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SSD Buying Guide

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jacg said:
Interesting. I've been following this thread for ages and eventually bought the Crucial 960 GB SSD. I have experienced the same sleep behaviour from time to time. The computer simply doesn't go to sleep properly if the power cable is connected.

I thought it might be something to do with the apps SmartSleep or Chameleon SSD Optimizer, or some conflict between the two. Do you use either of these apps?
Click to expand...

I had installed Chameleon on my first drive but never managed to use any of it's features. On this second drive that I have, no, I don't use either. Interesting that you have a sleep issue when plug into the AC when in my case it's entirely different, this exact problem, seem only to happen when I have had the MBP in sleep mode when running on the internal battery. Still hand't been able to reproduce when connected to the power outlet. :( This is so frustrating.
 
If price was no object and you wanted to buy the "best" and "fastest" SSD (and largest as well) that would fit into a 2012 non-retina 15" MacBook Pro, what would you buy for it? Also, how would you get it installed if you were just a video geek who posted on MacRumors and didn't really want to mess around with trying to install it yourself? :eek:
 
Slackula said:
If price was no object and you wanted to buy the "best" and "fastest" SSD (and largest as well) that would fit into a 2012 non-retina 15" MacBook Pro, what would you buy for it? Also, how would you get it installed if you were just a video geek who posted on MacRumors and didn't really want to mess around with trying to install it yourself? :eek:
Click to expand...
The largest SSD readily available now on the market is the Crucial M5 (about 960GB?), Samsung has a new "EVO" line either coming out soon or just beginning to reach retailers (sorry, I don't keep up with that info) that has a 1TB drive. I am very happy with my Plextor M5P Extreme, but the biggest drive in that line now is 512GB.
Read reviews on these, and maybe the SanDisk Extreme (using Google).
Everyone will have an opinion on the "best" :cool: .
As for installation, and as money is not a problem, come over to my house with 2 of the drives you finally choose. I will install one of them in your MBP and the other in mine! :D
BTW, I live in Japan ;), close to home?
 
OS X + BootCamp WD1002FAEX 1TB -> SAMSUMG SSD 840 EVO 1TB?

Hi everyone,

Is it possible & safe to swap my WDC WD1002FAEX 1TB [OS X bootable + BootCamp Windows 8 Pro x64] partitions for the Samsung SSD 840 EVO 1TB? I really need to boost the speed of my MacPro 3.1 OS X 10.8.4!

Allso I would like to know how to copy/restore my two partitions to the Samsung SSD! Keeping my WD 1TB on the shelf for backup/maintenance failsafe!

Advice, directions greatly appreciated!

Cheers!!!
 
BDM STUDIOS NL said:
Hi everyone,

Is it possible & safe to swap my WDC WD1002FAEX 1TB [OS X bootable + BootCamp Windows 8 Pro x64] partitions for the Samsung SSD 840 EVO 1TB? I really need to boost the speed of my MacPro 3.1 OS X 10.8.4!

Allso I would like to know how to copy/restore my two partitions to the Samsung SSD! Keeping my WD 1TB on the shelf for backup/maintenance failsafe!

Advice, directions greatly appreciated!

Cheers!!!
Click to expand...
It should be possible. You can use Carbon Copy Cloner (buy for $40 or use the demo that works free for a month) to clone the Mac partition (I know there is software that will clone the windows partition, but I forget its name). Ask in the Mac Pro or the Windows on Mac forums for further advice - many people there run Windows, and this is the MBP forum. :D
The issue with using an SSD in a current generation (your older one too) is that the SATA bus is SATA II, so you will not get the true speed of a SATA III device. In most cases the speed is still sufficient, judging by what I have read in the Mac Pro section. Read up on the Sonnet PCi card etc, over there.
 
davidlv said:
It should be possible. You can use Carbon Copy Cloner (buy for $40 or use the demo that works free for a month) to clone the Mac partition (I know there is software that will clone the windows partition, but I forget its name).
Click to expand...

Already own CCC! ;)

Ask in the Mac Pro or the Windows on Mac forums for further advice - many people there run Windows, and this is the MBP forum. :D
Click to expand...

Sorry for wrong thread! :eek:

The issue with using an SSD in a current generation (your older one too) is that the SATA bus is SATA II, so you will not get the true speed of a SATA III device. In most cases the speed is still sufficient, judging by what I have read in the Mac Pro section. Read up on the Sonnet PCi card etc, over there.
Click to expand...

Great read and thanks for your quick response & advice!

Cheers!!!
 
Hey guys,

Probably I'm going to upgrade my MacBook Pro later this year with a SSD.
Anyone own this SSD, the Samsung 840 Series 120GB SSD. Good price? Good model? and good brand?

Thanks!
 
Get at least a 256GB drive! Look at either Samsung 840 or the Crucial M4! They both have their own merits.
Click to expand...

I'm going to use the SSD to run the system on it and all my programs. I've than still 20GB over. Like documents I'm going to play that on my HD on the place from the superdrive.
 
Ni3l55 said:
Hey guys,

Probably I'm going to upgrade my MacBook Pro later this year with a SSD.
Anyone own this SSD, the Samsung 840 Series 120GB SSD. Good price? Good model? and good brand?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

The Samsung 840 is a great SSD. I have several of them, but would urge you to get at least a 256GB model. The 128GB is small and will fill up before you know it.
 
SandboxGeneral said:
The Samsung 840 is a great SSD. I have several of them, but would urge you to get at least a 256GB model. The 128GB is small and will fill up before you know it.
Click to expand...
And if you need further justification to convince yourself to pay a bit extra for a larger-capacity drive, there's a speed benefit as well. According to Samsung's numbers, larger-capacity drives have faster performance in random read/write operations.
 
