Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

SSD Buying Guide

Status
Not open for further replies.
Weaselboy said:
I would ignore any claims in that thread. The EVO uses a controller made by Samsung themselves. It does not use a Sandforce controller as that thread claims. There is no "conflict" between Samsung drives and Apple hardware. Many users here have installed the EVO and the M500 and they work fine.

Honestly, I would just get whichever one you can find the best price on.
Click to expand...

Thanks Weaselboy. Also, maybe you can confirm my other question, that crucial needs firmware update the same way as evo? (dl iso and update through cd or usb)
 
Thanks to the information in this thread, I upgraded the hard drive in my Late 2008 MBP with a Samsung 840 EVO 250GB and I'm very happy with the results. It starts up faster, CS5 launches within seconds and I'll test tethered shooting in the next couple of days. It gives this old MBP a little more life before replacing it. I installed the old drive in an enclosure and will use it as another backup along with the other four externals.
 
Just ordered a Samsung 840 EVO 250GB SSD. Looking forward to installing on my 2010 MBP 15" after seeing the performance gains. One question, can I install it without having to remove the battery? I saw on iFixit that they suggest removing the battery but in other guides and youtube videos (perhaps on later models), no one does.
 
abta1 said:
Just ordered a Samsung 840 EVO 250GB SSD. Looking forward to installing on my 2010 MBP 15" after seeing the performance gains. One question, can I install it without having to remove the battery? I saw on iFixit that they suggest removing the battery but in other guides and youtube videos (perhaps on later models), no one does.
Click to expand...

I did that last week and I didn't have to remove the battery. It was really simple really.

It is really worth it. Using Blackmagic Disk Speed Test, I had about 50 MB/s with my 7200RPM drive and after, I get 250-260MB/s. And that's on 3GB/s SATA. Basically got a new Mac for 350$ (I got the 500GB).
 
It's amazing to see my Late 2008 start up in 20 seconds and CS5 in about 2 seconds. An SSD is a great upgrade to go with 8GB of RAM.
 
So, I'm finally going to pick up an SSD on cyber monday. They usually take a drop that's pretty decent. My laptop could really use some extra life.

So this is my list of drives in order of which I would prefer them

Samsung 840 EVO 250gb
Samsung 840 PRO 256gb
Samsung 840 250gb
Intel 530 240gb
Sandisk Ultra Plus 256gb


Does that look like a good list? I mean, are there any significantly faster drives for around the same price? I'm still on SATA II so I think the EVO could really saturate the connection, and provide faster random performance. Am I thinking about this the right way?
 
TheBigKing said:
i need recommendation for a late 2010 macbook pro looking for 256gb this one it's good

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Crucial-V4-...?pt=US_Solid_State_Drives&hash=item19e4e35837
Click to expand...

I'm using a Crucial M4 in my Linux desktop and I'm installing a Crucial M500 in my late 2011 Macbook Pro. So I like Crucial, but I wouldn't touch the V4. Crucial appear to have a lot of experience with the Marvell controllers and I've heard good feedback from most M4 and M500 users and also for their earlier drives like the C300.

But not the V4 which uses an older Phison controller. There is a huge thread on the Crucial forums regarding problems with this drive and while there are some suggestions that a firmware upgrade might help, if you take a quick look at what that firmware update might involve (not as simple as the m4 and m500), then you would want to steer clear of this drive.

For a few dollars more you can get something better and there are a lot of options.

I wouldn't go for anything from OCZ right now either. While some have claimed that their more recent drives are a great improvement over the older ones, it appears that they have now filed for bankruptcy - so good luck getting an RMA or any other support if you have a faulty drive.

Perhaps Toshiba will purchase the assets, but that doesn't mean they will accept the liabilities for any OCZ branded drive.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7549/ocz-files-for-bancrupty-toshiba-offers-to-buy-the-assets


Edit: perhaps I should mention that a thread on support forums doesn't always mean a bad product, as sometimes you find a small number of users that make a lot of noise and/or post under multiple logins. But in the case of the V4, the evidence suggests that this drive should be avoided. At least Crucial provide support forums and allow reasonably robust discussion about problems with their products - not every SSD vendor does this. Do some searches and decide for yourself.

