Nice and B&H has the 480GB for $260. This is my first time doing this - What else should I know? Do I need anything else?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
SSD Buying Guide
- Thread starter Hellhammer
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
- Status
Nice and B&H has the 480GB for $260. This is my first time doing this - What else should I know? Do I need anything else?
This http://www.amazon.com/Apricorn-Note...8-1&keywords=usb3+sata+adapter+cable+apricorn lets you conveniently make a copy and boot from the new SSD before you stick it into the computer. I use Carbon Copy Cloner. It also can make the recovery partition.
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
Not.
You can use the Recovery mode on your Mac to clone your current drive to the SSD while it is connect via USB. So get an SSD as part of a laptop upgrade kit or purchase an upgrade kit that is standalone. Samsung has some of the SSDs available in upgrade kits. Corsair makes a nice standalone upgrade it that is software and the UBS to SATA cable. You can clone the drive while it is on a USB connection that may take a few hours depending on the amount of data to be moved and USB 2 vs USB 3. Once the drive is cloned, boot with once via USB. yes, that will be painfully slow. But you want to know the clone is good before opening your Mac. Once the clone is seen to boot....power off and replace the drives. You can find all manner of Youtube moves on swapping a Mac HD for a SSD. You will need some small Phillips screw drivers and a #6 torn driver as I remember. Apple uses Torx screws on the side of the drives to hold them in position.
I was looking at getting an SSD for my 2010 macbookpro, and am wondering if there is a better option than the Crucial M500 in terms of value and performance.
I see from reading the various threads that there are faster SSD's available now, but I don't think my comp can actually take advantage of those improvements.
So is there any real benefit to choosing something other than the Crucial M500, when I can get a 480gb model for nearly the same price as a 256 samsung 840 pro here in Ireland.
I was leaning towards the Crucial M500 or the OWC Mercury Electra 6g since they weren't too far apart on price, but I don't see many reviews of the performance of the OWC model? any advice.
Cheers.
I see from reading the various threads that there are faster SSD's available now, but I don't think my comp can actually take advantage of those improvements.
So is there any real benefit to choosing something other than the Crucial M500, when I can get a 480gb model for nearly the same price as a 256 samsung 840 pro here in Ireland.
I was leaning towards the Crucial M500 or the OWC Mercury Electra 6g since they weren't too far apart on price, but I don't see many reviews of the performance of the OWC model? any advice.
Cheers.
I have the 240GB M500 and I know the 480GB has a faster read/write due to its size. I'd stick with the M500 as everyone seems not to have a problem.
I got the Crucial M500 480 GB and benchmarked using Trim Enabler, I'm only getting 250-260 MB/s Sequential Read/Write on a 2010 MBP, any ideas why?
----------
FYI for those wanting to upgrade - the process was extremely easy. I have Bootcamp and Parallels on my MBP 15" 2010, and was able to use CCC and Winclone to make an exact copy of everything, including recovery drive in about 2-3 hours of my time. Parallels still works, Bootcamp still works, Recovery volume still there. Much smoother install than I was expecting.
----------
FYI for those wanting to upgrade - the process was extremely easy. I have Bootcamp and Parallels on my MBP 15" 2010, and was able to use CCC and Winclone to make an exact copy of everything, including recovery drive in about 2-3 hours of my time. Parallels still works, Bootcamp still works, Recovery volume still there. Much smoother install than I was expecting.
Your 2010 MBP only has a SATA II (3Gbps) drive interface, so you will not get the full, advertised speeds of the SATA III (6Gbps) M500 drive. You will be limited by the capacity of your SATA II connection.
Cheers for the prompt replies guys. I was doing some more searching, and managed to find all the the stuff i wanted quite a bit cheaper if I go with the Crucial M500. So its looking like that is my best choice.
The fact that my laptop is limited to SataII is why I was not really interested in going any further up the price bracket since I wouldn't get all the benefits of doing so (especially in terms of speed).
