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SSD & Enclosure Suggestions

B

BomBas

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 19, 2012
23
0
Hi. To start off, I own a MacBook Pro 13" Mid 2009 (Intel Core 2 Duo). Both SATA connections are SATA 2 (3Gigabit). I am planning to replace the optical drive with a new 120-128GB SSD.
Now to the questions:
1. Considering my model and SATA connections, does it matter if I put the SSD in the main bay or in the optical bay?
2. I've been told that a SATA 3 SSD will have the speed of 1.5Gigabit on a SATA 2 motherboard. Should I get a 3G or 6G SSD? (Is that even true?)
3. What SSD should I get from the following list (higher price to lower): Intel 320, Intel 520, OWC Mercury Electra 3G/6G, Samsung 830, Crucial M4, Intel 330.
4. Is this product a good HDD caddy?


Thank you very much!
 
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1. some prefer main drive for ssd.
2. sata 3 will show 3g.
3. Crucial and samsung should be good. I have tried all 4 not much difference.
4. OWC caddy is the best little bit pricey though They are the best outfitter for apple aftermarket product, I have heard horror stories of caddy problems.
 
I recent upgraded my MBP (same model as yours) to SSD+HDD.

1. Some people suggested to put SSD in HD bay. I initially put SSD in optical bay and HDD in HD bay, ended up SSD only has speed of 1.5G (SATA I). Then I swapped SSD and HDD and both drive has speed of 3G.

2.not true

3.830 and M4 are both good. 830 is what Apple use. M4 generally has lower price.

4.don't know about this particular one. I used Nimitz caddy and it works flawlessly so far.
 
Lots of inaccuracies in those previous posts.

1. On some models (usually early 2011 models) the optibay only works with Sata 3g(aka 2) instead of 6g(aka 3). I would test it out. The main bay has rubber mounting which absorbs vibrations a little and it is entirely enclosed and lets out less noise. Putting the HDD into the optibay is thus imo a bad idea unless you have to do it for the link speed.

2. ? no. SATA 2 = 3G, Sata 3 = 6G. There is never Sata 1 aka 1.5G. An SATA 6G will simply run on 3G if the controller doesn't support 6G which is in all 2010 or older Macbooks and in some 2011 on the optibay port.

3. Don't get an M4. I have one it is buggy and when trying to resolve them I found countless problem reports. Get a 830 or a cheap intel 330. Speed differences really don't matter anymore. Reliability and idle power consumption do and price of course.

4. That one seem to look fine. All you need is the mSATA to SATA adapter in it. Pretty much all of them fit fine if they are 9.5mm and say so in the spec sheet. There is so little room it is real easy to secure even without any screws.

Don't by stuff like this OWC one as ramram55 says. It is a rip off, borderline fraud. This stuff is nothing more than a passive adapter that costs something in the range of next to nothing to produce. In quantity you'd get it really cheap. And this OWC thing is built in the same Chinese companies they only pair it with a better mounting bracket which is the one thing you really don't need. Space is so tight you could just get the adapter and fix the ssd in place with duct tape. There is pratically no wriggle room if there is one mm you can put in a bit of folded paper and it is rocksolid, as soon as the cover is on there is nothing that can really happen that screws could prevent.
 
Okay thank you all. So, I will put the SSD in the optical bay spot. I understood that considering my motherboards (SATA 2), 6G or 3G doesn't matter. I Narrowed it down to the following options:

1. Complete OWC Option - http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/DDMBSSD120/

+ SuperSlim enclosure

- 232$ including everything. (shipping & taxes)

2. Samsung 830 / Intel 520 / Intel 320 + Ebay HDD Caddy + MaxUpgrades USB External Enclosure - 205$.

3. Samsung 830 / Intel 520 / Intel 320 + Amazon HDD Caddy + MaxUpgrades USB External Enclosure - 240$.

4. Intel 330 / Crucial M4 + Ebay HDD Caddy + MaxUpgrades USB External Enclosure - 175$.

5. Intel 330 / Crucial M4 + Amazon HDD Caddy + MaxUpgrades USB External Enclosure - 210$.

6. Samsung 830 + Ebay HDD Caddy + MaxUpgrades USB External Enclosure - 170$

The amazon HDD Caddy looks more reliable than the ebay one, although it costs 35$ more. (shipping costs 40$...)

