SSD Buying Guide

[Ledgem]

Weird that the evo is cheaper then the pro.

The EVO (and the 840 that came before it) use TLC memory, whereas the "pro" uses MLC. This gets into voltage states and basically means that the MLC memory can handle more read/write cycles and has greater fault tolerances than the TLC memory.

If you're into photography then this might seem a bit strange. Our CF memory cards are usually divided into SLC and MLC cards, where SLC is the more robust of the two (again due to voltage states). I guess SLC would be prohibitively expensive for use in a SSD.

 

[ron1004]

Sorry if this has been covered, .... just couldn't find an exact response.

I bought the Samsung Electronics 840 EVO-Series 1TB today

I have a late 2011 Macbook Pro 17" [APMBPMD311LL] with the 750GB HD which has Parralels 8 installed on a small partition.

What's the best way to migrate (OSX and Parallels 8/Win7) over to this new SSD ?


I'm hoping it will improve my boot times and switching between opened apps.

 

[teknikal90]

what's the consensus on the 'best buy'?
EVO 500gb? or the m500 480gb?
around $100 of a spread where I am - the m500 is on sale right now

I'm looking at reliability as my main thing - I'm aware the tiny speed differences between the two wouldnt affect much real world performance.

on a late 2011 15" MBP here

 

[Weaselboy]

what's the consensus on the 'best buy'?
EVO 500gb? or the m500 480gb?
around $100 of a spread where I am - the m500 is on sale right now

I'm looking at reliability as my main thing - I'm aware the tiny speed differences between the two wouldnt affect much real world performance.

on a late 2011 15" MBP here

I don't think you will find any good data one way or the other related to reliability. Just go with whatever is cheapest IMO.

 

[Rhythmic-]

So I just recently got a 256GB 840 Pro for my Macbook. After seeing how much snappier my MBP got, a family member's now looking into getting an SSD for her MBP. She doesn't want to spend as much though, so the 840 Pro's out of her budget atm. What's the consensus top 5 SSDs? I imagine the 840 Pro's somewhere in there, but we're currently looking for our best options, that's priced around $150-$200. She's looking for 250+GB btw; 128 won't cut it. Thanks guys!

 

[lavrishevo]

So I just recently got a 256GB 840 Pro for my Macbook. After seeing how much snappier my MBP got, a family member's now looking into getting an SSD for her MBP. She doesn't want to spend as much though, so the 840 Pro's out of her budget atm. What's the consensus top 5 SSDs? I imagine the 840 Pro's somewhere in there, but we're currently looking for our best options, that's priced around $150-$200. She's looking for 250+GB btw; 128 won't cut it. Thanks guys!

$219 for a 256. Can't beat it. Stay with a sata 3 drive if her mbp supports it.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-list...sr=8-1&keywords=samsung+840+pro&condition=new

Or the 250 GB EVO

http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Elect...id=1380941495&sr=8-1&keywords=samsung+840+evo

 

[SimonUK5]

Had the new 840 EVO 250Gb Drive running for a few days now.Works great, not a massive speed increase which is disappointing, but everything is pretty snappy which is nice.

Will do a speed test at some point and post it up.

 

[brdeveloper]

Hello. I'm planning to upgrade my Late 2009 White Macbook (Unibody, C2D 2.26GHz) with a SSD. A 240GB, OWC Mercury 3G would be the obvious choice, but it's pretty expensive (around $500 with shipping) to bring it to Brazil.

More affordable options, locally available, could be:

1. 240GB Sandisk Extreme, SATA III: US$270,00
2. 250GB Samsung 840 Series, SATA III: US$240,00

Which of them would be the best choice? Take into account that:
- I'll keep OSX 10.6 Snow Leopard (no TRIM support by default);
- I have encrypted user accounts;

Thanks!

 

[Weaselboy]

Hello. I'm planning to upgrade my Late 2009 White Macbook (Unibody, C2D 2.26GHz) with a SSD. A 240GB, OWC Mercury 3G would be the obvious choice, but it's pretty expensive (around $500 with shipping) to bring it to Brazil.