The M500 seems like the best compromise of speed and price.
Thanks again.
The fact that my laptop is limited to SataII is why I was not really interested in going any further up the price bracket since I wouldn't get all the benefits of doing so (especially in terms of speed).
The M500 seems like the best compromise of speed and price.
Thanks again.
Was looking at B&H since I've bought camera gear from them over the years, and had it shipped to Ireland, and even to New Zealand when i lived there, and both times it was more reasonable than buying locally (even with taxes).
Was waiting to get a few camera things like memory cards, and LED panel from B&H anyway, so the overall shipping cost becomes more economical.
To put things in perspective, the M500 is US$260 in B&H, vs 274 euro via a reputable online supplier here in Ireland. I'm still conservative when it comes to where i buy my online goods from, so I'm sure there are better prices out there, but I have have always been satisfied with B&H. I just hadn't thought of them in terms of computer supplies. But it seems they also have the data doubler from OWC as well as other brackets, cables, and enclosures, so I can get everything from the same dealer I already know. Perfect.
Was waiting to get a few camera things like memory cards, and LED panel from B&H anyway, so the overall shipping cost becomes more economical.
To put things in perspective, the M500 is US$260 in B&H, vs 274 euro via a reputable online supplier here in Ireland. I'm still conservative when it comes to where i buy my online goods from, so I'm sure there are better prices out there, but I have have always been satisfied with B&H. I just hadn't thought of them in terms of computer supplies. But it seems they also have the data doubler from OWC as well as other brackets, cables, and enclosures, so I can get everything from the same dealer I already know. Perfect.
That is part of why I told the niece to plan to move on. With older machines no SATA3, no PCI-e, no USB3, no TB1 or TB2, no retina screens, no 802.11ac wifi.....etc.
That being said, a SSD on SATA II will still run circles around a traditional hard drive and will be an excellent improvement on an older machine, and should be plenty fast for most day-to-day tasks. However, there is a point where old interfaces do start holding your usage back and I fully understand the desire to move on.
Even with that in mind the part is just below $140. Now if the total cost of ownership is equal to the price of parts upgrade and proceeds of the sale of the old machine then it is worth buying new.
Even if the you are buying at a loss but if you need SATA 6Gb/s, PCIe, USB 3, TB1 & TB2 then it may be worth upgrading.
I have a 2007 iMac that has a SATA 3Gb/s interface. I looked up what could be upgraded and it turns out the processor, HDD, Superdrive and possibly the RAM can be bumped up further. I did my costing it turned out the cost of upgrade + proceeds of the sale could net me a new iMac although this would be the lowest end model.
I just put a Samsung 840 Pro 512GB SSD in my late 2011 MBP. I had the stock 750GB 5400 RPM drive in there and it was getting slow. It came with Lion and I had updated to ML then Mavericks, I was still on the original install and never did a clean install. 2 OSX upgrades later and it was getting slow.
It booted up kind slow (not minutes, but slow), but shut down fast. Apps would take long to load, I'd get 10-20 bounces sometimes before stuff would launch. Sometimes it would take 15 seconds for the dock to appear once at the desktop.
It was getting bad and I couldn't take it anymore.
I made a bootable USB (8GB drive) with a fresh download of the Mavericks 10.9.1 installer and did a clean install.
It's like getting a brand new laptop. It boots up very quickly, apps launch on once bounce and it's just so responsive. I'm amazed! I have Trim enabled via the program that was posted here. The drive is running at SATA 6 and I'm very happy overall.
It booted up kind slow (not minutes, but slow), but shut down fast. Apps would take long to load, I'd get 10-20 bounces sometimes before stuff would launch. Sometimes it would take 15 seconds for the dock to appear once at the desktop.
It was getting bad and I couldn't take it anymore.
I made a bootable USB (8GB drive) with a fresh download of the Mavericks 10.9.1 installer and did a clean install.