What do you think?
 
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Just to say we bought 2 OWC Mercury Electra 3Gs with data doublers, and both data doublers would not fit the OWC drives, they required to be disassembled, and forcing screws in at an angle to seat properly (it was substantially misaligned, photos showed it clearly). I got a slow support response, hoped they would just send replacements being in the UK, but we were asked to return them before replacements would be sent. There was a report of someone else seeing the same on this forum, so my experience at least is the data doubler has some QA issues. The Mercury Electra 3G seems fine so far, no complaints with the SSD, just the caddy.
 
dusk007 said:
3. Don't get an M4. I have one it is buggy and when trying to resolve them I found countless problem reports. Get a 830 or a cheap intel 330. Speed differences really don't matter anymore. Reliability and idle power consumption do and price of course.
Click to expand...

I haven't had any issues with my Crucial drive. I've got the M4 installed in my mid 2009 13" MBP(same model as the OP) with no issues. After firmware 000F and now 010G there don't seem to be issues when installed in the HDD bay and a clean install of the OS is applied.
 
I have a M4 with those cheap caddy bay. I don't see the difference between those expensive caddy bay vs the cheaper ones. They are just a shell for HDD.
 
T5BRICK said:
and now 010G there don't seem to be issues
Click to expand...
I am running a 2010 and I haven't tried the 010G. Currently I don't have time for all the hassle but as soon as I do I will give the 010G a chance, maybe that will fix something. It is annoying after a certain uptime I get freezes, it usually seems to correlate with the disk workload. The more I have the sooner it freezes. The more less disk intensive stuff the longer it lasts.
I got a mirror image on a small hdd partition which is slow but has no problems so it is definitely an ssd problem and it ain't random either, there seems to be a pattern to it.
The Vertex 2 I had before never had any of these problems it died suddenly with some bugs for two day after which death, but before it worked for months without a single problem.

Those freezes that temporarily freeze the system for about a minute or even more annoying.
 
dusk007 said:
I am running a 2010 and I haven't tried the 010G. Currently I don't have time for all the hassle but as soon as I do I will give the 010G a chance, maybe that will fix something. It is annoying after a certain uptime I get freezes, it usually seems to correlate with the disk workload. The more I have the sooner it freezes. The more less disk intensive stuff the longer it lasts.
I got a mirror image on a small hdd partition which is slow but has no problems so it is definitely an ssd problem and it ain't random either, there seems to be a pattern to it.
The Vertex 2 I had before never had any of these problems it died suddenly with some bugs for two day after which death, but before it worked for months without a single problem.

Those freezes that temporarily freeze the system for about a minute or even more annoying.
Click to expand...

It literally took five minutes for me to update the firmware on my M4.
 
I don't have a full backup ready. It would be non essential data that i'd loose but still annoying so I don't risk and upgrade until I can truly clone the drive to have the HDD ready to jump in if necessary.
I tend to go by the don't change a running (even only somewhat running) system unless you have enough time for the possible hassle it can create.
 
dusk007 said:
I don't have a full backup ready. It would be non essential data that i'd loose but still annoying so I don't risk and upgrade until I can truly clone the drive to have the HDD ready to jump in if necessary.
I tend to go by the don't change a running (even only somewhat running) system unless you have enough time for the possible hassle it can create.
Click to expand...

