Which SSD for my MacBook Pro?

working class · 4 Jun 2012 at 16:21

Hi chaps. After emptying out my spare change bottle today I have the grand total of £126 to spend on a treat. Im thinking I'd like to put an SSD in my Macbook.

I will only need a small one (say 128GB) as I only use it for surfing, college work and watching films.

Which one would you recommend, and how hard is the swap?

Thanks in advance.

lamboman · 4 Jun 2012 at 16:27

Which Macbook do you have?

As for the SSD, the Crucial m4 is really the only drive you'll need to consider. Best bang for the buck and consistent performance (for various reasons which I won't go into here).

The swap should be easy, but the tools you'll need will vary depending on the model. If it's an aluminium model, you'll need a Philips #00 for the bottom panel, and a Torx T6 for the drive screws.

apple_man77 · 4 Jun 2012 at 16:51

Is the crucial m4 a better choice than the ocz vertex 3 or would they offer similar performance/reliability?

Thanks

working class · 4 Jun 2012 at 17:15

Sorry chaps I forgot to say it a 2011 MacBook Pro. Core i5, 4gb ram, 320gb HDD. Its the aluminium unibody one.

The physical swap I am not worried about doing, its loading the OS back onto the new drive. How do I do this?

How long does a typical SDD last?

lamboman · 4 Jun 2012 at 18:14

apple_man77 said:
Is the crucial m4 a better choice than the ocz vertex 3 or would they offer similar performance/reliability?

Thanks

To be honest, in the real-world the performance difference is hugely negligible. No true difference at all if you average it out.

As for reliability, the Vertex 3 should be far better than it was, but the m4 is still the safer choice. Also, with the m4 you can update the SSD firmware on your Mac.

working class: Same machine as mine then! Use Carbon Copy Cloner, it'll do the job automatically and painlessly. You'll want to make sure that you copy over the Recovery partition as well, just to save yourself the hassle. Nobody knows the true longevity of an SSD, but I'd safely say that it will continue to work beyond the useful life of the system, unless you have very extreme write usage.

working class · 4 Jun 2012 at 18:20

Cheers for that! Do I need to buy the adaptor tray as well for the drive?

I take it that carbon copy cloner is easy to use? I am not exactly a computer pro as you can probably tell!

Im guessing I use that program to back up to a disc, then swap the drives, then boot up and reinstall from my disc?

lamboman · 4 Jun 2012 at 19:05

Nope, no adaptors needed, fits in as a normal drive.

You will need, however, a 2.5" external drive enclosure to copy to the SSD before installing it. Pick one up off that auction site, only a couple of quid. No need to screw the drive in, just plug the adaptor end to the drive, and plug in via USB.

Carbon Copy Cloner is dead easy to use. With the above adaptor, all you do is copy the data from your main drive to your boot drive. That's it. Install, and you're ready to go

working class · 4 Jun 2012 at 20:18

Thanks! Is it possible to send a PM to you on here?

kinggost · 4 Jun 2012 at 20:49

Just upgraded to the m4 not long ago myself.

Word of advise if you have the 13" i5 MacBook pro, do not upgrade the firmware to the new 000f version. Only update to the 0309, i had a big problem with mainly safari beach balling. but not had a problem since crucial told me to downgrade to that firmware

apple_man77 · 4 Jun 2012 at 21:17

If I'm doing a fresh install and don't want any of the old information off the hard drive could I just install it, put in the installer disks and do a totally fresh install or do I still need some info off the old hard drive to get it working?

Thanks

Vita · 4 Jun 2012 at 21:22

Bit of a question here as I'm thinking of upgrading to a SSD. I copied my current HDD to a USB External HDD. That is bootable as I checked to see if it would boot and work.

Now, if I put a SSD inside my machine, formatted it using disk utility, then cloned from the USB external HDD to the SSD in the machine, in theory it would work right?

Asking because I'd like to keep the superdrive instead of putting the HDD in an external enclosure.

lamboman · 4 Jun 2012 at 23:07

working class said:
Thanks! Is it possible to send a PM to you on here?

Just bump your thread, I as well as loads of other Apple owners check here very regularly, and they'll all be able to give you the same advice and help that I can.

kinggost said:
Just upgraded to the m4 not long ago myself.

Word of advise if you have the 13" i5 MacBook pro, do not upgrade the firmware to the new 000f version. Only update to the 0309, i had a big problem with mainly safari beach balling. but not had a problem since crucial told me to downgrade to that firmware

Should note that kinggost isn't saying "I had this problem, so you definitely will too"; this is a known issue for a small number of users. I've not bothered updating as a result.

apple_man77 said:
If I'm doing a fresh install and don't want any of the old information off the hard drive could I just install it, put in the installer disks and do a totally fresh install or do I still need some info off the old hard drive to get it working?

Thanks

You can just install from a disk or anything else.

Vita said:
Bit of a question here as I'm thinking of upgrading to a SSD. I copied my current HDD to a USB External HDD. That is bootable as I checked to see if it would boot and work.

Now, if I put a SSD inside my machine, formatted it using disk utility, then cloned from the USB external HDD to the SSD in the machine, in theory it would work right?

Asking because I'd like to keep the superdrive instead of putting the HDD in an external enclosure.

You could do this, yes. If you put the SSD in, boot from the external USB drive and copy using CCC to the now-internal SSD, you'd see no problems.

To all, remember to copy over the Recovery partition as well (Window, Disk Center in CCC). It only takes up around 700MB and makes life much easier in the future.

DoubleCheese · 5 Jun 2012 at 17:50

I'm thinking of getting the 256GB Samsung SSD for my mid 2009 C2D MBP. Will this fit ok?

lamboman · 5 Jun 2012 at 18:30

DoubleCheese said:
I'm thinking of getting the 256GB Samsung SSD for my mid 2009 C2D MBP. Will this fit ok?

Will fit and function fine. Same bits and pieces needed as above. You'll only run at SATA 2 speeds though.

You talking about this one? I was going to suggest the m4 as the 830 is now usually far more expensive but that price is amazing... :eek:

EDIT: You won't need to buy a cheap external enclosure for that, the kit comes with the SATA to USB adaptor...again, incredible price! No catch as far as I can see!

DoubleCheese · 5 Jun 2012 at 18:36

Yes the price is pretty amazing. I need more than 160Gb so the 128GB M4 is out of contention.

apple_man77 · 5 Jun 2012 at 21:08

I wonder if OC will get anymore in stock as that price is quite a bit cheaper than anywhere else online.

Looks a great buy if they get them back in stock!

working class · 6 Jun 2012 at 18:46

Which model number do I need to order guys? There is loads to choose from?

lamboman · 6 Jun 2012 at 21:55

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-009-CR&groupid=701&catid=2104&subcat=1427

DoubleCheese · 12 Jun 2012 at 21:25

The SSD should be here in the next day or so, so I need a bit of advice. Ideally I'd like a fresh installation of SL and to restore my applications and data from a backup. Is this possible? How exactly?

Is there any benefit of a fresh installation vs a 3 year old install?

ArmyofHarmony · 12 Jun 2012 at 21:33

Randomly I just upgraded my MacBook pro last night with an SSD - I used an OCZ 120 gig agility.

Only took me 10 minutes to put the new hard drive in. I bought some Torx and Philips head screwdrivers specifically for the job.

I used the OS X install DVD that came with my Mac to reinstall the OS. Basically I just booted up with the DVD in the drive, then formated the drive and ran the installer. Took about half hour to install the OS.

I went with the completely fresh install approach and had my important files backed up on dropbox.