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Samsung 850 EVO alternatives for 2011 MBP

D

drewjonn

macrumors regular
Original poster
Feb 15, 2016
139
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I have an early 2011 MBP 13" right now and would like to upgrade with an SSD. (The RAM upgrade didn't seem to have any noticable changes)

I have heard many issues regarding 850 EVO installation on Macs, thus OWC is more recommended for us I guess?

Since the 850 EVO has the best value, what would you recommend as an alternative? Crucial, Sandisk, etc?
 
I have installed about half a dozen 850 EVOs in Macs, and never had any issues. Most people in this forum will also recommend the 850, you shouldn't run into any issues.
 
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I have a Sandisk Ultra II SSD in my late 2012 mac mini since October and have had no issues.
 
I have heard some people in a couple of forums stating that they have problems installing 850 EVO on their Macs. Some even said that 850 was made for Windows. Just worried, need more people to convince me tbh.
 
Samsung drives are good crucial drives are just as good an MX200 will give you the same performance (the SATA speed is the limiting factor on ssd's these days) and may bea bit cheaper. To be honest any decent modern SSD should do you fine.
 
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Never heard about Mac issues with the 850, quite the contrary actually.

I've installed 3 840s in my machines and haven't had a single issue with any of them.
 
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drewjonn said:
I have heard some people in a couple of forums stating that they have problems installing 850 EVO on their Macs. Some even said that 850 was made for Windows. Just worried, need more people to convince me tbh.
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- Invariably, someone will have some issue with almost any piece of hardware, and considering the 850 EVO is probably the most widely used 2.5" SATA SSD in the world, you're more likely to hear of issues with that drive than with any other.
It's an excellent SSD and will cause you no problems. But as mentioned above, Crucial is equally as good, so get one of theirs if it makes you feel better.
OWC SATA SSDs are a waste of money to be honest. Not that there's necessarily anything wrong with them; they're just too expensive and the SandForce controller won't do you any good.

(Lots of hardware is made for Windows/PCs. Doesn't mean it doesn't work with OS X/Mac.)
 
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drewjonn said:
I have heard some people in a couple of forums stating that they have problems installing 850 EVO on their Macs. Some even said that 850 was made for Windows. Just worried, need more people to convince me tbh.
Click to expand...

that's absurd. Samsung 850 evo will be fine. You wont regret it.
 
Samsung and Crucial are both good. Just get whatever is cheaper. I've seen many posts in MR saying that 850 evo is good with Mac so I'd say you are safe.
 
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I've had an 850 EVO in my 2011 Mac since last summer now, haven't had a single problem. It's good.
 
I've installed a Samsung 830 pro and Crucial M4 in my old 2009 13" MBP, as well as a Samsung 850 evo into my sisters 2012 13" MBP. They've all worked flawlessly.

In the past Samsung required a Windows partition to update the firmware. Even if this is still true, this late in the life of the SSD, you're not going to need to worry about it.
 
So maybe EVO should be fine then?

Does it help with the fan noise and slightly battery life though?
[doublepost=1455680099][/doublepost]
T5BRICK said:
I've installed a Samsung 830 pro and Crucial M4 in my old 2009 13" MBP, as well as a Samsung 850 evo into my sisters 2012 13" MBP. They've all worked flawlessly.

In the past Samsung required a Windows partition to update the firmware. Even if this is still true, this late in the life of the SSD, you're not going to need to worry about it.
Click to expand...

Can you explain what does that mean? Sorry I don't seem to get it.
 
drewjonn said:
I have an early 2011 MBP 13" right now and would like to upgrade with an SSD. (The RAM upgrade didn't seem to have any noticable changes)

I have heard many issues regarding 850 EVO installation on Macs, thus OWC is more recommended for us I guess?

Since the 850 EVO has the best value, what would you recommend as an alternative? Crucial, Sandisk, etc?
Click to expand...
Where did you hear that, ........ on the OWC web site?

