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SSD Buying Guide
- Thread starter Hellhammer
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There isn't a definitive "best" drive, but if you look at posts higher up on this thread, most people like the Samsung 840 Evo or Crucial m500 as a good mix of price, performance, and capacity.
1 TB SSD in MBP?
Many thanks! If ordering, do I need to order an SSD and then swap it, rather than a hard drive? Sounds as if the SSD could also be installed in the optical drive. Exploring options...!
Many thanks! If ordering, do I need to order an SSD and then swap it, rather than a hard drive? Sounds as if the SSD could also be installed in the optical drive. Exploring options...!
I'm assuming you're talking about the 13" MacBook Pro (not the Retina model)...
If so, you could buy a 2.5" SATA SSD from just about anywhere and swap it with the hard drive. This is easy and only requires removing about 10 phillips head screws from the bottom (same as a RAM upgrade), followed by 2 to release the drive, and then 4 Torx nubs that screw to the drive to hold it in place. Apple considers this a user-servicable swap. I've done this with mine and then put the original hard drive in an external enclosure.
You could order it with an SSD from Apple, but they tend to charge a lot for the "built-to-order" upgrade of an SSD. For awhile they were using Samsung 830s as the OEM drive (slightly different firmware), but I think switched to SanDisks of some variety. The only thing you'll need to do with your own drive is enable TRIM support https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trim_(computing), as Apple only enables TRIM support with their own drives by default. I use TRIM Enabler: http://www.cindori.org/software/trimenabler/
As for the optical drive, you can certainly replace it, with the original hard drive or an SSD, but you'll need the appropriate mount and cable - this is not Apple-supported, although certainly something to do if your machine is out of warranty or you're very careful (and can put things back when done). OWC's Data Doubler is a little more than what you may find on eBay, but it's one of the best out there and I've heard nothing but positives from people that have done the swap: http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/DDAMBS0GB/
Keep in mind that if you do buy the 13" non-Retina MacBook Pro, you're basically buying a computer from June 2012 (although technology comparable in MacBook Airs and Retina MacBook Pros were sold through last summer and fall respectively). It's still a nice machine, especially if you're the type who wants to tinker and also get a lot of bang for your buck.
You can just order the standard hard drive, then swap it out. Yes, lots of people then move the hard drive into the optical bay. If you search the forums for optibay you will find a few discussions on it.
Got my Crucial M500 installed today. OS is very snappy now.
quick question though. Is the HDD in the optical bay always supposed to be spinning even when not using it?
quick question though. Is the HDD in the optical bay always supposed to be spinning even when not using it?
SanDisk Extreme Pro SSDs announced at Computex
10-year warranty
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8110/computex-2014-sandisk-announces-extreme-pro-ssd
10-year warranty
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8110/computex-2014-sandisk-announces-extreme-pro-ssd
I have the 13 inch model from 2012. It's time to upgrade it to ssd. I'm planning on replacing the optical drive with this ssd http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...5421&cm_re=samsung_evo-_-20-147-247-_-Product using this tray http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1688200422&pf_rd_i=507846
After I install it, I'll boot up on the original hard drive and just install os x on the ssd, switch it to my startup disk, and use the 750gb hard drive for storing larger files.
If anyone has any other suggestions or if there's something that doesn't look right here, please let me know.
After I install it, I'll boot up on the original hard drive and just install os x on the ssd, switch it to my startup disk, and use the 750gb hard drive for storing larger files.
If anyone has any other suggestions or if there's something that doesn't look right here, please let me know.
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Last night the 1TB Samsung SSD was down to 375 ($510 / £305) directly from Amazon, so I finally bought it for my 2010 13" MacBook Pro. I was waiting for both the price to drop and for confirmation that Yosemite will run on my machine. It's a good week 
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Works for me (see my sig)
(although I used a Titan optical caddy - but I have the SSD in the optical and HDD in the std drive bay)
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Works for me (see my sig)
Just found out that in my model, the optical bay has a slower connection. So I'm gonna install the ssd where the hd was and put the hd in the optical bay. Hopefully I can still boot to the hd after switching it and install os x to the ssd from there. I'm making a bootable usb just in case haha
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Last night the 1TB Samsung SSD was down to 375 ($510 / £305) directly from Amazon, so I finally bought it for my 2010 13" MacBook Pro. I was waiting for both the price to drop and for confirmation that Yosemite will run on my machine. It's a good week
$450 here in the US of A. That's the price that shows when I click on that link.
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Yes indeed! Does that include sales tax too?
The 375€ I paid was ~315€ (~$430) for the SSD itself, plus ~60€ (~$80) tax.
But so either way, I paid 430€ three years ago to move from a 1TB HDD to a 256GB SSD, I'll be happy to have all that space again for what I consider a fair price
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The price these days from online shops in the US for the 1TB EVO is $430 and in most cases no tax charged.
Has anyone tried the new Crucial MX100 yet?
128GB for $79.99
256GB for $109.99
512GB for $224.99 (sub $220 if you shop around).
http://www.crucial.com/usa/en/ssd/series/MX100
The MX100 uses 16nm MLC NAND and the performance of the 512GB is listed as 550 MB/s Read, 500 MB/s Write.