Second Edit: I don't think Crucial even sell the V4 these days and there are some reports of people RMA'ing the V4 and getting an M4 in return (for no extra cost). Perhaps the ones on ebay were recovered from the bottom of a dumpster?
 
Last edited:
Some SSD news - at least this will be news to some.

There appear to be some warm boot problems with the Intel 530, at least for notebooks with QM77 chipsets, but perhaps also some others too:
https://communities.intel.com/thread/44258?start=0&tstart=0

There is some work being done to find a fix (as per link above) and right now there are some good deals on this drive - $159.99 for 240GB on amazon at the moment - but perhaps with a small risk of some boot problems.

Meanwhile it appears that the Crucial M500 did have some reboot problems with original MU02 firmware, but this should be fixed with latest MU03 update.
http://forum.crucial.com/t5/Solid-S...irmware-MU03-for-the-Crucial-M500/td-p/134921

Version MU03 includes the following changes:

  • SMART fix to ensure zero at all attributes upon shipment
  • SMART counter improvements for better customer data
  • Fix for potential Haswell compatibility issue (latest Intel platform)
  • Provide system builders with the ability to disable the temperature throttling function (please see updated data sheet)
  • Resolved potential problem causing long reboot times on some Apple MacBook systems
  • Improved compatibility with latest encryption management software
  • Changed polarity of DAS (drive activity signal)
  • Improvements in efficiency of background operations for improved lifetime and performance
  • Fixed bug in SMART readlog operation (does not affect SMART data)
Click to expand...
 
Sounds good, I only have a 5400RPM drive so the improvement should be even more noticeable. The SSD arrived this morning and hopefully I'll be able to have it installed by the weekend, just need to find a Torx screwdriver now for the HDD screws.

GenesisST said:
I did that last week and I didn't have to remove the battery. It was really simple really.

It is really worth it. Using Blackmagic Disk Speed Test, I had about 50 MB/s with my 7200RPM drive and after, I get 250-260MB/s. And that's on 3GB/s SATA. Basically got a new Mac for 350$ (I got the 500GB).
Click to expand...
 
Hi Guys, currently looking at these these SSD for a 2007 MBP A1229 model.

My first SSD, the original drive has been giving trouble for a while, any recommendations on which one? Thanks :)

Kingston SSDNow V300 120GB 2.5"
Corsair Force LS 120GB 2.5"
Samsung Serie 840 EVO 120GB 2.5"
 
Hi guys just needing advice if I needed to do anything else after installing a SSD, its on a macbook pro mid 2009 model and the SSD I installed is the Samsung 840 Evo 250gb.
 
HikariYuki said:
Hi guys just needing advice if I needed to do anything else after installing a SSD, its on a macbook pro mid 2009 model and the SSD I installed is the Samsung 840 Evo 250gb.
Click to expand...

Hi Yuko, I installed the same SSD into my MBP 2009 but sometimes I've a strange problem:
Performance of my mbp are very very good now, but I've a little problem during system boot: sometimes (50% of case) after power on pressure instead of I see apple image I se anche access denied image.



If I boot into verbose mode I read this:
Loading kernel cache file '\com.apple.recovery etc.etc.
Read error 0x6
Error loading kernelcache (0x6)

After 10-20 second the system boot regular and then all goes fine.

Does anyone has same issue?
How can I fix that or verify in my EFI are really ok?

Thanks a lot!
Quote
 
HikariYuki said:
Hi guys just needing advice if I needed to do anything else after installing a SSD, its on a macbook pro mid 2009 model and the SSD I installed is the Samsung 840 Evo 250gb.
Click to expand...

I'm about to buy the same drive. If you would be so kind, what read/writes are you getting in blackmagic? And on what specs? Do you think the drive is overkill for a 2009? Really looking for a speed boost over my HDD, and need just a bit more incentive to bite the bullet :D
 
any black Friday online deals or just wait for Monday? looking for an upgrade on my mid 09' MBP.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back