to be the answer and... after eight hours... it was!
Very pleased. You must try to put the full 8 gigs of ram in these old machines, too, of course. I remember when these were new and one four gig chip of this ram went for... over three hundred dollars...!