More affordable options, locally available, could be:

1. 240GB Sandisk Extreme, SATA III: US$270,00
2. 250GB Samsung 840 Series, SATA III: US$240,00

Which of them would be the best choice? Take into account that:
- I'll keep OSX 10.6 Snow Leopard (no TRIM support by default);
- I have encrypted user accounts;

Thanks!

Given the fact your Macbook only uses a SATA II connection, any of these SATA III drives will work but they will not get anywhere near peak speeds. So there is no need to get into a discussion about what is faster etc. That said, and given your options, the cheapest at $240 for the Samsung is to me the obvious choice.

There is most definitely nothing special about the OWC to justify that price.

 

[brdeveloper]

Given the fact your Macbook only uses a SATA II connection, any of these SATA III drives will work but they will not get anywhere near peak speeds. So there is no need to get into a discussion about what is faster etc. That said, and given your options, the cheapest at $240 for the Samsung is to me the obvious choice.

There is most definitely nothing special about the OWC to justify that price.

Thank you. I'll buy the Samsung one.

 

[Sandman1969]

Thank you. I'll buy the Samsung one.

Also, I looked at this page which I am not sure how accurate it is. But it shows the Pro as 3% faster than the EVO. And actually the EVO is slightly faster in random read speeds. I think I will splurge an extra $100 for the 500GB EVO drive. And seeing that the EVO will still outlive any laptop I put it in, I am ok with it's theoretical lifespan of MANY years!

http://ssd-comparison.whoratesit.co...Pro-256GB-vs-Samsung-840-Evo-250GB/1408vs1594

 

[flipnap]

hey guys, first off so sorry if this is redundant. i did a LOT of research in the last few days and I'm getting even more confused than I was when I started. I have a late model june 2012 MacBook Pro retina. I would like to put a 1 TB SSD drive into this machine. I know how to replace it myself and all the pros and cons etc. My main problem is the type of drive that can be put into this machine. I know there's a lot of talk about OWC, but I found some Samsung drives and other replacements that are cheaper and seem like they would work. Can anyone point me to a link of an SSD 1 TB that would work as a proper replacement in this laptop?

Thanks so much for the help, and again I apologize if this question has been asked 1 million times, but there is just so much mixed data that I'm having a hard time trying to figure out what's what.

 

[Weaselboy]

hey guys, first off so sorry if this is redundant. i did a LOT of research in the last few days and I'm getting even more confused than I was when I started. I have a late model june 2012 MacBook Pro retina. I would like to put a 1 TB SSD drive into this machine. I know how to replace it myself and all the pros and cons etc. My main problem is the type of drive that can be put into this machine. I know there's a lot of talk about OWC, but I found some Samsung drives and other replacements that are cheaper and seem like they would work. Can anyone point me to a link of an SSD 1 TB that would work as a proper replacement in this laptop?

Thanks so much for the help, and again I apologize if this question has been asked 1 million times, but there is just so much mixed data that I'm having a hard time trying to figure out what's what.

The flash storage in your Retina uses a different design than a normal "SSD" drive. It is a "blade" style. You can see one being held in the photo below.

You can get that flash storage blade direct from Apple or OWC makes an aftermarket replacement for the 2012s.

I have seen some sites selling these OEM blade drives and I think they somehow got their hands on the OEM drives from perhaps an Apple supplier. How legit they are I do not know. You can also find some of these on eBay that people pulled from their Retina when they got a larger size from OWC.

 

[Sandman1969]

EVO Showed up today! So happy with this upgrade. I went from the internal 5400rpm 500GB Drive with :

52 MB/s Write
42 MB/s Read

To

491 MB/s Write
509 MB/s Read

I enabled TRIM, but didn't notice any difference. Not sure if that is needed.

What a difference this thing makes!

 

[ron1004]

Sorry if this has been covered, .... just couldn't find an exact response.

I bought the Samsung Electronics 840 EVO-Series 1TB today

I have a late 2011 Macbook Pro 17" [APMBPMD311LL] with the 750GB HD which has Parralels 8 installed on a small partition.

