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Recommended SSD drive for MacBook 2008 Aluminium Unibody

Mac-Rumours said:
Congrats! I know Apple are also using Samsung's SSDs so they should be good. :)

Did you have any issues with re-activating software such as Adobe's Creative Suite?
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Havent tried Suite or Office, but ill check when I get home tonight and let you know.... now that i think about it, my version of suite might be a corporate license version, so no key....
 
Mac-Rumours said:
Congrats! I know Apple are also using Samsung's SSDs so they should be good. :)

Did you have any issues with re-activating software such as Adobe's Creative Suite?
Click to expand...

Dreamweaver needs to be relicensed, interestingly office for mac also needs the license key reentered.... looks like i will have to reinstall adobe as a minimum...
 
tingtong said:
Dreamweaver needs to be relicensed, interestingly office for mac also needs the license key reentered.... looks like i will have to reinstall adobe as a minimum...
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That sucks. I'll probably try to clone the HD then, as I need the computer to be fully functioning straight away for work and don't have the time or patience to jump through Adobe's deactivate, uninstall, reinstall, reactive, pray, BS, when I actually have licenced software.
 
Mac-Rumours said:
That sucks. I'll probably try to clone the HD then, as I need the computer to be fully functioning straight away for work and don't have the time or patience to jump through Adobe's deactivate, uninstall, reinstall, reactive, pray, BS, when I actually have licenced software.
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Oh no, i read the popup about deactivating the Adobe Software before deleting it..... maybe i should have payed attention to that! Ive read somewhere that the cloning option is the best way to go.... Surely a cloned HDD wont make any issues. I find the machine starts fast, but not sure how much that relates to the SSD or the reinstall. Programs seem to load a little faster, but not as fast as my imac, which is newer architecture. Im not seeing battery benefits either at this stage, but then the battery in the first unibody was hopeless compared to the new stuff.
 
So I got impatient and bought a Samsung 830 SSD for my 2008 13" aluminium unibody MacBook. It flies now! Starts up and programs open and usable in 35 seconds (was previously taking 1 min 30) and takes about 10 seconds to shut down. Everything is generally much speedier and I've only had one or two beach balls.

If anybody is thinking about doing this upgrade I would go for it. I was thinking about buying one of the new MBA's but this upgrade will keep me going until there's a 13" retina MBP!
 
SSD finally arrived. I used SuperDuper! to clone the drive and all Adobe software works without having to reactivate. Interestingly, some shareware seems to have lost its settings.

Disk Speed Test shows 190MB/s write and 250MB/s read.

EDIT:
Although I didn't have to reactivate Adobe software, Time Machine had to do a full backup and FileVault 2 doesn't work (presumably because SD! hasn't backed up the recovery partition). So I'll have to reinstall the OS and migrate data from a backup anyway (and then probably have to reinstall and reactivate all Adobe software).
 
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I know you already bought the Samsung 830 but I thought I would give a vote (if the 830 doesn't work out) for the OWC Mercury 3G. I read SSD reviews for almost every manufacturer out there and although is has the SF2281 controller, the drive is a new model and has firmware which allows it to work perfectly at SATA II speeds. I chose the OWC because of it's built in garbage collection. You can search for my full review of it in the forums. Anyways, just another option if it doesn't work out for you.

Also, clean installation of everything is definitely the way to go. I clean installed the OS (Lion at the time) and with 8GB of RAM and the SSD I felt like I had a brand new computer.
 
Trim loaded

Hi all, just an update, all still going well. Loaded the trim enabler last ought and all seems to be working fine, the app program says it is loaded and working ok. It's running on 10.8 osx.
 
minky1234 said:
I've been researching for a while for SSD's in my Late 2008 Macbook unibody as well. Last week I decided to go with the crucial m4 128gb mainly because people have said they are reliable, have a mac updater and the latest firmware allows the SSD to run at a 3 Gbit/s negotiated link speed (which I think OCZ drives have the problem of only running at 1.5Gbit/s). So far so good, really fast and makes a four year old computer feel like new again! Haven't enabled TRIM, not sure whether I need to at the moment. Would recommend the M4!
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I have an Agility 3 in my Macbook - you can download the SSD Toolbox from OCZ that will 'fix' your drive so that it runs at 3.0GBit and not 1.5GBit in a Macbook. I believe only OCZ and OWC have firmware updates for their Sandforce drives that fixes this issue.
 