I think I'm going for the 128GB version. I'm going to use the SSD only for the system (Mac OS X, that's round the 30GB?) and programs, often the heavy one, but with al my programs I'm round the 40GB. SO 70GB is fine for me, but to use more is better, not like almost 2 times of it.

Thanks!
 
mentaluproar said:
Just a heads-up, the Samsung 840 EVOs are arriving on newegg for sale on the 14th! They are very competitively priced!
Click to expand...

I definitely have my eye on these. I'm curious to see if any Mac issues pop up with them. Samsung is totally PC-centric with all the accompanying software, like Magician and all that. The CNET review mentions you can use Magician to speed up the Evo drive, but it's PC only (as far as I know) so I wonder if this means an unavoidable slower speed when used on Mac.
 
Was just about to purchase the new Crucial 960GB drive, then I saw the just-around-the-corner Samsung Evo 1TB. Given that they also have a great rep, I'll see what some reviews say before I finally decide.
 
I just upgraded my 128gb factory fit SSD with a new 240gb Crucial M500, (£135 from Amazon in the UK). I used CCC to copy my existing drive (version 3.4.7 from here http://www.bombich.com/download.html which I think is the last freeware version rather than just a 30 day trial. Its saya its only for OSX up to Leopard, but it worked fine with Mountain Lion for me. I named the new drive differently, but havent noticed any links breaking. I had to enter my office product key again and reset dropbox, but other than that, no problem at all. Parallels with Windows 8 and office 2013 and a couple of other programs all copied fine too :). Black magic speed tester is telling me its much quicker and I am noticing some improvement. I am however noticing slower boot times, any ideas anyone? Also do I need some sort of trim enabler on it?
 
widestload said:
I am however noticing slower boot times, any ideas anyone?
Click to expand...

Did you go to System Preferences in the Startup Disk pane and set the new drive as the boot drive? If you don't, it will search for all available boot sources, including netboot, at startup and this take time and slows down the boot.
 
Weaselboy said:
Did you go to System Preferences in the Startup Disk pane and set the new drive as the boot drive? If you don't, it will search for all available boot sources, including netboot, at startup and this take time and slows down the boot.
Click to expand...

Nope, but I have now and things are much faster. Thanks for the tip :)
 
Mixed configuration

Hi there everyone,
I'm searching around for the best mixed configuration for my mid 2010 17" MBP...
i've recently bought a 250gb samsung 840, i was going for the 500gb model but here in italy the price is still around 300euros and i tought that spending 300+ euros for an "old" pc wouldn't make so much sense instead of selling and buy a new one.
so i got the 250gb + a cheap optibay from ebay.
at the moment i'm using only the ssd and i'm really really shocked on how fast is the drive compared with the stock 5400rpm...
searching on the net for the optibay installation guide (sick! i'm really freaked out to screw up my mainboard!) i've found out that there are pros and cons of the different setups...
i mean, is better to have the ssd in the stock place + hdd in the optibay or viceversa keep the mechanical hard drive in his stock position and the ssd in the new bay? i've read about sleep problems, memory dumping issues, and many others...

to make a resume (that i don't really know if is compatible even with my old 2010 model)

-SSD stock position + HDD in optibay
Pros: NO sleep/stop/hibernation for low power/ram dumping problems
Cons: NO SMS HDD protection, PROBABLE sleeping problem for the drive in the bay, PROBABLE more noise and vibrations

-HDD stock position + SSD (6g working as 3g) in optibay
Pros: SMS HDD Working, Same noise and vibrations as stock
Cons: PROBABLE sleep/stop/hibernation for low power/ram dumping problems

CONCLUSIONS:
any advice?
 
gifo said:
Hi there everyone,
I'm searching around for the best mixed configuration for my mid 2010 17" MBP...
i've recently bought a 250gb samsung 840, i was going for the 500gb model but here in italy the price is still around 300euros and i tought that spending 300+ euros for an "old" pc wouldn't make so much sense instead of selling and buy a new one.
so i got the 250gb + a cheap optibay from ebay.
at the moment i'm using only the ssd and i'm really really shocked on how fast is the drive compared with the stock 5400rpm...
searching on the net for the optibay installation guide (sick! i'm really freaked out to screw up my mainboard!) i've found out that there are pros and cons of the different setups...
i mean, is better to have the ssd in the stock place + hdd in the optibay or viceversa keep the mechanical hard drive in his stock position and the ssd in the new bay? i've read about sleep problems, memory dumping issues, and many others...

to make a resume (that i don't really know if is compatible even with my old 2010 model)

-SSD stock position + HDD in optibay
Pros: NO sleep/stop/hibernation for low power/ram dumping problems
Cons: NO SMS HDD protection, PROBABLE sleeping problem for the drive in the bay, PROBABLE more noise and vibrations

-HDD stock position + SSD (6g working as 3g) in optibay
Pros: SMS HDD Working, Same noise and vibrations as stock
Cons: PROBABLE sleep/stop/hibernation for low power/ram dumping problems

CONCLUSIONS:
any advice?
Click to expand...

People replace the HDDs with SSDs in the stock position all the time. Why don't you try it, and if it's that terrible, switch it out? You'll find that it's just fine. Too much research often gets people worked up about stuff they'll never see in real life.
 
Hey guys, first post here

I have an early 2008 non-unibody Penryn macbook Pro. I was looking to increase the speed by swapping out to a SSD. Looking for something thats reasonably priced, not looking to spend too much since its an old machine. Any recs?

also, I just recently had to replace my logic board thru apple and have swapped out a battery. Would getting an ssd now be foolish? Not sure how much longer I can expect the laptop to last...

Thanks for any help
 
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