What's the best way to migrate (OSX and Parallels 8/Win7) over to this new SSD ?


I'm hoping it will improve my boot times and switching between opened apps.

I bought the 1TB EVO and the install was simple (but damn long) and it is working great.
My machine was no slouch, but it's a speed demon now.

I used the Restore and the SATA cable, which took around 11 hours.


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147251
$598.99

With the promo code and $10 gift card I ended up paying $569.99

 

[Eyfy]

I see a number of discussions on this subject but seldom see mentioned that a SSD has no noise level (a HDD is often louder than the fan) which is very noticeable working during the night. If implemented properly a SSD will have a life expectancy far above that of a HDD. Data retention of a SSD is also higher than that of a HDD (10 years in most cases). A SSD is not affected by magnetic fields (some medical uses e.g. in an area with MRI.)

The other item seldom mentioned is the effect of over provisioning (e.g. see Intel's website) where when one assigns only 48 Gb of a 80 Gb X25-M and the life expectancy goes up by a factor 5 and performance goes also up by a factor 4.6 (if I remember correctly). This means that althought the cost per Gb goes up the total cost of ownership goes down for the life of the SSD.

On another note: It is near impossible to retrieve deleted data from a SSD by forensic specialists. (There are legitimate uses like financial markets trading systems or where one does not want intelectual property to fall in someone else's hands). To some this is a great plus.

Hi MJL,

I am very interested in your statement: It is near impossible to retrieve deleted data from a SSD by forensic specialists... Why is it the case? Is it the cost while companies are not (yet) using SSD for their heightened security purposes?
Thank you

 

[mewellsar]

If I wasn't worried about speed, but more just reliability of an SSD and was going to put it in a current generation cMBP. What you you recommend for the lowest price? What else would I need to buy to format the drive or copy the existing drive?

 

[spencers]

Just put a 250GB Samsung EVO in my 17" Late 2011 MBP work laptop.

 

[yanki01]

I’ve seen the videos on OWC and everything looks pretty straight forward. I’ve replaced the HD in my Mac mini along with new ram a while ago. The problem I have is cloning and making sure all the steps run smooth to get the SSD formatted. Is it THAT easy for a normal user? I want to update my mid-2009 MacBook Pro 2.56Ghz. Boot time is about a minute, sometimes longer. Mainly use it for email, internet and some Adobe Photoshop. It currently has 4GB of RAM which is fine for me now.

 

[Jjaro]

So, with the new Macbook Pro Retinas out, anyone think that third party storage options will be available someday? For some reason they only let you upgrade the final 13 inch model at 2.6 GHZ, which I don't need. But I DO need more than 256 GB of storage! Boo Apple Boo lol.

 

[DrkStr]

So, with the new Macbook Pro Retinas out, anyone think that third party storage options will be available someday? For some reason they only let you upgrade the final 13 inch model at 2.6 GHZ, which I don't need. But I DO need more than 256 GB of storage! Boo Apple Boo lol.

I'd think OWC would definitely release some in the near future, since they have ones for the Airs.

 

[Jjaro]

I'd think OWC would definitely release some in the near future, since they have ones for the Airs.

Ok thanks. I looked on their website though and didn't see anything for the NEW 2013 Macbook Airs, unless I missed it. I will look again, and thanks again!

 

[bluedoggiant]

When purchasing the new Retina Macbook Pro 15" with the 512GB SSD, how much free space can I expect to have with OS X and one account set up and everything? like 490GB? Thank you!

 

[Weaselboy]

When purchasing the new Retina Macbook Pro 15" with the 512GB SSD, how much free space can I expect to have with OS X and one account set up and everything? like 490GB? Thank you!

If you take a new machine and add the iLife and iWorks apps, that will use up about 20GB of space.

 

[bluedoggiant]

If you take a new machine and add the iLife and iWorks apps, that will use up about 20GB of space.

I use Xslimmer and that helps a lot with huge app sizes. But based on what you're saying, I'll have about 470GB after OS X install, formatting, and iLife/iWork apps? Thank you!