SSD Buying Guide

[Chiffs]

Would the 500GB Samsung 840 EVO be ok for my 15inch Mid 2012 Macbook Pro (non retina)

About ready to pull the trigger on Amazon as it currently £168.99 plus added an external usb 3.0 enclosure for £15 to enable me to copy my current drive over and then use that as an extra external afterwards

 

[alex0002]

Would the 500GB Samsung 840 EVO be ok for my 15inch Mid 2012 Macbook Pro (non retina)

About ready to pull the trigger on Amazon as it currently £168.99 plus added an external usb 3.0 enclosure for £15 to enable me to copy my current drive over and then use that as an extra external afterwards

I'm not familiar with that particular USB enclosure, but if you review the last few pages of this thread, all the recent Samsung and Crucial SSDs seem to be work well with the Macbook Pro. This includes the Samsung 840 Pro, 840 EVO and the Crucial M500, M550 and MX100.

 

[Weaselboy]

Would the 500GB Samsung 840 EVO be ok for my 15inch Mid 2012 Macbook Pro (non retina)

About ready to pull the trigger on Amazon as it currently £168.99 plus added an external usb 3.0 enclosure for £15 to enable me to copy my current drive over and then use that as an extra external afterwards

Yes... that EVO would work well with your 2012 and that enclosure you linked is a quality unit. It supports UASP, so you will get good speeds.

 

[Chiffs]

Trigger pulled. Thanks folks. Just need to figure out the easiest way to get all my drive onto the ssd and enjoy it

 

[saturnotaku]

So I just spoke with OWC which told me they have no SSD for Late 2013 rMBP. So I have now found ZERO alternatives for upgrading my 128GB SSD....seems very strange. Anyone have any thoughts that might help?

The only way to upgrade a PCI-Express rMBP is with a second-hand original equipment drive. For that, you'd be limited to fleBay, or Craigslist (if you're extremely lucky).

 

[D.T.]

I just ordered (will be here tomorrow) a 256GB Crucial MX100 for my wife’s 2010 13” MBP. Swapping out her original 5.4K 250GB HDD, and while I’m in there, I also picked up 8GB RAM (also Crucial branded, upgrading from the OEM 4GB).

I’ll be migrating the OEM drive to an external case, leaving her optical in place for now.

Figured for under $200, that’ll give her machine a nice performance boost.

I’m probably going to upgrade my 500GB 7.2K OEM drive in my 15” to a Crucial M550 sometime in the future. Will probably go to a larger 1TB drive too.

 

[DevAndy]

Would anyone be able to give advice regarding SSD size for programming?

EDIT: Created a new thread: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1752919/

 

[rickhahn]

Saturnotaku, thanks for your reply. Is it your understanding that SSDs compatible with newer rMBPs will be coming in the next several months; or will this be a longer-term issue for me?

 

[osnola ibax]

I installed the crucial mx100, €200, same read write speeds as posted before. Feel like I have a serious machine now.

 

[Weaselboy]

Saturnotaku, thanks for your reply. Is it your understanding that SSDs compatible with newer rMBPs will be coming in the next several months; or will this be a longer-term issue for me?

There was a post from a Transcend rep. in the Transcend thread where they mentioned they were waiting for third party availability of the pci-e boards used in those, but I don't recall a time frame being mentioned.

 

[PowerBook-G5]

Just this morning I installed the 512GB MX100 in my Mid-2012 cMBP, and the speeds are incredible compared to the HDD that came with my Mac. I know that other people have more demanding tasks for their MacBooks, but the MX100 seems to be plenty fast for me!

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

Finally got a 1TB Samsung 840 EVO into my 2011 27" iMac. Used the iFixit kit, and was definitely the hardest thing I've ever done, with regard to computer hardware. Took me 2 hours, mostly because I was having trouble with several of the connectors. I guess that 3 years in the same plug makes them stick quite a bit.

And of course the screen was black when I turned the machine back on, and I couldn't see the machine on the network.. Turned out I had forgotten a single cable from the screen, and the computer booted directly to the new SSD, which had an OSX installer ready from boot, hence which is why I couldn't see it on the network. Phew! Now it seems to work as expected..

Old HDD on the left, and newly added SSD on the right. My HDD has been painfully slow, slower than what you would normally expect, as you can also see from the numbers. When running the speed test, the numbers keep going up and down between 110 and 0, but mostly hovers around 20-40. And I don't think that is right.

Oh, and the machine boots in 10 seconds from the chime.

 

[B.Ellis]

Samsung 840 EVO

Put an 840 EVO into 2009 MacBook Pro and can't seem to enable TRIM. Tried Chameleon and found an old solution using terminal that didn't take. Is it better that TRIM not be used anymore? Other than that its much much faster and well worth the upgrade!


Thanks in advance!

B. Ellis

 

[bLaZ3n]

I have a mid 2010, MBP 15in 2.4 Ghz Intel Core i5.. I just recently upgraded the ram to 8GB, and was wondering if there is a list of SSD's that work with my MBP? I need around 250GB space, 120GB can work too.. any deals? What are my best options?

 

[alex0002]

Put an 840 EVO into 2009 MacBook Pro and can't seem to enable TRIM. Tried Chameleon and found an old solution using terminal that didn't take. Is it better that TRIM not be used anymore? Other than that its much much faster and well worth the upgrade!


Thanks in advance!