Best fit for older Macbook 3,1

I am so glad this thread is still active!
I am looking to upgrade my original HDD in a 5+ year old Blackbook 2.2GHz Core 2 Duo (3,1) running Snow Leopard 10.6.8.
There are LOTS of great 128GB options for around $100 (i.e., Samsung 830, Crucial m4/v4, OCZ Agility 4, Kingston Hyperx, Sandisk Extreme,etc.). So I don't know how to choose.
I would love to buy a SATA III, even though it will only run at 1.5 on my older computer. Then I could put it in an external housing later or pop into another computer (possible Mac Mini purchase down the line). Plus, the SATA III drives seem to be the same price as SATA II drives.
HOWEVER, I have seen posts of drives not being down-compatible. Does anybody know of specific SATA III drives that will/will not work at 1.5Gbps with my older Macbook? Would it be safer to just get a SATA II?
Anyone who has had success upgrading to SSD on their older pre-unibody Mac, I would love to hear from you!
Thanks,
RJ
 
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Samsung backward compatible to older Mac

I called Samsung today and they said the 830 series is backward compatible for both SATA I and II. However, you obviously will take performance hits to the speed at which your machine can handle.
The support person went onto say that Samsung does not officially support the drives for Mac. People use them and they work, but Samsung only puts out software to support PC users. So he just warned about that. Regardless, I have seen plenty of successful reviews from people using the 830 drives in their Macs.
He also said that it is only necessary to buy the bare drive, not the notebook install kit. Since Macs use screws to hold the drives in place, it is not necessary to use a spacer. So save a few bucks and just get the drive and some sort of external enclosure for the old drive.
After this conversation, I feel confident that I could buy the Samsung 830 128GB and be happy. However, I am still wondering if the Crucial m4 128GB would be a better fit. They seem to be more open about their backward compatibility and working with Macs. Any ideas/suggestions?
Thanks,
RJ
 
gogogut said:
I called Samsung today and they said the 830 series is backward compatible for both SATA I and II. However, you obviously will take performance hits to the speed at which your machine can handle.
The support person went onto say that Samsung does not officially support the drives for Mac. People use them and they work, but Samsung only puts out software to support PC users. So he just warned about that. Regardless, I have seen plenty of successful reviews from people using the 830 drives in their Macs.
He also said that it is only necessary to buy the bare drive, not the notebook install kit. Since Macs use screws to hold the drives in place, it is not necessary to use a spacer. So save a few bucks and just get the drive and some sort of external enclosure for the old drive.
After this conversation, I feel confident that I could buy the Samsung 830 128GB and be happy. However, I am still wondering if the Crucial m4 128GB would be a better fit. They seem to be more open about their backward compatibility and working with Macs. Any ideas/suggestions?
Thanks,
RJ
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The Samsung 830 is running fine on my 2008 Aluminium MacBook. As you point out, it only runs at SATA II speeds and also enabling FileVault slows it down some more.

The laptop kit also comes with a USB to SATA adaptor which came in handy to clone the drive before installing. I don't think this comes with the desktop kit.
 
SATA III on SATA I?

Thanks for the confirmation that it works on an older Mac with SATA II. I wish someone would chime in with confirmation that it works on a SATA I. That would clinch the deal for me. Especially since I received an email back from Crucial saying they don't recommend either of their SSD drives for SATA I. Here is what they said:
"I am sorry, but we do not recommend to purchase either of our SSD's when using a SATA I Connector. SATA I does not provide any performance increase with read/write speeds while utilizing one of our SSDs. If you were to purchase the M4 SSD you would have the advanced caching ability that the SSD comes equipped with. However, we cannot fully guaranty that the SSD will perform normally while connected with SATA I. We therefore recommend that you either replace your SATA I connectors with SATA II or SATA III if applicable. To determine if your system is capable of doing so please contact your Apple manufacture."
I seriously doubt I can replace the SATA connector on my old Mac, so I guess I shouldn't go this route. Unless, again, someone in my particular situation can chime in.
Thanks again,
Rodrigo
 
It will be fine on SATA I - still way faster than the old drive that was in there.
 
Battery drain much faster?