Backing up is always a good idea. And I totally agree with the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" way of thinking. I just can't help myself, by nature I have to tinker. It gets me into trouble sometimes. :eek:
 
Okay thank you all. So, I will put the SSD in the optical bay spot. I understood that considering my motherboards (SATA 2), 6G or 3G doesn't matter. I Narrowed it down to the following options:

1. Complete OWC Option - http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/DDMBSSD120/

+ SuperSlim enclosure

- 232$ including everything. (shipping & taxes)

2. Samsung 830 / Intel 520 / Intel 320 + Ebay HDD Caddy + MaxUpgrades USB External Enclosure - 205$.

3. Samsung 830 / Intel 520 / Intel 320 + Amazon HDD Caddy + MaxUpgrades USB External Enclosure - 240$.

4. Intel 330 / Crucial M4 + Ebay HDD Caddy + MaxUpgrades USB External Enclosure - 175$.

5. Intel 330 / Crucial M4 + Amazon HDD Caddy + MaxUpgrades USB External Enclosure - 210$.

6. Samsung 830 + Ebay HDD Caddy + MaxUpgrades USB External Enclosure - 170$

7. Get a Crucial M4 256GB for 250$ and replace it with the HDD. No need for the HDD bay and the USB external enclosure for the SuperDrive.

The amazon HDD Caddy looks more reliable than the ebay one, although it costs 35$ more. (shipping costs 40$...)
Click to expand...
So what do you think? :)
 
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As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
If you can hold out, go for the new Samsung 840 SSD drives. They should be released in mid-October and they will be better than the current 830's.
 
identity said:
If you can hold out, go for the new Samsung 840 SSD drives. They should be released in mid-October and they will be better than the current 830's.
Click to expand...

He's installing it in a mid 2009 MBP, SATA II will limit him to about 260MB/s read/write. Any current SATA III drive will be fine.
 
BomBas said:
Still have no idea which option to go for..
Click to expand...

If you mean which drive to buy... don't get too hung up on which is "best". SSDs have really become pretty mainstream and any of the newer models are just fine. Particularly for your usage, I would not get too wound up about slight differences in synthetic speed tests.

If you want a recommendation, I'll just point to this post in the main SSD thread. Hellhammer is a mod here and he also writes extremely thorough and well thought out SSD reviews for Anandtech. Here is just one of his reviews as an example.
 
T5BRICK said:
It's $159.99 for the rest of the day at newegg.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148443
Click to expand...

Unfortunately Newegg doesn't ship to my country.

@Dark Void you mean you would go with option #4? Why not #6 then, it's cheaper and it includes Samsung 830 instead of M4. (although I get the Samsung from eBay and the M4 from my country)


@Weaselboy I have posted some options and I have no idea which one to choose. The options are more about the enclosures, price and reliability than the SSDs themselves.
 
BomBas said:
I have posted some options and I have no idea which one to choose. The options are more about the enclosures, price and reliability than the SSDs themselves.
Click to expand...

Honestly, the Crucial M4 and the Samsung 830 both have very good track records. The Crucial is slower than the Samsung. If you can get the Samsung for less, go with that one. I bought the M4 because it was cheaper and I knew that SATA II in my mid 2009 would be the limiting factor when it came to speed.

Another thing to consider is ease of firmware updates(admittedly, both drives have been out long enough that the current firmware version are pretty trouble free). The M4 can be updated from a bootable CD, while the 830 has to be updated from a windows installation on the drive.
 
BomBas said:
@Dark Void you mean you would go with option #4? Why not #6 then, it's cheaper and it includes Samsung 830 instead of M4. (although I get the Samsung from eBay and the M4 from my country)
Click to expand...

Sorry, didn't notice this because it wasn't a quote notification.

I suppose whichever combination you could get cheaper if you don't have a drive preference. I suggested the M4 because that's the drive I am going to get when I decide to install a SSD. With that said ...

Thanks again T5BRICK. Order came out to $170 with tax, and that's about $20 cheaper than Amazon with faster shipping.
 
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