I was wondering if a SATA to USB cable is included in the box. I would like to have this cable so I can format the drive before installing it.
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Thinking about Crucial 256GB SSD upgrade
- Thread starter Irock619
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No, unless you buy the one with the data transfer kit.
http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-2-5-I...ie=UTF8&qid=1340604871&sr=8-7&keywords=m4+ssd
http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-2-5-I...ie=UTF8&qid=1340604871&sr=8-7&keywords=m4+ssd
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Yep. There are several different configurations available. To me that's not the best option. First you should have a back-up option and can restore your data from that. If you don't now is the time. You can get an external enclosure for around $20. Buy one and turn your current drive into one, then transfer data back from it.
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My plan was to format the SSD with the SATA to USB cable, do a fresh install of lion using Internet recovery, then load all my info from a time machine backup. I wanted to do all this over the SATA cable while plugged in the USB port so I can make sure everything works before installing it. Would this be a good method to use? I already know about cloning, I prefer to do a fresh install.
Just plug your SSD through USB.
Thats how I did mine.
Start Lion Recovery from your HDD, and fresh install it on to your SSD.
Thanks for regurgitating what I just said
Now all I need is a SATA to USB cable. I am not interested in buying a SATA>USB enclosure as I would only using this process one time. I need to find a cable at a local store. Any recommendations?Just so you know, the SSD will run pretty slow connected via USB. It's pretty fast and easy to swap hard drives, so I would just assume everything will work out and install the SSD now. Then do your fresh install and be done with it. Also will protect you from the possibility of screwing something up and accidentally formatting or installing over your current HD.
That is a good point, however I still need the cable. I will probably do as you suggest, but then I will need to wipe/clean the HDD as I will have no use for it. For this I would need to connect it via SATA>USB and run disk utility.
Thanks for regurgitating what I just said
From the way you describe what you plan on doing it sounds like you are going to try and install OS X over the USB cable. I wouldn't recommend that as it will be painfully slow and is likely to error out on you. I would swap drives, install OS X and then use the USB cable to restore whatever you need.
Thats what I'll end up doing. However again, can I buy the SATA cable locally without having to order the conversion kit? Also I am a bit unfamiliar with what the connections look like on the SSD and HDD.
Why not use this: Click Here.
Order that and when it gets delivered, connect it to your SSD and then run Carbon Copy Cloner on your Mac and just clone your HDD onto your SSD. That seems like the easiest, quickest, and most efficient way of doing what you want to do.
With this method, you'll have to copies of your entire Mac HD (the original HDD and on the SSD). Now you just need to swap out the SSD for the HDD and it should boot up normally. If anything goes wrong, just reverse the process and swap the SSD out for the HDD and then troubleshoot and see what went wrong. Easy as can be.
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you know you can just buy a enclosure for 10USD right?
Its a bit dangerous to handle your drives naked.
Its a bit dangerous to handle your drives naked.
NOTICE: Do not upgrade the firmware to 000F.
I bought a 128GB m4 for my daughter's 13" 2011 MBP and a 256GB for my 17" 2011 MBP. Before cloning the Macs I upgraded the m4's from 0309 to 000F thinking I should start fresh with the newest firmware. The 13" didn't have any issues but after 1.5 months the 17" started beach balling like crazy this past Sunday. 3 days leading up to this I had done some heavy lifting, downloading and extracting about 120GB of data. Garbage collection was working because speed tests still showed 500MB/s read and 200MB/s write even with the the drive 75% full. Crucial support had me do a "controller reset" but it continued to freeze up my system over and over. I started digging into it and a lot of mac users have issues with 000F firmware. As soon as I downgraded to 0309 the system was back to normal and no more color wheel / beach ball issues. I also downgraded my daughter's 128GB m4 just to be safe.
