Crichton333
macrumors 6502
Never trusted USB<->SATA, my data got corrupted a couple of times over the years. Not all data but a couple of files after transfer that I needed for work, good thing I had separate backups.
SSD Buying Guide
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Never trusted USB<->SATA, my data got corrupted a couple of times over the years. Not all data but a couple of files after transfer that I needed for work, good thing I had separate backups.
ecschwarz
macrumors 65816
Did you make sure to pick the right partition map scheme? It needs to be GUID (see Step 4): http://www.macworld.com/article/2055589/how-to-format-a-startup-drive-for-a-mac.html
That may not be the reason in your case, but give that a shot since most weird formatting problems happen because of that.
slynger
macrumors regular
Got it all up and running. Man, this thing is fast - I love it!
ecschwarz
macrumors 65816
bigpoppamac31
macrumors 68020
Does this seem like a good deal for the Samsung EVO 840 500GB?? $289 (Canadian). $326.57 with tax.
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=179_1229_1088&item_id=062500
Also does the EVO 840 play nice with Mavericks?
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=179_1229_1088&item_id=062500
Also does the EVO 840 play nice with Mavericks?
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ecschwarz
macrumors 65816
I think that pricing is good, but I can't speak for the variances with US$ and Canada$, so someone may be better to chime in.
As for playing nicely with Mavericks, yes. It seems all the 840s (original, Evo, and Pro) all play nicely.
tranceaddict
macrumors newbie
Sandisk Extreme II delayed write issue
Folks using the Sandisk Extreme II SSD with their cMBPs (2012), can you please confirm if you guys are facing the delayed wake up from sleep issue as mentioned in Amazon or the threads below.
http://forums.sandisk.com/t5/SanDisk-Extreme-II-SSD/Slow-to-wake-from-sleep/td-p/302265
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5630101?start=0&tstart=0
Initially Sandisk was blaming Apple but some users were told that their engineers were working on it and there's no ETA.
I was almost about to pull my trigger on this after reading Anandtech's recommendation but now I guess I'm just left with the Samsung EVO or 840 Pro (Weaselboy was right!). I can go for the 840 Pro but after reading the reviewsin Amazon, it seems that many people were told that they have a warranty for 3 years instead of 5.
Apart from DJing, I'll be also be using the drive for video editing. From what I've read, most SSDs which are aimed at the enterprise market has a high idle power consumption. Do you guys know of a SSD (maybe by Intel?) that is extremely reliable, has a decent idle power consumption? (I don't want the fastest drive cause I think in real life it boils down to few seconds).
Edit* Looks like it's the Samsung EVO then, no other drive comes close to it in terms of price/performance and as Weaselboy pointed out earlier, it's likely to sustain much longer than what people think of TLC.
Folks using the Sandisk Extreme II SSD with their cMBPs (2012), can you please confirm if you guys are facing the delayed wake up from sleep issue as mentioned in Amazon or the threads below.
http://forums.sandisk.com/t5/SanDisk-Extreme-II-SSD/Slow-to-wake-from-sleep/td-p/302265
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5630101?start=0&tstart=0
Initially Sandisk was blaming Apple but some users were told that their engineers were working on it and there's no ETA.
I was almost about to pull my trigger on this after reading Anandtech's recommendation but now I guess I'm just left with the Samsung EVO or 840 Pro (Weaselboy was right!). I can go for the 840 Pro but after reading the reviewsin Amazon, it seems that many people were told that they have a warranty for 3 years instead of 5.
Apart from DJing, I'll be also be using the drive for video editing. From what I've read, most SSDs which are aimed at the enterprise market has a high idle power consumption. Do you guys know of a SSD (maybe by Intel?) that is extremely reliable, has a decent idle power consumption? (I don't want the fastest drive cause I think in real life it boils down to few seconds).
Edit* Looks like it's the Samsung EVO then, no other drive comes close to it in terms of price/performance and as Weaselboy pointed out earlier, it's likely to sustain much longer than what people think of TLC.
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bigpoppamac31
macrumors 68020
So I splurged on the Samsung EVO 840 500GB SSD. I have it sitting out attached to the motherboard of an OWC external case. As I am transferring the contents of my soon to be old HDD to the new SSD the SSD feels really warm to the touch. Almost untouchable. Is this normal and would placing it inside my Mac be worse due to less airflow around the SSD??
EDIT:
So I've now placed the SSD inside my MBP. Start up and shut down seems slower then I thought it would be for an SSD. Same for going to sleep. But once it's up and running it's quite fast. I'm getting around 450MB/s for read and write with Disk Speed Test. Apps load much quicker. Often with just one or maybe two bounces of the icon in the dock. Even websites load much faster. Plus I love the silence. Overall I'm pretty happy with it. But maybe they're something I can do to speed up the startup and shut down of my Mac.