It's like getting a brand new laptop. It boots up very quickly, apps launch on once bounce and it's just so responsive. I'm amazed! I have Trim enabled via the program that was posted here. The drive is running at SATA 6 and I'm very happy overall.
Today I upgraded the niece's white MB 7,1 250GB HD to Samsung 840 EVO 500GB. I also upgrade her MB to Mavericsk and turned on trim.
With the HD boot time was 1:03. With the SSD boot time was 0:25. Big improvement also in app launch time. She was very happy with the improvement.
With the HD boot time was 1:03. With the SSD boot time was 0:25. Big improvement also in app launch time. She was very happy with the improvement.
Today I upgraded the niece's white MB 7,1 250GB HD to Samsung 840 EVO 500GB. I also upgrade her MB to Mavericsk and turned on trim.
With the HD boot time was 1:03. With the SSD boot time was 0:25. Big improvement also in app launch time. She was very happy with the improvement.
That's a tad slow. I have a MacBookPro7,1 and swapped out an upgraded 750GB Hitachi HDD with a 240GB Crucial M500 SSD and I get about 17 seconds boot times.
The machines likely are not opening the same apps at boot up and have the same items in the dock when opening. My niece has a wall to wall full dock and several apps that open. I did not attempt to clear up her desktop, dock, or boot list.
The important thing was not the comparison with another Mac. The key is the performance delta for her machine. In terms of boot and app opening times the machine is basically twice as fast.
The important thing was not the comparison with another Mac. The key is the performance delta for her machine. In terms of boot and app opening times the machine is basically twice as fast.
Apparently I've no choice but to continue here.
So that folks can get up-to-speed on what was being discussed, here's the URL to the (now closed) thread:
non-Apple SSD's that work 100% for Macs & Macbooks
Any input/thoughts greatly appreciated...
Thank-you.
So that folks can get up-to-speed on what was being discussed, here's the URL to the (now closed) thread:
non-Apple SSD's that work 100% for Macs & Macbooks
Any input/thoughts greatly appreciated...
Thank-you.
The "Best performing SSD out there nowadays for Mac Mini?" thread linked in your thread is full of BS. There is absolutely no proof behind SandForce being the only suitable platform for Macs (as a matter of fact Apple currently uses SSDs from Samsung and Marvell based SSDs from SanDisk).
The SanDisk drive you bought is great, in fact one of the best drives currently in the market. If you prefer something cheaper there is e.g. Crucial M500 and Samsung SSD 840 EVO that are both popular among Mac users.
It's looking more & more like the stupid SATA II controller on my Mac (nV MCP79) has issues with all/most 3rd-party 6G drives, whereby it throttles them down to 1.5G.
I'm still awaiting a decent response from Sandisk, alas it's now too late to cancel my Amazon order, & by the time Sandisk finally determines their official answer the drive prolly will have arrived, so I may as well test it myself!
I'll be very pissed if it turns out that it only does 1.5G with this drive, the drive was already mostly overkill, but at 1.5G it'll be complete was of $.
If it turns out to be locked to 1.5G, I guess I'll get the EVO, or the Extreme, or similar... >.>
I'm still awaiting a decent response from Sandisk, alas it's now too late to cancel my Amazon order, & by the time Sandisk finally determines their official answer the drive prolly will have arrived, so I may as well test it myself!
I'll be very pissed if it turns out that it only does 1.5G with this drive, the drive was already mostly overkill, but at 1.5G it'll be complete was of $.
If it turns out to be locked to 1.5G, I guess I'll get the EVO, or the Extreme, or similar... >.>
Last edited:
$/GB
M500 would never saturate a SATA 6Gb/s like the 840 Evo or 840 Pro but it will saturate a 1.5Gb/s or 3Gb/s link.
You can of course go with a Samsung on a slower SATA link but it would never reach its potential.
M500 is more economical than either Samsungs.
MacBookPro7,1 with SATA 3Gb/s link with a 240GB Crucial M500
Last edited:
- Status