Hey guys, this isn't my first MBP and I'm quite familiar with the search function of the forum so I just want to get that out the way. I've spent countless days and time searching and reading all different types of threads regarding SSD drives. I just purchased my second base model 13" 2011 MBP. I was thinking of taking a different turn with this one by adding a SSD. I've compared various brands and have noticed the list gets quite long. It seems that the sata II drives and non sand force drives are more reliable in terms of beach balls, freezing, crashing etc compared to sata III drives. I'm looking for a drive that I can just install out the box and install it in my MBP with a fresh copy of lion period. Without the need to do all this mods and hacks or worry if its going to work correctly or not. I've heard good things about the samsung 470 drives along with many others from crucial m4, c300, intel, ocw, ocz and the list goes on.. I'm looking for someone to chime in and help narrow down my decision for the best user friendly out the box experience amongst the available drives for the MBP. Thanks
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Yes, yet another SSD thread, Feel free to chime in...
- Thread starter blkonblk17
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If you do indeed know how to search, you may have noticed that a few threads talked about the new EFI 2.2 update fixing the SATA III issues. In theory, all SSD's should now work on new MBP's without issues. The only thing you have to decide is which company you want to buy from.
Should and Will are two very different things. In theory, i hope they all work. Therefore, the point of this thread is for members that have real world experience with sata II & sata III can chime in with their experiences.
It doesn't fix all the issues, just the ones that Apple knows about. As far as I can tell, Sandforce-based SSDs still have firmware issues that haven't been fixed yet.
Well I went with the popular Samsung 470 128 gb model at about 195. before tax at a local retailer. It really was painless.
I went back and forth with the idea of enabling TRIM or not and eventually did decide to do it. My machine is a dual boot and under win 7 it was already enabled.
I used Grant Pannells suggestion for doing the Lion enabling of Trim support.
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I searched & ended up going for the samsung 470 256gb. I'm really happy with this ssd. It's really fast and I've had no problems. I also enabled TRIM & it's still running smooth
I searched & ended up going for the samsung 470 256gb. I'm really happy with this ssd. It's really fast and I've had no problems. I also enabled TRIM & it's still running smooth
Did you end up basing your decision to go with a spinning hard drive due to problems you were having with the SSD's or did you prefer having more disk space over speed?
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Yea, I think they are coming out in October. The only thing that it has me wondering if it will be as stable with SL and Lion OS as the 470 currently is. I'm trying to look for a SSD that I can just take out the box and install without hiccups. Of course, anything can always happen but for some reason I'm hearing a lot of good things about the samsung 470 in terms of reliability and just plain working out the box without the need to go all crazy with it..
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This is what I noticed as well. Some are looking at this recent EFI update as heaven and it fixing every single SSD problem and this simply isn't the case from the threads I've read. I'm leaning more to sticking to a non sand force and sata II drive rather than sand force and sata III
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Great to hear, Another 470 happy customer. What retailer did you end up picking the SSD from?
I think if reliability is your main concern you should be giving the Samsung 470 and Intel G2 drives (although older) a hard look.
Sandforce drives should be lower on your list; they seem to sacrifice some reliability for speed gains. Also the newer intel 510 seems to be having some issues (users on this board) possibly related to outsourcing the controller from Marvell.
By and large the Samsung 470 seems to be loved around here. I own a G2 intel and am very happy. Two years without a hiccup.
Good luck
Sandforce drives should be lower on your list; they seem to sacrifice some reliability for speed gains. Also the newer intel 510 seems to be having some issues (users on this board) possibly related to outsourcing the controller from Marvell.
By and large the Samsung 470 seems to be loved around here. I own a G2 intel and am very happy. Two years without a hiccup.
Good luck
Thanks buddy. Yea I think I'm leaning more towards the 470. I want reliability. Sure. I can get a faster drive but then in turn might have down time having to read hours and countless threads in order to make it work correctly. Also, I don't want to sacrifice to sleep/wake feature that many seem to have problems with causing the OS to freeze or crash.
Tried the M4, had tons of beach ball issues with it. Updated the firmware but haven't put it in the computer since the update.
While I was having those issues, I ended up getting a Intel 320 and this thing has worked like a charm. No hiccups, no issues.
The reason I chose these two drives were because of space. Each allowed 512GB and 600GB respectively.
While I was having those issues, I ended up getting a Intel 320 and this thing has worked like a charm. No hiccups, no issues.
The reason I chose these two drives were because of space. Each allowed 512GB and 600GB respectively.
I owned a Vertex drive and had a really rough time with it especially with sleep/wake. I never want to go through that again. It turned my Mac into an unstable, unreliable, and unpredictable machine. I think before you experience that though it is difficult to sacrifice speed (after all, that's why we all love SSDs in the first place).
Now, I am very happy to sacrifice sequential write speeds for reliability.
If i were in the market for a new drive now I would have a tough time between the Intel 320 and Samsung 470 though. Forgot to mention the 320 before; it's the renamed Gen 3 drive of x25-m series
+1
Another happy Samsung 470 user here. I just put it in my 2011 13" MBP and it worked. No tweaking or messing with any settings or anything. Just install and run.
The reason I went with the hybrid drive is that for my usage it feels as fast and it's a lot cheaper.
I have a 2011 MBP 15" and I recently installed the Crucial M4 512 GB SSD in it. This was prior to the EFI update but with the 0009 firmware update for the SSD. I've had absolutely no problems at all with this SSD. I have since installed the EFI update for my MBP and continue to fly without any issues whatsoever. I would strongly suggest that the M4 works just fine with the 2011 MBP with a SATA III connection.
Another happy M4 user here. Have been using it with firmware 002 and 009 and also with the EFI update and have had no problems at any stage.
Yeah but from micro center they have a store here on west side of town. Price was 195. plus included a copy of ghost15 ( which you have to download from Samsung ).
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This doesn't really help you since it sounds like you already have your computer, but in terms of no headache, I'm surprised more people don't just opt for apples 128gb option. Its only $90 if you're a student. Put another $100 towards a bus powered external and you've got a decent solution.
You can always update down the line to a faster/larger drive, but it's a great interim solution as we wait for prices to come down and firmware to improve!
This doesn't really help you since it sounds like you already have your computer, but in terms of no headache, I'm surprised more people don't just opt for apples 128gb option. Its only $90 if you're a student. Put another $100 towards a bus powered external and you've got a decent solution.
You can always update down the line to a faster/larger drive, but it's a great interim solution as we wait for prices to come down and firmware to improve!
Ok, so far I tested my WD Black Scorpio 7200RPM drive on my bone stock 2011 MBP i5 w/ 4 GB. Out of 5 standardized test I locked in my start up time from pressing the power button to desktop screen to 28 seconds. If I was to have timed it by the time the bong sound starts to play then the time is reduced by 2 seconds making it 26 seconds. Shutting down by pressing the power button on the MBP and then selecting shut down by pressing enter to computer shutting off completely took 2 seconds. Again, these were the result after 5 tries with concurrent results on all tests. More results to come after SSD install 