SSD for 2009 MacBook 13"

[lukekarts]

(the earlier Alu one, before they called them all Pro's).

Spec - C2D 2.06ghz, 4gb RAM, 160gb 5400rpm HDD, 9400M GT

Anyway, my gf picked up a Macbook air recently and I'm amazed by the speed of the SSD in particular... which has me tempted to buy one for my Macbook. A few q's...

1. Will I notice a huge speed jump? I appreciate the MBP isn't optimised in the same way...
2. Is it worth the money?
3. I've researched a bit into installing them, looks quite straightforward, but how do I go about cloning to the new SSD?
3. Is it worth buying a crucial M4 w/ transfer kit? I am tempted because it's only £15 more for the cable/disc.

Thanks for the replies

 

[Hellhammer]

1. In certain tasks, yes. All tasks that include disk access will be sped up.

2. Some say yes, others say no. Depends on your usage and what capacity do you need.

3. Get a 2.5" enclosure, put the SSD in it and then use e.g. CCC to clone.

4. What does the kit include?

 

[NutsNGum]

CCC is Carbon Copy Cloner, by the way. It's excellent.

 

[GermanyChris]

When I was in contact with the OCZ guru's while having some issues, one of the first things they said was do not use a clone on a SSD. My speed increased dramatically after a reformat and clean install. Take that for what it's worth. If I can find the email correspondence on the big Mac I'll repost it if you like.

Do I believe that SSD are worth it, yes.

Yes you will notice a dramatic speed jump in general use.

Installation is easy, if you don't need your optical just use the ebay "optibay" and leave the HDD in there. I have heard that some Mac's will not boot from the optical, but mine does.

 

[lukekarts]

Thanks for the quick replies.

The transfer kit includes SuperDuper! CD and a USB to SATA cable.

Am I right in thinking any 2.5' SSD should work in this? Any brands in particular that are recommended, if I use an enclosure & CCC?

Best bang for buck would appear to be the OCZ Onyx 2 240GB 2.5", but the tech specs look lower.

The enclosure actually looks like a good option, as I can then use my old HDD as an external drive.

 

[Hellhammer]

Intel 320 Series is fast and the most reliable according to studies. Reasonably priced as well.

 

[GermanyChris]

Thanks for the quick replies.

The transfer kit includes SuperDuper! CD and a USB to SATA cable.

Am I right in thinking any 2.5' SSD should work in this? Any brands in particular that are recommended, if I use an enclosure & CCC?

Best bang for buck would appear to be the OCZ Onyx 2 240GB 2.5", but the tech specs look lower.

The enclosure actually looks like a good option, as I can then use my old HDD as an external drive.

yes all can be used just remember to reformat it.

After some teething issues, my vertex 2 has been great. If I were to do this again I would get one from OC though mainly because of firmware upgrade circumstances which you can read about on the OCZ forums.

 

[Philflow]

OP, have you considered Seagate Momentus XT? Mine boots faster than some SSDs do on my MBP. It's a lot cheaper too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilB79hv6bfg

Intel 320 Series is fast and the most reliable according to studies. Reasonably priced as well.

There are no studies involving Intel 320. It has only been out ~ 3 months and, for what it's worth, they're already 4 bricked ones on Newegg.

Samsung 470 and Intel X25-m did better.

 

[Hellhammer]

There are no studies involving Intel 320. It has only been out ~ 3 months and, for what it's worth, they're already 4 bricked ones on Newegg.

Samsung 470 and Intel X25-m did better.

The controller is the same as in X25-M G2. The only difference is the NAND (25nm vs 34nm). The studies show that Intel in general is the most reliable and OP has no use to get 510 Series.

 

[lukekarts]

Well, in the end I've opted for the Intel 320 160gb, found a great deal on it, and having read some of the reliability/compatibility issues with the OCZ stuff, I thought I'd go for the risk free option.

It should have arrived today, I'll attach it to my new external enclosure, format and then CCC across to it, and let you guys know how it performs.

 

[Philflow]

The controller is the same as in X25-M G2. The only difference is the NAND (25nm vs 34nm). The studies show that Intel in general is the most reliable and OP has no use to get 510 Series.

I guess you're refering to the one french retailer's "study". That study didn't include all the RMAs that went directly to Intel. And it didn't include Samsung 470 at all.

Personally I prefer looking at Newegg's reviews.

Intel 320 has completely failed 4 times in the short time it's been selling. Samsung 470 which has been selling much longer has had 1 bricked drive.