The Anandtech review is here:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8066/crucial-mx100-256gb-512gb-review
Final words from the review:
I'm guessing Samsung and the others will match these prices soon and the new price benchmarks will be $100 for 250GB and $200 for 500GB drives.
128GB for $79.99
256GB for $109.99
512GB for $224.99 (sub $220 if you shop around).
http://www.crucial.com/usa/en/ssd/series/MX100
The MX100 uses 16nm MLC NAND and the performance of the 512GB is listed as 550 MB/s Read, 500 MB/s Write.
The Anandtech review is here:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8066/crucial-mx100-256gb-512gb-review
Final words from the review:
I'm guessing Samsung and the others will match these prices soon and the new price benchmarks will be $100 for 250GB and $200 for 500GB drives.
I've got the slower 240GB M500 and I never felt that it was "slow" in normal use. The only time in recent weeks that I wanted more speed, was when I was compiling QEMU and that was probably CPU limited.
I'm looking at getting the 512GB model so the speed is decent enough.
I must have lucked out - I got the Samsung EVO 1TB for $420 through Amazon about 2 months ago. They said it had a blemish on the packaging so they were forced to knock down the price. When it arrived it looked just as if I had picked it off a retail shelf and the drive was flawless.
Crucial MX100
I just bought the crucial MX100 (512GB) for £160. I've been looking for a good SSD for a while, and was going to go for the M550 model. But I noticed that the MX100 had the same advertised speeds (550 read, 500 write) and so I got one of those.
I've just installed it in my 2012 non retina MacBook Pro, and I've really pleased with its performance. What do you guys think?
I just bought the crucial MX100 (512GB) for £160. I've been looking for a good SSD for a while, and was going to go for the M550 model. But I noticed that the MX100 had the same advertised speeds (550 read, 500 write) and so I got one of those.
I've just installed it in my 2012 non retina MacBook Pro, and I've really pleased with its performance. What do you guys think?
That is some good speed there. I think the new MX100 may be hard to beat for a consumer drive.
Cool, I didn't know about this drive. I just bought an M550 1TB on eBay for $400. Can't wait to install. Did you put yours in main bay or optibay? I'm surprised there isn't more talk on this forum about the M550. Its basically neck and neck with the EVO but with MLC Nand, Marvell controller, encryption, etc. The only point against it is that the EVO uses much less power at idle for our computers (but not for Haswell processors that can use devslp in M550). I weighed both drives and decided I wanted the M550 more.
I considered putting the existing hard drive where the optical bay is, but it found after I had debunked my hard drive I only used 250 gigs. So, there's no real point in me having an additional hard drive, plus I'm a bit unsure of the issues with having two drives (sata speeds, and the motion sensor).
One reason I went for the MX100, is that it's meant to have the same controller and other stuff as the M550 (I think, not absolutely sure). I'm a college student, and so I have limited funds. If I could, I would have gone for the M550. That being said, with the MX100 my MacBook is like a different machine now. Makes you realise how much of a bottle neck a traditional hard drive can be on a system.
Hey ecschwartz,
Could you please elaborate on this process?
"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."
I got the SSD and the Ram and my replacement feet and am going to go to the tech people tomorrow. Just want to make sure I know what exactly has to be done. Thank you!
Could you please elaborate on this process?
"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."
I got the SSD and the Ram and my replacement feet and am going to go to the tech people tomorrow.
Just want to make sure I know what exactly has to be done. Thank you!Now that the MX100 is out, I wonder how it stacks up to the 840 EVO. They seem to go neck to neck but I wonder if Samsung is worth the extra $50 premium.
Hey ecschwartz,
Could you please elaborate on this process?
"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."
I got the SSD and the Ram and my replacement feet and am going to go to the tech people tomorrow.
Yeah - I sort of ran through that quickly since it's been discussed on other parts of this thread and others, but you basically need to open Disk Utility in some form to partition and erase your SSD. If you have access to a USB<->SATA adapter, you can plug in your old drive to that and hold down the option key when starting up (immediately). Your computer will then give you the choice of what drive to boot from—select your hard drive. From there, everything will look normal. You can then open Disk Utility and follow this from Step 2: http://www.macworld.com/article/2055589/how-to-format-a-startup-drive-for-a-mac.html
(You could also leave the SSD connected externally with the USB<->SATA adapter and erase it before swapping it and your hard drive. Basically the locations of the drives don't matter for this process, as long as you're selecting the correct one for each task and the SSD eventually finds its way into your computer.)
Once it's erased, you can run the OS X Mavericks installer from your original hard drive and select the SSD as the destination. There aren't many settings or options, but the process should also carve out a little bit of space for a recovery partition and set that up (so when you boot with Command+R, you get the utilities menu).
Finally, as part of the OS X setup process, you'll be asked a few questions like the time zone, what WiFi network you want to use, and there's the option to transfer data from another computer or drive - selecting anything other than the "no" option will launch Migration Assistant and it will walk you through copying your data. Basically it copies everything except system files and default applications, leaving the brand new copies you just installed intact.
Although this is Lion-based, the idea is the same (your "new" Mac is just your current one with the SSD): http://www.macworld.com/article/1162154/move_data_from_an_old_mac_to_a_new_mac.html
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