Mid 2009 13'' MBP upgrade

[Mac5564]

Is it possible to upgrade my mid 2009 MBP 13'' to SATA III?

 

[T5BRICK]

Is it possible to upgrade my mid 2009 MBP 13'' to SATA III?

No. You can install a SATA III drive, but it'll run at SATA II speeds.

 

[Smoothie]

Apple provided an EFI firmware update for this MBP shortly after initial release. I think it was version 1.7, and it increased the original SATA I speed to SATA II. Some people had problems with third-party SSDs using SATA II speeds with this update, but not everyone did. I have a mid-2009 13" MBP with a Samsung 830 SSD in it, and it works really well. As T5BRICK said, even with EFI version 1.7, you'll be limited to SATA II speeds while using a SATA III SSD. It's still much faster than a mechanical drive.

 

[T5BRICK]

As T5BRICK said, even with EFI version 1.7, you'll be limited to SATA II speeds while using a SATA III SSD. It's still much faster than a mechanical drive.

Here is a link to the thread I started in 2012 regarding my old mid 2009 13" MBP with a crucial M4.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/256gb-crucial-m4-in-mid-2009-13-mbp.1432670/

It's still chugging along to this day, my mom has been using it for the past two years.

 

[Dark Void]

+1 to SATA III drives running at SATA II speeds for reassurance. This is unfortunately what you are limited to.

 

[RobbieTT]

Another mid-2009 13" MBP user here, enjoying a Samsung 850 Evo at humble SATA II speeds.

For most users the SATA bottleneck is not much of a restraint on the SSD as a lot of typical random read/writes will not bounce off the throughput limits and will run at whatever rate the SSD can deliver. Clearly I cannot experience what the drive can achieve for large sequential writes, but it still leaves the old mechanically limited drive in the dust.