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Which SSD? 2010 13"

F

Furifo

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 1, 2010
277
7
I'm finally picking up an SSD for my 13" 2010 MBP to breathe some life into my old, faithful computer.

I'm looking for a reliable drive that won't slow down/degrade over time and I'm hoping to get at least 2 solid years out of the drive. I'm thinking that the best drive for me is either:

Crucial M4 (120gb) or Crucial M500 (120gb)

I'm not sure which one to pick up. I doubt I will see any difference in read speeds between the 2 drives seeing as I'm limited to SATA2 (I'm coming from 5400rpm.. even SATA2 will be a huge jump).

Can anyone help me out here?

Finally, I'm also thinking of picking up a drive enclosure like this one:

http://http://www.amazon.co.uk/BIPRA-External-Enclosure-Laptop-Powered/dp/B001EEQQ8Q/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1380134929&sr=8-10&keywords=2.5+drive+enclosure

Am I correct in thinking with the drive enclosure I can:
1) Connect it temporarily to my SSD and transfer my files from my old hard drive using something like carbon copy cloner.

2) Connect it permanently to my old 5400rpm drive and use that as a backup time machine drive.
 
Samsung 840 or Samsung EVO are consistently the top rated SSD drives. I would check them out as well.
 
Furifo said:
I'm finally picking up an SSD for my 13" 2010 MBP to breathe some life into my old, faithful computer.

I'm looking for a reliable drive that won't slow down/degrade over time and I'm hoping to get at least 2 solid years out of the drive. I'm thinking that the best drive for me is either:

Crucial M4 (120gb) or Crucial M500 (120gb)

I'm not sure which one to pick up. I doubt I will see any difference in read speeds between the 2 drives seeing as I'm limited to SATA2 (I'm coming from 5400rpm.. even SATA2 will be a huge jump).

Can anyone help me out here?

Finally, I'm also thinking of picking up a drive enclosure like this one:

http://http://www.amazon.co.uk/BIPRA-External-Enclosure-Laptop-Powered/dp/B001EEQQ8Q/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1380134929&sr=8-10&keywords=2.5+drive+enclosure

Am I correct in thinking with the drive enclosure I can:
1) Connect it temporarily to my SSD and transfer my files from my old hard drive using something like carbon copy cloner.

2) Connect it permanently to my old 5400rpm drive and use that as a backup time machine drive.
Click to expand...

I can vouch for the M4. I had the 512GB version and it worked flawlessly over the 1.5 years that I was actively using it--and coming from the stock drive, it was a night-and-day difference in speed.

And yes, correct on both of your assumptions. What I did with mine was first carbon copy everything from the old drive to the SSD, and then wipe the old drive and use it for media stuff/downloads. Made for a nice, extremely portable little external drive.
 
Check my sig.

Samsung 840, 840 Pro or Evo.
Crucial M4 or the newer M500
Intel 520 Series
OCZ Vertex 4 or Vector
 
I've had an M4 256GB in my mid 2010 13" MBP for over a year now, and it has worked flawlessly. Certainly worth picking up
 
I've had a 512 gig M4 in my MBP which has performed flawlessly over the past 2 years. Being that I needed more internal storage it was recently replaced with a 1tb Samsung 840 EVO and the M4 may soon be installed in place of the optical drive. I've avoided removing the optical drive as it does see a lot of use, but an external superdrive has recently been acquired.

I've got a pair of 256 gig Samsung 840 Pro drives as well as a 256 gig Crucial M4 eSATA drive in my multiboot home lab box and the 840s are great performers.

Either of the your choices will make a night and day difference in the performance of your laptop.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for all the help guys, I really appreciate it.

I had a look at the samsung 840 (non-pro) but was put off by the use of TLC memory. I considered the 840 pro but didn't want to pay the extra for SATAII speeds.

I also considered the M500 at the same price as the M4 but I've read some reviews that show the 120gb version has issues with write speeds (even at SATAII level) that the 480gb and 960gb versions do not. Having looked over some reviews, I figured the M4, at the entry 120gb level would be the better buy.

I decided to go with the M4 due to its proven reliability over the last 2 years and the fact that I bought it new at a good price.

robvas said:
M4 has lots of issues - go with the M500 or Sammy.
Click to expand...

I did hear about the M4 having firmware issues. I think I agree with the fact that sammy has less firmware issues but it is a risk that I don't mind taking - lots of people running M4s with little to no issues.

Orlandoech.com said:
Check my sig.

Samsung 840, 840 Pro or Evo.
Crucial M4 or the newer M500
Intel 520 Series
OCZ Vertex 4 or Vector
Click to expand...

Thanks for the links in your sig - I'll definitely check them out.

Again, thanks for all the help guys - appreciated. Just to be sure, what firmware do you guys recommend running on the M4?
 
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