EDIT:
So I've now placed the SSD inside my MBP. Start up and shut down seems slower then I thought it would be for an SSD. Same for going to sleep. But once it's up and running it's quite fast. I'm getting around 450MB/s for read and write with Disk Speed Test. Apps load much quicker. Often with just one or maybe two bounces of the icon in the dock. Even websites load much faster. Plus I love the silence. Overall I'm pretty happy with it. But maybe they're something I can do to speed up the startup and shut down of my Mac.
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This won't help the shutdown, but a slow start can be caused by not selecting the new SSD as the boot drive in the Startup Disk pane of System Preferences. Did you do that after you installed the new SSD?
Agree. My early 2011 takes 7 to 9 seconds to start up from off mode.
Make sure its the booting drive
bigpoppamac31
macrumors 68020
Mine is an early 2011 also. The SSD is the only drive connect so it would make sense to me that it would be the default boot drive.
theguardsman
macrumors newbie
Hey all,
I am looking for upgrade to SSD for my Mid 2010 13" MBP. Have been reading about them/and trying to decide between the Crucial M500 240gb (currently $105 on amazon) and the 840 EVO ($140).
It seems the EVO will be faster (but not sure if noticibly so?) but the Crucial will work better in general with the MBP (also not sure if really true). Any experience with both?
Also what other things do I need to complete the installation?
Thank you
I am looking for upgrade to SSD for my Mid 2010 13" MBP. Have been reading about them/and trying to decide between the Crucial M500 240gb (currently $105 on amazon) and the 840 EVO ($140).
It seems the EVO will be faster (but not sure if noticibly so?) but the Crucial will work better in general with the MBP (also not sure if really true). Any experience with both?
Also what other things do I need to complete the installation?
Thank you
ecschwarz
macrumors 65816
Both good choices - I've had experience with all of Samsung's 840 series and the Evo is a nice drive. Once I got TRIM enabled, I haven't noticed or done anything differently with the Evo on my computer, so I don't know how the Crucial "working better in general" really plays into things.
A few optional things (but recommended) for completing the installation are to disable the sudden motion sensor (since the drive won't be harmed by movement and you really don't need to be turning the drive off and on repeatedly), turning off the sleep image (goes back to Leopard/Snow Leopard/Lion-style sleep where nothing is written to disk in the case of extreme power loss - I did this to save disk space), and turned off local Time Machine (Time Machine will keep some backup copies on your drive until you plug in a real Time Machine drive). All of these can be enabled/disabled in the paid version of TRIM Enabler or with the following Terminal commands (some are for older versions, but still work):
Sudden Motion Sensor: http://osxdaily.com/2010/12/16/disable-sudden-motion-sensor-mac/
Sleep Image: http://installingcats.com/2008/05/23/how-to-turn-off-safe-sleep/
Time Machine: http://osxdaily.com/2011/09/28/disable-time-machine-local-backups-in-mac-os-x-lion/
I'm even running my Evo with FileVault enabled and have been very happy with the performance. I'm actually recommending some for use with some of our oldest Macs at work to get a few more years out of them...
theguardsman
macrumors newbie
Ok cool. A couple more questions - if I do not do much photo/video editing does it make sense to upgrade the RAM at the same time - just to 'make the machine faster'? Or should I just stick to the SSD first and see if its necessary afterwards?
ecschwarz
macrumors 65816
A RAM upgrade wouldn't hurt, especially since it would keep the computer from extra page outs to the disk (even if it is a fast disk). To get 8GB (2x4GB), it'll be between $85-$100 - OWC's a good source since you can look up by model and they have great customer service, but any similar RAM should be fine: http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/8566DDR3S8GP/
How much do you have in it right now? 4GB should be a good start, but going to 8GB would give you the ability to do a bit more at once with some breathing room. As for video/photo work, your biggest limitation will probably still be the CPU for the actual processing. That being said, the RAM and SSD will help the computer feel faster in other areas.
theguardsman
macrumors newbie
Thanks for the insight. I have 4gb right now, and since I don't plan on doing the installation myself (my university has a tech service that will for free) I was thinking to get both at once to spare time on it.
I'm also guessing they will have the tools since I see them opening up mac's all the time, but just to me sure- the things necessary for the instal are the actual parts, small screwdrivers, and the sata-usb cable right? I was also reading that a DVD with the system install is necessary, is that so? I've had the comp for a while so really not sure where that would be.
Also - if I could ask one more thing - do you have any experience with the black 'feet' on the bottom of the MBP? My have fallen off and I figure I should replace them while I'm doing all this. Getting an OEM set from apple seems difficult/expensive. And the ones on Amazon have iffy reviews; I found an "oem" lower panel for only $30 that should have them, but feel theres a good chance its probably not real, and in general my panel is fine, besides the feet.
Sorry for the length - I do appreciate your help though. I like to make well informed decisions, but not being familiar with all this made it a bit tricky..
I'm also guessing they will have the tools since I see them opening up mac's all the time, but just to me sure- the things necessary for the instal are the actual parts, small screwdrivers, and the sata-usb cable right? I was also reading that a DVD with the system install is necessary, is that so? I've had the comp for a while so really not sure where that would be.
