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Thinking about an SSD upgrade

BulkHedd

BulkHedd

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Nov 13, 2006
499
20
I have a 2010 13" MBP. Right now I have a 1TB Seagate SSHD drive installed.
I saw today that Amazon has a SanDisk 256GB SSD on sale for $120.
My existing drive is only about half full and about 210GB of that is my iTunes library. I can move all of that to an AirDisk and I subscribe to iTunes Match so I don't need all that music on my main disk. I may look at removing the Superdrive and putting the 1TB drive there.

If I get this new drive I would probably do a fresh install of Mavericks (from the cloud) but what would happen if I then decided to restore from a Time Machine backup to get all my documents, photos and apps back? Would it fail because the drive is only 1/4 the size of my original drive?

I guess I could just copy everything over from the current drive. I have a USB drive housing I could use.
 
I've run into this issue. The workaround for me was doing a clean install and then using migration assistant to select what I wanted to restore.
 
Western Digital has something called the "Black2" drive.
This combines a 120gb SSD -and- a 1tb HDD into a single 2.5 enclosure.

This would swap out directly with the current internal Seagate HDD. Very quick and easy.

As per reviews, the SSD portion of the drive isn't the fastest out there, BUT, if I recall the SATA bus in the 2010 vintage MBPro (I have one, too) is SATA-2 instead of SATA-3.

This means the internal SATA bus isn't fast enough to utilize the full speed of the fastest drives, anyway.

The other downside is the "Black2" drive looks to be a little pricey. Not ridiculously expensive, however.

Seems to me this could be set up on a MacBook in two ways:
1. As two separate drives (SSD and HDD), or
2. Perhaps as a fusion drive? You'd probably have to use terminal commands to create it, however, but ought to work fine afterwards...
 
I have the exact same machine. Pre-installed was a 250GB Hitachi HD.

I tried the Seagate 1TB SSD/HD and I wound it ran too hot and was way too noisy.

I tried the Western Digital 1TB HD and although it claimed 'cool and quiet,' it was still nosier than the stock drive.

I found a Samsung EVO 250GB SSD for $139 at Best Buy and I had $20 in reward zone so I went with that.

Each time I re-installed using my Mavericks USB install thumb drive and restored from my Time Capsule. The backup didn't care what size the drives were. I assume that unless you have more data than space,Time Machine should work just fine.

Remember since this is SATA II, the drive will only go so fast. I feel almost no noticeable difference at all and almost returned it, but I am assured by this forum that I am in the minority.
 
I like the idea of that WD Black2 drive and it's not too expensive ($230 on Amazon right now), but it's apparently not Mac compatible out of the box.

People are saying you need to install Windows first to get the SSD activated.
 
I decided to go ahead and order the 256 GB drive. If I decided to buy the adapter and remove the Superdrive I probably won't put the 1TB SSHD in there because it does run pretty hot.
 
I was wondering, on my 2010 MBP will I be able to install Mavericks from the cloud?
 
BulkHedd said:
I was wondering, on my 2010 MBP will I be able to install Mavericks from the cloud?
Click to expand...

Which OS are you running now? If you're running Lion/Mountain Lion, you can get Mavericks via the App Store now for free, then once it's downloaded, copy it to a USB drive. When you install the new SSD, you'll be able to install Mavericks from the USB drive. If you were just reinstalling onto the same drive, you'd be able to use the recovery tool to install from the internet, but you won't have the recovery partition with a brand new drive.
 
I'm running Mavericks now. I just don't know if the older Macs can restore from the cloud or not.
 
Ok. It is I believe. If it wasn't what would my options be?
 
BulkHedd said:
I'm running Mavericks now. I just don't know if the older Macs can restore from the cloud or not.
Click to expand...

yes they can but if you switch your hdd for an ssd it won't have the recuperation partition on it and you need it to initiate the recuperation. But, before from your actual setup you could make yourself a osx thumbdrive that you could use to make a fresh install. Besides the usb drive there would be no cost for you
 
IlikeMacsSoMuch said:
yes they can but if you switch your hdd for an ssd it won't have the recuperation partition on it and you need it to initiate the recuperation. But, before from your actual setup you could make yourself a osx thumbdrive that you could use to make a fresh install. Besides the usb drive there would be no cost for you
Click to expand...

If it's a mid-2010 (or later) MBP, the internet recovery capability is part of the firmware. So it wouldn't matter if it's a new drive or not.
 
I created a Mavericks USB drive and I will use that. The drive should arrive today.

I have copied my entire iTunes library to my AirDisk.
When I install the new drive and Mavericks how do I handle getting my iPhone/iPad syncing properly?

Should I deactivate my iTunes account on the old drive before I remove it and install the SSD?
 
I did this same process just a week or 2 ago, on the same machine. I chose the 240gb drive to replace our 256gb internal. We were using 170gb but on the new drive only 50gb. Most of it was music (now using iTunes Match) and old video podcasts. We could've gone smaller, oh well.

I installed Mavs by using a SATA to USB case, and booted into the recovery partition. That way I could set everything up before cracking the case open. That worked out well.
 
I installed the drive it seems to be working great. I don't yet have the Data Doubler from OWC so right now it's my only drive.
I put the old drive into an enclosure and ran Migration Assistant. Basically all it did was add all my applications.
How can I get all my mail accounts and Safari bookmarks transferred over?
 
BulkHedd said:
If I get this new drive I would probably do a fresh install of Mavericks (from the cloud) but what would happen if I then decided to restore from a Time Machine backup to get all my documents, photos and apps back? Would it fail because the drive is only 1/4 the size of my original drive?
Click to expand...

No, I've had to do this before. As long as all your data will fit on the new drive, it will work fine. You will have to start over on Time Machine though with a new backup.
 
Once I got Mavericks installed on the drive the first thing I did was go to the Mac App Store and download all my purchased apps.

I put the old SSHD into an enclosure and plugged it in then tried to run Migration Assistant. When I chose my old account it told me there was a conflict between it and my new account but I told it to use the old one. Then it told me there was not enough space.

So I re-ran it and just chose applications and other settings.

I ended up re-entering all my e-mail account info and booting to the old (external) drive and exporting my Safari bookmarks and then importing them into the new account.

This upgrade ended up being a lot more trouble than I expected.

But, the drive is very fast and I'm happy with it. Had I been willing to spend way more money for a larger drive I think it would have gone smoother but I just couldn't pass up this deal.

I appreciate all the help and advice.
 
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