Guys, has anyone noticed the battery draining faster since loading an ssd? Mine seems to free fall, and its not like im doing anything intensive... Ive also updated to Mountain Lion, but cant help but wonder if the ssd has something to do with it? Im sure ive read that ssd's are far more efficient power wise than an HDD though, as nothing is spinning...
 
tingtong said:
Guys, has anyone noticed the battery draining faster since loading an ssd? Mine seems to free fall, and its not like im doing anything intensive... Ive also updated to Mountain Lion, but cant help but wonder if the ssd has something to do with it? Im sure ive read that ssd's are far more efficient power wise than an HDD though, as nothing is spinning...
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It's a problem with ML. https://www.macrumors.com/2012/08/0...-significantly-degrade-notebook-battery-life/

I don't have any complaints with the SSD but the only time I really notice that it's faster than a regular HD is when loading / saving large photoshop files.
 
tingtong said:
Guys, has anyone noticed the battery draining faster since loading an ssd? Mine seems to free fall, and its not like im doing anything intensive... Ive also updated to Mountain Lion, but cant help but wonder if the ssd has something to do with it? Im sure ive read that ssd's are far more efficient power wise than an HDD though, as nothing is spinning...
Click to expand...

I'm actually getting better battery life with the SSD in my MBP (and 10.8). Keep in mind that Spotlight will be indexing your drive after the first time you boot with it, so the indexing might decrease the battery life.
 
Are the speeds correct??

I also just exchanged my Macbook Pro's HD with a Samsung SSD 830 (256 GB). The read speed is about 190 MB/s and write speed around 260 MB/s.

However, on this installation video I found, the speeds are around 370 MB/s: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xf2Z0XWvuc4&feature=player_detailpage#t=576s

My config: MacBook Pro, Intel Core 2 2.66 GHz, 8GB RAM (Link Speed is 3 Gigabit)

How can this be?? Am I missing something?
 
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kitodzt said:
I also just exchanged my Macbook Pro's HD with a Samsung SSD 830 (256 GB). The read speed is about 190 MB/s and write speed around 260 MB/s.

However, on this installation video I found, the speeds are around 370 MB/s: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xf2Z0XWvuc4&feature=player_detailpage#t=576s

My config: MacBook Pro, Intel Core 2 2.66 GHz, 8GB RAM (Link Speed is 3 Gigabit)

How can this be?? Am I missing something?
Click to expand...

They look like SATA II speeds. Are you sure your computer has SATA III and is running at 6 Gigabits/second? You can check using System Information.
 
I got this info from System Information Serial-ATA:

Vendor: NVidia
Product: MCP79 AHCI
Link Speed: 3 Gigabit
Negotiation Speed: 3 Gigabit
Description: AHCI Version 1.20 Supported

So, yes...seems like it operates on SATA II speeds...Is there a way to change that?? Exchanging the cable?
 
kitodzt said:
I got this info from System Information Serial-ATA:

Vendor: NVidia
Product: MCP79 AHCI
Link Speed: 3 Gigabit
Negotiation Speed: 3 Gigabit
Description: AHCI Version 1.20 Supported

So, yes...seems like it operates on SATA II speeds...Is there a way to change that?? Exchanging the cable?
Click to expand...

That chipset is SATA II only...
 
I know this thread is as dead as it gets, but I am still on a 2008 mac alu, and thought I should do an SSD upgrade as my current drive is getting well to slow.

What are the developments since the last post - any new advices / new drives that should be taken into consideration. Looking at a min of 256GB, preferably 320 as thats what I have currently. Running 8GB of RAM if that is of any intr, and the latest OSX.

Appreciate all the input I can get,

cheers, trady
 
trady said:
I know this thread is as dead as it gets, but I am still on a 2008 mac alu, and thought I should do an SSD upgrade as my current drive is getting well to slow.

What are the developments since the last post - any new advices / new drives that should be taken into consideration. Looking at a min of 256GB, preferably 320 as thats what I have currently. Running 8GB of RAM if that is of any intr, and the latest OSX.

Appreciate all the input I can get,

cheers, trady
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I'm on a 2.0 2008 Mac Alu and picked this one up a couple of days ago.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167177

It's an Intel 530 240GB SATA III. It's a tad bit smaller than the 256GB you're looking for, but I think it's a steal at that price. Plus, I've had it for a couple of days now without any issues. Fingers crossed.
 
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