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Would upgrading my 2012 Pro to SSD significantly improve my battery life?

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viperGTS

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Nov 15, 2010
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The battery life on my 2012 13" Pro is starting to become less and less satisfactory for my uses compared to when I first bought it.

Initially, I was thinking of selling it and using the money to buy a new Air, but I'm pretty sure that's hardly wise when other options exist.

I heard that SSDs dramatically improve performance (which is another reason why I'm considering an SSD), but I've also heard that computers like the Air owe most of their battery longevity to an SSD, so I'm curious as to whether or not it could improve the battery life of my Pro.

If anyone could chime in on this, I would really appreciate it. I'm definitely considering an upgrade to an SSD already for improved performance, but if it can also improve my battery, I would definitely make the jump to one!

Thanks! :)

Also, just a side question: Can my MacBook support 16GB of RAM? Apple states the maximum is 8GB, but some googling led me to a Crucial support page, and a moderator there stated that 16GB is supported by the 2012 non-Retina Pro.
 
Not the case in my experience. Especially not dramatically. I have put SSDs on Windows PCs and my 2012 cmbp and did not notice much battery life improvement if any at all.
In my opinion, you are not going to get an extra hour or two just by switching to a SSD.

And yes, your Mac supports up to 16GB.
 
You can save a teensy bit more by turning off the Sudden Motion Sensor as well (which can be done via a terminal command), but even that plus the SSD itself aren't going to make a real noticeable difference.
 
viperGTS said:
I heard that SSDs dramatically improve performance (which is another reason why I'm considering an SSD), but I've also heard that computers like the Air owe most of their battery longevity to an SSD, so I'm curious as to whether or not it could improve the battery life of my Pro.
Click to expand...

No, SSDs are a great way to improve performance of an older system, but they don't use significantly less energy than old school HDDs.

Also, just a side question: Can my MacBook support 16GB of RAM?
Click to expand...

Yes, Sandy Bridge based MacBook Pros all support 16GB of RAM.
 
viperGTS said:
The battery life on my 2012 13" Pro is starting to become less and less satisfactory for my uses compared to when I first bought it.

I heard that SSDs dramatically improve performance (which is another reason why I'm considering an SSD), but I've also heard that computers like the Air owe most of their battery longevity to an SSD, so I'm curious as to whether or not it could improve the battery life of my Pro.
Click to expand...
Newer SSDs like the Samsung 850 Pro need much less power than HDDs. They use more efficient semiconductors, write/read data faster than HDDs and need therefore less power.

See also:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8216/samsung-ssd-850-pro-128gb-256gb-1tb-review-enter-the-3d-era/12

viperGTS said:
Also, just a side question: Can my MacBook support 16GB of RAM? Apple states the maximum is 8GB, but some googling led me to a Crucial support page, and a moderator there stated that 16GB is supported by the 2012 non-Retina Pro.
Click to expand...
All Ivy Bridge and later Macs support 16 GB RAM. You can reduce the power usage, if you use 1.35 V RAM in your Ivy Bridge MBP. For example:
www.amazon.com/dp/B00DSGLM50/

RAM test:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1333-ram-in-late-2012-mac-mini-i7-2-3ghz.1880426/#post-21265252
 
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Mr. Retrofire said:
Newer SSDs like the Samsung 850 Pro need much less power than HDDs. They use more efficient semiconductors, write/read data faster than HDDs and need therefore less power.

See also:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8216/samsung-ssd-850-pro-128gb-256gb-1tb-review-enter-the-3d-era/12


All Ivy Bridge and later Macs support 16 GB RAM. You can reduce the power usage, if you use 1.35 V RAM in your Ivy Bridge MBP. For example:
www.amazon.com/dp/B00DSGLM50/

RAM test:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1333-ram-in-late-2012-mac-mini-i7-2-3ghz.1880426/#post-21265252
Click to expand...

I was planning on getting the 850 Pro as well! That's good news :)

Thank you everyone! I will probably still plan on making this upgrade. My Macbook is sluggish!
 
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viperGTS said:
I was planning on getting the 850 Pro as well! That's good news :)

Thank you everyone! I will probably still plan on making this upgrade. My Macbook is sluggish!
Click to expand...

Once you do upgrade I would suggest you stick with Mountian Lion or Mavericks until El Capitan comes out. Mavericks runs beautifully on my mid 2012 with a Evo 840.
 
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Thank you for that advice! My MacBook is still on Mavericks too, so I'll keep it there until El Capitan is out.
 
Mr. Retrofire said:
Newer SSDs like the Samsung 850 Pro need much less power than HDDs. They use more efficient semiconductors, write/read data faster than HDDs and need therefore less power.

See also:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8216/samsung-ssd-850-pro-128gb-256gb-1tb-review-enter-the-3d-era/12
Click to expand...

They do use significantly less power than HDD's, unfortunately the % of power used running any HD SSD or not is a fraction of what is using the power in your laptop (screen being the main draw) so it still makes very little difference to battery life.

However OP they are always worth the upgrade in my opinion they make using any computer a much more pleasant experience.
 
viperGTS said:
I'm curious as to whether or not it could improve the battery life of my Pro.
Click to expand...


Interestingly I noticed no change in real battery life when I removed the optical and installed a 120GB Crucial SSD and 1TB HGST HDD. However when I swapped the 120GB for a 512GB Crucial I noticed an immediate improvement of about 10-15% in real experienced battery life so the newer SSDs are definitely more efficient to the point they can have a noticeable effect overall..
 
I appear to be getting an extra 20 mins or so after swapping my old WD 1TB spinner for a Samsung 850 Evo on my 2009 MBP. Not a huge gain for me, even with the 1TB HDD being a relatively power hungry HD and moving to one of the more power efficient SDDs on the market.

Still, any gain is a good gain.
 
At peak power consumption a SSD uses like 2W and a HHD 6W. It is negligible compared to the screen and CPU/GPU. The CPU running at full speed uses 10-20 times as much.
 
A comment that probably underscores the differences in individual usage as I am sure the differences, be they large or small, will vary considerably.
 
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