There's no issues with Samsung SSD's in MAC's
[doublepost=1455680519][/doublepost]
drewjonn said:
Does it help with the fan noise and slightly battery life though?
[doublepost=1455680099][/doublepost]
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It is less power hungry, so yes it should help with battery life, but won't have any impact on the fan noise.

What makes you think that the SSD could have an impact on the fan noise?
 
drewjonn said:
So maybe EVO should be fine then?

Does it help with the fan noise and slightly battery life though?
Click to expand...

The evo will work great. It'll run slightly cooler and draw a little less power. Neither one will be noticeable.

Can you explain what does that mean? Sorry I don't seem to get it.
Click to expand...

The 850 evo has been out for a while now. Any major bugs have been patched and the units being sold have recent, if not current, firmware. You most likely will never need to update the firmware.

ron1004 said:
It is less power hungry, so yes it should help with battery life, but won't have any impact on the fan noise.

What makes you think that the SSD could have an impact on the fan noise?
Click to expand...

If the SSD draws less power than a HDD (which I'm pretty sure is the case), then it will also generate less heat. But as I said above, it's not a huge difference in power draw. The display and CPU/GPU still draw much more power in comparison.
 
As of today, there have been no EVO 850 firmware updates. For their updates of other SSD's, they have a downloadable ISO image you have to create a bootable disk from in order to update. I think that's pretty typical.
 
drewjonn said:
I have an early 2011 MBP 13" right now and would like to upgrade with an SSD. (The RAM upgrade didn't seem to have any noticable changes)

I have heard many issues regarding 850 EVO installation on Macs, thus OWC is more recommended for us I guess?

Since the 850 EVO has the best value, what would you recommend as an alternative? Crucial, Sandisk, etc?
Click to expand...

If a 10 year warranty appeals to you, then get a Sandisk Extreme Pro SSD. Not all Sandisk's have that warranty, just the Extreme Pro's. Sandisk Ultra II's are cheaper than Samsung and Crucial, so if price is a top concern, I'd go with that.
 
ron1004 said:
What makes you think that the SSD could have an impact on the fan noise?
Click to expand...

Because it requires less power, and might lead to less heat being produced. Just asking though. Heard that the 12" rMB doesn't produce any fan noise that's why. but I know it's going to be a minor difference though.
 
drewjonn said:
Because it requires less power, and might lead to less heat being produced. Just asking though. Heard that the 12" rMB doesn't produce any fan noise that's why. but I know it's going to be a minor difference though.
Click to expand...

The new Macbook doesn't produce any fan noise because it doesn't have a fan. It doesn't have a fan because of the CPU design and because it runs at 1.1 or 1.2 GHz. Having an HDD in there (which wouldn't fit) wouldn't have made a difference because obviously a low-heat HDD would have been used. When I was looking for both a portable SSD and a portable HDD last December, I saw more reviews where people were complaining about the SSD heat than the HDD heat. The portable SSD I got seems to generate the about the same heat as the portable HDD I got. I don't think one can make generalizations about one or the other (unless you're talking about 3.5" drives).
 
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drewjonn said:
Because it requires less power, and might lead to less heat being produced. Just asking though. Heard that the 12" rMB doesn't produce any fan noise that's why. but I know it's going to be a minor difference though.
Click to expand...

It won't have any impact on the fan noise in my experience if you are hammering the CPU or GPU enough to cause the fan to ramp up then that will happen no matter what drive you have.

The MacBook is fanless due the ultra low power core m CPU and agressive throttling when put under strain for any length of time.
 
drewjonn said:
Because it requires less power, and might lead to less heat being produced. Just asking though. Heard that the 12" rMB doesn't produce any fan noise that's why. but I know it's going to be a minor difference though.
Click to expand...
Wrong on a number of points.

As others have said, the temperature sensors monitor the CPU and GPU temperature, and turn the fans off and on as needed to pass air over the heatsinks - the CPU and GPU loading will dictate how much the fans run.

The small power draw by the HDD could cause such a small change in the heat around the power module, which does not have temperature sensors to which the fans respond.

No fan noise on the 12" rMB because there's no fans.
 
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