B. Ellis

if you are having problems with TRIM and 10.9.4 then read this thread:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1749965/

 

[Hellhammer]

Some new recommendations

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8260/best-ssds-july-2014

 

[whg]

Installed Transcend SSD in MacBook Retina 2012

Hi,

The 512 GB original SSD in my MacBook retina 15" 2012 was filling up and I was waiting for the 2014 refresh to get a replacement with the 1 TB SSD.

Then I discovered this:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8146/computex-2014-transcend-shows-ssd370-with-custom-firmware-ssd-ram-upgrade-kits-for-macs

I bought the model Transcend JetDrive 725 960GB from Amazon USA. Shipping to Switzerland was fast (3 days) and reasonably cheap (30€).

All tools are included and the change was very easy. Only my BootCamp partition needed some additional work (Winclone and a call to Microsoft to reactivate my Parallels VM).

The speed (Sata III) is comparable to the original Apple SSD. I have now again 500 GB free space for more media etc.

Overall I'm very happy with my investment in the 2 years old MacBook. The current model is only about 10% faster in benchmarks, and the Broadwell replacement seems so far away that I can recommend this to everybody in the same situation. I will now wait for Skylake, if no other problems force me to buy a new MacBook earlier.

Regards,
Werner

 

[manabry44]

Hi,

The 512 GB original SSD in my MacBook retina 15" 2012 was filling up and I was waiting for the 2014 refresh to get a replacement with the 1 TB SSD.

Then I discovered this:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8146/computex-2014-transcend-shows-ssd370-with-custom-firmware-ssd-ram-upgrade-kits-for-macs

I bought the model Transcend JetDrive 725 960GB from Amazon USA. Shipping to Switzerland was fast (3 days) and reasonably cheap (30€).

All tools are included and the change was very easy. Only my BootCamp partition needed some additional work (Winclone and a call to Microsoft to reactivate my Parallels VM).

The speed (Sata III) is comparable to the original Apple SSD. I have now again 500 GB free space for more media etc.

Overall I'm very happy with my investment in the 2 years old MacBook. The current model is only about 10% faster in benchmarks, and the Broadwell replacement seems so far away that I can recommend this to everybody in the same situation. I will now wait for Skylake, if no other problems force me to buy a new MacBook earlier.

Regards,
Werner

i want to ask, as i searched online, i found that the Mid 2012 model SSD is different from Late 2013 model SSD
i want to upgrade my SSD (256 gb) to (1tb OEM SAMSUNG) but the shape is different (Late 2013 is little narrower than 2012)
is it possible or it will not fit?
because i did not find any samsung M.2 Sata drive with 1tb for sale for RMBP Mid 2012, any suggestion?

 

[iPhil]

Would this ssd work on late '11 mini ( month or 2 before 4000 iGPU came out) .. i'm gonna go thru fw800,,

 

[S.B.G]

Would this ssd work on late '11 mini ( month or 2 before 4000 iGPU came out) .. i'm gonna go thru fw800,,

Yes the 840 Evo will work on it.

 

[Mad4clay]

Today I installed a Samsung SSD 840 PRO series 512g into my late 2012 MBP. I simply followed the utube instructions and had no problems at all. The speed is just as the picture up thread depics. I ordered it on Friday from Amazon and it came today and I put it in by myself. Woohoo! I was going to get a 256 gb, but decided to get the 512 gb. Now I have room to grow.

 

[S.B.G]

Today I installed a Samsung SSD 840 PRO series 512g into my late 2012 MBP. I simply followed the utube instructions and had no problems at all. The speed is just as the picture up thread depics. I ordered it on Friday from Amazon and it came today and I put it in by myself. Woohoo! I was going to get a 256 gb, but decided to get the 512 gb. Now I have room to grow.

Good deal! I know you'll enjoy the blazing fast speed of it and the extra storage space available is also great to have.

 

[iPhil]

well in 6 weeks I'm gonna place the order thru amazon .. woohoo free 2 day ship for Prime members..

So I got some time before then I need to put music on to 3 TB fw800 drive..


Hopefully I can get most of music files on to ext. drive n sorted minimum 300GB music / tv / movies bought thru iTunes / ripped via DVD wise...


edit: I decided to to order the drive / case / cable early ... Some will arrive by 7th and the rest will be here on 12th ...

 

[manabry44]

i want to ask, as i searched online, i found that the Mid 2012 model SSD is different from Late 2013 model SSD
i want to upgrade my SSD (256 gb) to (1tb OEM SAMSUNG) but the shape is different (Late 2013 is little narrower than 2012)
is it possible or it will not fit?
because i did not find any samsung M.2 Sata drive with 1tb for sale for RMBP Mid 2012, any suggestion?

i just discovered that they use different interface

*Mid 2012-early 2013: mSATA III 6Gbps interface (575MB/s maximum)
*Late 2013: PCIe 2.0 2X interface (1GB/s - 500MB/s for each lane)​

so i think i am limited by the Samsung 768GB max OEM part for the SSD on mid 2012 model
however, they mentioned in one place as i quote

The SSD Review
Just as a point of interest, all three can pass the SATA signal but the two top M.2 connectors are just a bit different. This comes into play with SATA Express where the same M.2 connector can be used for either SATA, PCIe x2 or x4. We saw this a bit in our testing of eight different SSDs, some SATA and some PCIe but all M.2.

does that mean i can use the PCIe 1tb Samsung OEM to be used on mSata interface that will bottle neck @ 575MB/S....thats interesting !

 

[Baxtardo]

Apologies if this has been asked already, but can we upgrade the SSD in the current or refurb 13" retina models? I'm trying to figure out which is the best model to purchase - for the moment 128 / 256 would do but I'll need to upgrade to 512 sometime in the near future.

Cheers