I have a 2011 Macbook Pro 13". From what I can tell it only supports SATA II. Would I still see a big increase in speed if I upgraded to an SSD?
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Upgrade to SSD with SATA II?
- Thread starter bradonf333
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GimmeSlack12
macrumors 603
Yes, you will see a fairly substantial speed increase if you upgrade to an SSD.
I posted in good detail when I upgraded my iMac from HDD to SSD:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1325250/
I posted in good detail when I upgraded my iMac from HDD to SSD:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1325250/
A slower SSD is better than no SSD. Much of the "holy **** that's fast!" effect is from seek time, not the actual data transfer rate, and most files (like .dll files or .docx files, or a song) are rather small, so the time it takes to transfer, say, a song, to RAM is only slightly better with a 550MB/s SSD vs one at SATAII ~300MB/s rates.
venom600
macrumors 65816
Your machine supports sata 3 in the HD bay (not sure about the optical drive). You will see substantial benefits by switching.
All 2011 Macs and later support SATA 3 in the main HDD bay.
So just move your SSD there.
The early batches of early-2011 MBPs have SATA 2 in the SuperDrive bay. Later ones have SATA 3 in the SuperDrive bay.
But as others have said, be it SATA2/3, an SSD is much faster.
Thanks guys. I think I'll get an SSD and bump up the ram also while I'm in there. I also am not quite sure but I believe my macbook only supports up to 8GB? And is there any certain ram I should buy that's better than the other? Or is it all the same?
