I installed the Samsung 840 EVO 500GB into my mid-2013 MBP 13" last night. Wow, it's very peppy! And quiet. I don't know how to measure the performance officially, and I know that with SATA II it's not what it could be, but I'm happy (also went up from 250GB in the original HDD, because that drive was nearly full).
I'm far, far from any kind of techie, so if I can do it...it must be easy
In case anyone is interested, here is what I did:
1) I bought the plain SSD, no notebook kit.
2) I closed any programs that might get new data (e-mail, etc.) and then updated my two backups (Time Machine and Super Duper on external drives). Then I shut off Time Machine.
3) I shut down and then booted from the Super Duper drive, just to make sure it looked good (hold down Option key while starting, then choose drive). It did, so I shut down again.
4) I removed the back from the computer (#00 phillips screwdriver), then removed the two screws on the bracket just behind the hard drive (something like a #1 phillips) and lifted that out. The screws are captive.
5) I carefully lifted up the hard drive and moved it a bit to the right, so as not to strain the connector cable. Then I pulled the connector cable off the left side of the drive. I then removed the drive.
6) I removed the four Frankenstein-neck-knob-like screws that are on the front and back edges of the original hard drive. These get re-used on the new one. (Torx #6 screwdriver.)
7) I put these four screws into the new hard drive. Then I took the adhesive plastic "lifter tape handle" off the old hard drive and secured it to the new one, with the "extra space" upwards (optional, I am sure).
8) I attached the cable to the new hard drive, then lowered it into position (it's obvious how it goes). Then I put the retainer bar back in and screwed it down. Then I re-installed the back on the computer.
9) I once again booted from the Super Duper external back up drive (held down option key while pressing power key). Then I went into Disc Utility (on the Super Duper drive) and formatted the new hard drive (1 partition, named Macintosh HD, Mac OS Extended Journaled) (plus in options, "GUID").
10) Then I opened the Super Duper program (like when I am going to use it to back up), and I selected to go from the Super Duper drive to the Macintosh HD drive (this is the new hard drive), and then chose "restore all files" and "erase and backup" (just to be sure). After that was done, I shut down and disconnected the Super Duper drive, and then...
11) I started up the computer. It stayed on the grey/plain screen for awhile, then got to my login screen, and away I went!
12) Next I went into Disk Utility and verified permissions on the new drive. There were a few small things, so I ran repair and they were all repaired.
Next, I just enjoyed the snappiness! Wow, pretty nice! For the first... maybe hour or so, things ran a bit high in the fan department. I think by looking at the processes in Activity Monitor that it was indexing Spotlight. Once that process went away ("md" etc.) it got back to normal.
I did start up one more time and it did still take a short while on the grey screen prior to my login screen. Everything else is working fine, so perhaps this is normal. I will shut down/start up a few more times to see if that changes. And perhaps time it.
Next to refresh my backups again, then update the OS....
PS: I don't think I forgot to write down any steps I did, but it's possible.