OCZ SSD Agility 4 Series on a 2007 macbook ? ( Pavel Gudkov , Norway )

[Pavel Gudkov]

Hello MacRumors forumers!

I am planning to install a SSD drive in my 2007 white macbook, and just ordered a "OCZ SSD Agility 4 Series 2.5" 128GB (SATA 6 Gb/s (SATA3.0), 400MB/300MB/s read/write, Indilinx Infused Everest 2)".
Do you know if this drive will work on my computer?

Thank you in advance!

Pavel Gudkov , Norway

 

[Pavel Gudkov]

My biggest concern is SATAIII - i have read that older macbooks don´t support it.

-Pavel Gudkov

 

[aawil]

I put a sata III drive in my late 2007 and had no problems. I think all the drives are backwards compatible. It just won't run at Sata III speeds.

 

[haruspex]

SATA II = 3.0 gigabytes per second
SATA III = 6.0 gigabytes per second

The bus speeds are slower than SATA II speeds so it won't be a noticable difference. SATA is fully backwards compatible so you won't have any issues. It would probably be slight faster for you than a SATA II SSD, anyway.

OCZ makes bad SSDs though. I would advise you buy a SSD from another brand. There is lots of proof on the internet that OCZ SSDs do not hold up well and lose performance over time very drastically.

 

[Pavel Gudkov]

Thank you for answering my question!

Haruspex, I purchased this OSZ ssd drive primarily because it is currently very cheap in Norway. Could you please recommend me any other ssd drives that perform better than OSZ? I am also going to upgrade my 2006 macbook pro in the near future.

Thank you!

Pavel Gudkov

 

[Pavel Gudkov]

Hello!

Just received the ssd drive... I inserted it into my macbook and started the installation of the Mac OS X (Snow Leopard). However, when asked "Select the disk where you want to install Mac OS X", i can not see any drives at all! When i go to the "Disk Utility" i don´t see the ssd drive either. Does it mean that this drive is not compatible with my macbook?

Thank you,

Pavel Gudkov

 

[fteoath64]

Agility 4 on 2007 MacBook.

Hello!

i can not see any drives at all!

Pavel Gudkov

Did you Reset the PRAM before reboot ?. I think is Option, Command P R together after Power-On button. This should allow the EFI (not BIOS, as Mac ain't a PC) to re-detect the drive.

You also did not really use the proper procedure to install OSX. Here is the right steps needed.

Step 1:
Go to OCZ website and download the firmware updater CD ISO and use a desktop PC to update the firmware. Ask a friend to help if you do not own a desktop. Needs to burn the CD and boot from it using ONLY the SSD as the sata drive attached to the PC. Remove all other HDD!.
Once firmware is updated.
Step 2:
Put the SSD in a USD2 enclosure and attach to your Mac. remember your mac still have the old HDD with bootable OSX.
Use Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper to clone your HDD into the SSD.

Once done. Remove the HDD and physically install the SSD.
Before you power up again. Before sure to prepare for PRAM reset : Option Command P R together until it beeps and restart.

It should boot straight to the SSD. If not, just press Option when you Power on and see of the "Boot selector" can see the SSD ?. If it really cannot see the SSD, then it would NOT be compatible. Agility 4 is very new so it might have limited compatibility to Sata1 (1.5G speeds).

Note: If step ONE allows you to set the SATA protocol to Sata1, then select that!. I think Apple EFI does not support sata2 for 2007 model.
Good luck.

You might want to change to Agility 3 or Vertex 3 as people have more luck getting that model to work. Check OCZ forum for experiences.

 

[Pavel Gudkov]

Hello Everyone!

Just an update... I have succesfully installed the OCZ Agility 4 drive into my macbook. Connected it to a windows machine via sata-to-usb connector (i.e. as an external hard drive), and formatted as NTFS. Then connected the drive (via the same sata-to-usb connector) to the macbook, and formated it as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Finally, insterted the ssd back into the macbook and installed Mac Os X Snow Leopard without any problems.

Thank you helping me!

Pavel Gudkov , Norway

 

[bagoun]

Hello Everyone!

Just an update... I have succesfully installed the OCZ Agility 4 drive into my macbook. Connected it to a windows machine via sata-to-usb connector (i.e. as an external hard drive), and formatted as NTFS. Then connected the drive (via the same sata-to-usb connector) to the macbook, and formated it as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Finally, insterted the ssd back into the macbook and installed Mac Os X Snow Leopard without any problems.

Thank you helping me!

Pavel Gudkov , Norway

How does it work? Is it fast? How much faster then before?
I'm plannig to upgrade my macbook early 2008 on this SSd too...
Thanks for info!