Intel 320 the most reliable SSD? yes in Intel's marketing brochures.

Not that the Intel 320 is a bad drive though, its still heeps more reliable than any Sandforce product. But if you want the most reliable drive I say go for Samsung 470.

 

[Hellhammer]

I guess you're refering to the one french retailer's "study". That study didn't include all the RMAs that went directly to Intel. It didn't include Samsung 470 either.

Personally I prefer looking at Newegg's reviews.

Intel 320 has been bricked 6 times in the short time it's been selling. Samsung 470 which has been selling much longer has had 1 bricked drive.

Intel 320 the most reliable SSD? yes in Intel's marketing brochures.

Not that the Intel 320 is a bad drive though, its still heeps more reliable than any Sandforce product. But if you want the most reliable drive I say go for Samsung 470.

I'm not really buying you 1 bricked drive story:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...rue&Keywords=(keywords)&Page=1#scrollFullInfo

It's impossible to figure out what is the most reliable drive, so I'll eat my words about Intel being the most reliable for sure. I would say any SSD that has all or even most parts coming from in-house (controller, NAND etc) is reliable. This is proven by Intel, Samsung, Toshiba etc, all their SSDs are fairly reliable. OTOH, Intel 510 Series isn't that reliable anymore due to Marvell controller.

 

[Philflow]

I'm not really buying you 1 bricked drive story:

I see one DOA there. No bricks. Correct me if I'm wrong.

With bricked drives I mean first working fine then crashing.

What I do see on that page is a lot of complaints about updating firmware.

This is proven by Intel, Samsung, Toshiba etc, all their SSDs are fairly reliable.

Agreed.

It does look like Intel 320 might be slightly less reliable then Intel X25-m. But then again the Newegg reviews are not exactly scientific studies.

25nm NAND is said to be more prone to errors than 34nm NAND.

 

[lukekarts]

Well I said I'd post back how it went, so here goes...

Long night!

I connected the Intel 320 (160gb) to the external SATA/USB connector, cloned across, took approx 90 mins to copy 108gb worth of data.

Then, I spent a good 30 minutes trying to take out the old HDD, due to the screw on the retaining bracket being slightly worn (thanks Apple) and made out of a ridiculously soft metal. It was also in far too tight...

Installed the new Intel drive, worked ok, but for whatever reason the performance wasn't there. I resolved a hanging issue at startup by ensuring the SSD was selected as the bootup disk, but startup was still slow (1 min) and performance a bit lacklustre. A google search suggested I try a fresh install, and as it was not too late, I went ahead.

So, I tried again, reformatted the Intel SSD, and booted up with the OSX: SL disc, etc. Then I used 'Migration Assistant' to import all my data from Time Machine, and left my MacBook downloading the 1.5gb worth of updates overnight.

The Result

Wow.

Startup time approx 14 seconds.
Shutdown time approx 3 seconds.

Massive boost in speed of opening apps, I'd say performance is almost identical to that of my gf's 13 inch (1.86ghz) MacBook Air.

So it seems fresh install is definitely the way to go!

 

[GermanyChris]

Well I said I'd post back how it went, so here goes...

Long night!

I connected the Intel 320 (160gb) to the external SATA/USB connector, cloned across, took approx 90 mins to copy 108gb worth of data.

Then, I spent a good 30 minutes trying to take out the old HDD, due to the screw on the retaining bracket being slightly worn (thanks Apple) and made out of a ridiculously soft metal. It was also in far too tight...

Installed the new Intel drive, worked ok, but for whatever reason the performance wasn't there. I resolved a hanging issue at startup by ensuring the SSD was selected as the bootup disk, but startup was still slow (1 min) and performance a bit lacklustre. A google search suggested I try a fresh install, and as it was not too late, I went ahead.

So, I tried again, reformatted the Intel SSD, and booted up with the OSX: SL disc, etc. Then I used 'Migration Assistant' to import all my data from Time Machine, and left my MacBook downloading the 1.5gb worth of updates overnight.

The Result

Wow.

Startup time approx 14 seconds.
Shutdown time approx 3 seconds.

Massive boost in speed of opening apps, I'd say performance is almost identical to that of my gf's 13 inch (1.86ghz) MacBook Air.

So it seems fresh install is definitely the way to go!

Looks like the OCZ was right, just don't clone onto a SSD. Fresh install fixed all my problems.