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SSD Benefit in 2010 MBP

C

c1phr

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 8, 2011
352
4
I've done some searching, and I wasn't able to find any threads asking a similar question.

I've been tossing the idea around of getting an SSD for my 2010 MBP. The speed would definitely be very nice, and a little bit of extra battery life wouldn't hurt. I'm a college student studying computer science, so most of my workload involves programming but I multi-task quite a bit (15 tabs open plus a reference PDF, while working on projects). I have a 750gb Momentus XT SSHD, and it's decent, but I don't see a ton of benefit from the caching SSD portion of the drive.

I'm ultimately looking at a Samsung 840, since they seem to have stellar reviews and they slot in pretty cheap as well. What are some people's experiences with SSDs in these older machines that only have SATAII and can't take advantage of the full speed of the drive? Is it worth upgrading to get a few more years out of this machine?
 
Definitely with pure ssd the mbp would last you few more years, its speed should improve, samsung 840 definitely can be used for newer apple products should you decided to get a new one.
 
The upgrade that has the biggest noticeable affect on day to day computing is going from a HDD to a SSD. Your Mac will start up and shut down faster, apps will open much faster, and the entire system will be more responsive. The difference is amazing. Once you've had a computer with an SSD, using one with a spinning HDD feels like you are using a ten year old computer.
 
Put a 840 500GB the other day into my MBP13" 2010.

Wow.

Been getting crazy amounts of page outs before with a 1TB HD (despite 8GB of RAM...which actually made me think 8GB of ram was not enough for me)

But now it is a completely different machine. 0 page outs EVER and everything is crazy fast. And I always have around 2GB free ram too! Made it a bit more future proof:)

Go for it. You will not regret it.
 
Sweet, glad to hear that the benefits are still there even on older machines.

Now should I just clone over the drive with CCC or is there some benefit to installing Mountain Lion fresh and just installing apps as I go?

Or even just reinstalling from TM backup?
 
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I have a sata 2 intel x25m in a macbook pro 13" and it flies. For comparison I also have a retina 15" upgraded model and the two boot at the same speed
 
I have a Samsung 840 Pro in my mid 2010 15" and it's awesome. Everything is MUCH faster and I'm getting about the maximum SATA II speeds possible (260-270 or so read/write) and it's BLAZING fast compared to before. I also noticed a decent bump up in battery life. With coconut battery reading my battery life at 85% with 1200 cycles on it, I stil get about 5+ hours of usage (light browsing, word processing, light VM work). I see no reason to upgrade as this computer should last another 3+ years (not saying that I don't still have the itch to upgrade, lol)

As far as cloning your existing drive, I did not and opted to go for a fresh install. I had most of my files backed up and had accumulated a lot of programs over the three years that I've had the computer that I never used anymore that I could live without.
 
c1phr said:
I've been tossing the idea around of getting an SSD for my 2010 MBP.
Click to expand...

Go to You Tube and do a search on 2010 MBP SSD. There are some video's of people showing their MBP pre & post SSD install.

My 250gb 840 just arrived in the mail today for my 2010 MBP!
 
As you noticed, sata 2 is limiting nearly every SSD on the market now. Still, SSD perform much better than HDD, so if I were you I'd get the one with the best value.

Personally I cloned my drive with CCC and it worked perfect, but I'd go for a fresh install if I would do it again
 
I just got my 120GB 840 and formatted it yesterday and will be installing it later today into my 2010 15" MBP. I'm taking the stock hard drive and putting it in the optibay.

I did Geekbench and Black Magic tests this morning with the current setup, and I'll run them again once I get the 840 in (and another 2GB of RAM). I'll post my results so you can see what it does.

Can't wait to get home from work and do this thing!
 
c1phr said:
Sweet, glad to hear that the benefits are still there even on older machines.

Now should I just clone over the drive with CCC or is there some benefit to installing Mountain Lion fresh and just installing apps as I go?

Or even just reinstalling from TM backup?
Click to expand...

+1 I put a SSD in a 2008 Macbook I had and it made a huge difference. Well worth it.

As long as you are on Lion 10.7.2 or better, you don't need to bother with CCC, you can just use your TM backup. Just plug in the TM disk and option key boot to it. You will get a recovery screen. From there start Disk Util and format the new drive to Mac OS Extended then just click restore. The entire OS and all your data will be put back on the new SSD.

Once that is done and you boot from the SSD, go to the Startup Disk pane in System Prefs and select the SSD as the boot drive. Done.
 
toffa813 said:
I just got my 120GB 840 and formatted it yesterday and will be installing it later today into my 2010 15" MBP. I'm taking the stock hard drive and putting it in the optibay.

I did Geekbench and Black Magic tests this morning with the current setup, and I'll run them again once I get the 840 in (and another 2GB of RAM). I'll post my results so you can see what it does.

Can't wait to get home from work and do this thing!
Click to expand...

Not sure about Black Magic, but I wouldn't expect much of an increase in your Geekbench score. Geekbench is mostly (if not solely) based on CPU performance rather than HDD or memory performance.

My computer scores around 4800 or so even with my 840 pro and 8gb of RAM (2.4 i5)
 
sholzer said:
Not sure about Black Magic, but I wouldn't expect much of an increase in your Geekbench score. Geekbench is mostly (if not solely) based on CPU performance rather than HDD or memory performance.

My computer scores around 4800 or so even with my 840 pro and 8gb of RAM (2.4 i5)
Click to expand...


Ahhh alright then. Figured I'd run both for the hell of it - got 5750 on Geekbench I think. I expect Black Magic to go through the roof. Got about 60 write and 70-80 read. 120gb 840 is 130/530 theoretically

We'll see!
 
Results!

Certainly an upgrade! Unfortunately our read speeds are limited by SATA II though
 

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yep, with my 840 pro I am getting about 260-270 read/write. TON faster than a traditional HDD
 
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