I bought a 128GB m4 for my daughter's 13" 2011 MBP and a 256GB for my 17" 2011 MBP. Before cloning the Macs I upgraded the m4's from 0309 to 000F thinking I should start fresh with the newest firmware. The 13" didn't have any issues but after 1.5 months the 17" started beach balling like crazy this past Sunday. 3 days leading up to this I had done some heavy lifting, downloading and extracting about 120GB of data. Garbage collection was working because speed tests still showed 500MB/s read and 200MB/s write even with the the drive 75% full. Crucial support had me do a "controller reset" but it continued to freeze up my system over and over. I started digging into it and a lot of mac users have issues with 000F firmware. As soon as I downgraded to 0309 the system was back to normal and no more color wheel / beach ball issues. I also downgraded my daughter's 128GB m4 just to be safe.
If they are that cheap then I will buy an enclosure. I will only be using this one time to wipe/clean my current HDD. I'll stop by BestBuy and see if they have these enclosures.
That's good to know. How long ago was this? Maybe Crucial has figured it out.
I would but I believe a clean install of the OS is better than cloning everything, even though cloning is the quicker method, quicker is not always better. I need to make sure this is a clean and smooth upgrade as this is my only computer and I am a student.
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Why you doing this? You can just format the drive from internet recovery? Insert the drive, launch recovery go to disk utility.
I had one of those little 250GB pocket drives laying around.
Used Carbon Copy Cloner to clone my old drive to the pocket drive then installed the M4. Once I was done with that I booted while holding the option key and selected the correct drive (still connected via USB).
Once there I was able to set up the SSD then used CCC to "transfer" the cloned copy of OSX from the pocket drive to the SSD.
Easy.
Used Carbon Copy Cloner to clone my old drive to the pocket drive then installed the M4. Once I was done with that I booted while holding the option key and selected the correct drive (still connected via USB).
Once there I was able to set up the SSD then used CCC to "transfer" the cloned copy of OSX from the pocket drive to the SSD.
Easy.
This was yesterday... I'm sending a follow-up email to their SSD support team tonight. Firmware 000F came out in April and that's the newest version. Both my of SSD's came with 0309, which is what I reverted back to in order to fix my problem. When you get your drive take a look at it and on the sticker that has the model and serial number it will also list the firmware version. If it's 0309 then you're good, don't upgrade. If it says 000F you may want to flash it to the previous 0309. Then again, I'm not sure if they're even shipping drives with 000F yet.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007SZGR8E/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00
For $18 you can get an enclosure AND USB 3.0 adapter. The Thunderbolt ones are $99.
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Why am I doing what? I am going to format the SSD after install. I wanted a SATA cable so I can hook up my HDD externally. By the way I just picked up an 256GB crucial brand new for $170 off Craig's list
I installed the SSD today, the process couldn't have been easier. Earlier I created a recovery disk assistant on a thumb drive as recommended by Apple's website. After the install I started the computer holding the "option" button and the thumb drive showed up immediately. From there I went into disk utility and formatted the drive, then I installed Lion via Internet. The install of Lion went well and now I am doing a time machine restore.
For anybody that is nervous about changing hard drives, the process couldn't be easier with the disk assistant thumb drive. I totally recommend doing this upgrade. I can't wait for the restore to finish so I can test out the new SSD
For anybody that is nervous about changing hard drives, the process couldn't be easier with the disk assistant thumb drive. I totally recommend doing this upgrade. I can't wait for the restore to finish so I can test out the new SSD
Did you end up buying an enclosure? They're only $10 for USB2 and $20 for USB3 from amazon. I bought 2 Nexstar branded ones.
I always have a clone of my boot disk in case of disaster anyway and that was the perfect solution for me.
I bought my m4 from amazon about a month ago. It came with 000F and I haven't had any issues. knock on wood.
I always have a clone of my boot disk in case of disaster anyway and that was the perfect solution for me.
I bought my m4 from amazon about a month ago. It came with 000F and I haven't had any issues. knock on wood.
I did buy an eclosure but it doesn't arrive until tomorrow. I will be using my original HDD as a external drive. My SSD came with version 000F as well.
Well the restore didn't go as planned. I went into time machine from the desktop and chose my restore file and nothing happened after the one hour download. The status bar said "copying volumes" but when it was done nothing happened. So now I restarted my computer holding "command>R" and chose to restore from time machine. I'm hoping this works.