Also - if I could ask one more thing - do you have any experience with the black 'feet' on the bottom of the MBP? My have fallen off and I figure I should replace them while I'm doing all this. Getting an OEM set from apple seems difficult/expensive. And the ones on Amazon have iffy reviews; I found an "oem" lower panel for only $30 that should have them, but feel theres a good chance its probably not real, and in general my panel is fine, besides the feet.
Sorry for the length - I do appreciate your help though. I like to make well informed decisions, but not being familiar with all this made it a bit tricky..
ecschwarz
macrumors 65816
That makes sense - on those particular machines, the toughest thing (in my opinion) for upgrading RAM and drives is removing the 10 screws on the bottom of the computer.
These only need a small Phillips head (#00 size) screwdriver for the case screws and a Torx (T6 size) screwdriver for the sides of the hard drive. They should be able to do the RAM/SSD installation without anything other than the new components. If they will be cloning from the old drive, then a SATA<->USB cable would be necessary. The only time they'd need a system DVD (and if you have an OS later than Snow Leopard, you wouldn't even have/need one), is if they were installing from scratch. My recommendation is to boot from your original hard drive when it's connected externally, erase the SSD, run the OS X Mavericks installer (this will put a Recovery Partition on the drive, too), and then once it's installed use Migration Assistant to copy your data to the new drive. Alternatively, you could do a 1:1 copy of your old drive with a tool like Super Duper. Copying the data to the new drive should be something you can easily do, so I wouldn't necessarily wait on the tech service.
Here are the steps for both installations if you are curious:
http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Pro+13-Inch+Unibody+Mid+2010+Hard+Drive+Replacement/4305
http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Pro+13-Inch+Unibody+Mid+2010+RAM+Replacement/4319
I've seen that happen a few times - most people I know have just gotten them from Apple (I think it's like $15 for the kit): http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5236?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
I completely understand - plus asking questions about processes is a great way to learn. Good luck with the upgrades!
Even so, you still need to go to that pref pane and select a boot drive. If you don't, the system spends several seconds at each boot looking for all available boot sources (including network boot) before settling on the SSD. If you select the SSD in that pane, the system skips that search and boots straight to the SSD.
bigpoppamac31
macrumors 68020
When I go into that preference pane the SSD is selected as the start up drive.
Both things could be true. Apple uses a different EFI implementation to established (U)EFI standards, so that might be part of the problem. That doesn't rule out the option for Sandisk to solve the problem in the SSD Firmware.
It is interesting to see the Sandisk Extreme II using a Marvell 88SS9187 controller, the same as used in the Crucial M500. It appears that Crucial did have a slow boot problem with the Macbook Pro, which was addressed with Firmware MU03 released in September 2013.
crucial.com said:
However reading some of those threads, the Sandisk problem appears to be related to power saving settings/implementation used. The strange thing is, that Sandisk are supplying SSDs with Marvell controllers to Apple, so you'd think they'd have some experience in this area.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6727/apple-is-using-sandisk-ssds-in-retina-macbook-pro-as-well
CandyRedNinja
macrumors member
quick question guys, Id like to use the OWC Data Doubler to put a drive in the optical bay of an 09 MBP. I'd like to use a SSD to boot from and my 2.5 for all my data. Question is, should the SSD go where the HDD is now or in the optical bay? Thanks.
ecschwarz
macrumors 65816
On your machine, both bays have SATA II (3.0Gbps) connections, so it wouldn't really matter. If given the choice, I always opt for the hard drive bay for the SSD, just because it should keep the palm rest area cooler and there are some models where the hard drive and optical bays don't have the same interface.
tranceaddict
macrumors newbie
Spot on Alex, I was thinking the same. If they are supplying OEM ssds to Apple, they might as well take a look at their individual products. Now had it been Apple, I guess they would have fined them for breaching the SLA, unfortunately that's not the case with consumers. It's a shame cause Extreme II is a brilliant SSD except that issue, anyhow I decided to go for the EVO.
BTW have you seen this -
http://www.techspot.com/news/56868-ssd-middleware-breakthrough-gives-up-to-300-speed-boost.html
The original article: http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20140522/353388/
Ideally a firmware update should be able to achieve that but then manufacturers might start a new product line.
bigpoppamac31
macrumors 68020
Well My Mac seems to boot up pretty quickly now. But one thing I'm curious about. If I install my old HDD into the optical bay can I in essence create a "fusion drive" in my MBP? Or would my MBP only be able to read the drive as two separate volumes?
ecschwarz
macrumors 65816
You could - here are the steps: http://www.macworld.com/article/2014011/how-to-make-your-own-fusion-drive.html
Obviously, the concern with this project is that you're putting your data across two drives, so you're increasing the chance of data loss due to failure (either drive could fail or both could fail, breaking the whole arrangement, as opposed to a 50/50 shot with one drive). That being said, if you back up regularly, go for it!
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