Solid State Drives

DRE

DRE

Well-known member
I'm looking for a good Solid State Drive for the Macbook Pro Mid 2012 model that I'm getting on Wednesday.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Apple® - MacBook® Pro - 15.4" Display - 4GB Memory - 500GB Hard Drive/3827152.p?id=1218434722284&skuId=3827152


This is the SSD I will probably buy:
12 SSD Harddrive $398.99
Crucial 512 GB m4 2.5-Inch Solid State Drive SATA 6Gb/s CT512M4SSD2


I've seen these ones suggested by Jake Bunce:
Jake Bunce said:
I also highly recommend an Intel SSD for any new computer if your budget allows it:

http://www.amazon.com/Intel-2-5-Inc...A1EQ/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1287486781&sr=8-3

The next generation of Intel SSDs is supposed to be out in a few months if you need more capacity:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/storag...n_Next_Gen_Enterprise_Solid_State_Drives.html
Click to expand...

Why are those ones so expensive?
 
I've ordered the Intel 520 series for my new web server; after looking around at various drives I picked Intel for reliability (they also reportedly spent a year testing and tweaking the standard Sandforce controller for these drives to optimise them).

http://www.storagereview.com/intel_ssd_520_enterprise_review

Consider over-provisioning your SSD too (creating a partition that is smaller than the available drive space to give the controller more headroom for background tasks) as this is supposed to add longevity to the drive and increase performance.

The Samsung 830 seems to be highly rated too in the various reviews I read when researching SSDs.
 
The new samsungs offer some of the best performance on the market. Be very careful when selecting SSD's based on their advertised throughput alone, a lot of the time these are synthetic tests of very specific compressed files.
 
I use a Kingston SSD without any problems since 2 years in my Macbook (best update ever made!!).
We also use Kingston and Intel SSDs without problems since 3 years in some of our servers.

So, i can recommend those brands, however SSDs got better since then, so maybe there are other brands now to be recommended too... :)
 
A word of warning. If you are looking to replace the system drive rather than have this as a second drive, please Google the exact SSD you decide to buy first along with terms like "Macbook probems" in case anyone else has bought that SSD and cannot get it to work with their Macbook. I recently bought an OCZ SSD (Sata II, 240GB) for my mid-2010 Macbook Pro and it won't work, the Mac won't even recognise it so cannot even partition it. Then I found many, many similar forum threads full of woes for all manner of non-working drives down to some non-standard SATA speed in some Macbooks. This is one of the few things about my Mac that is really p***ing me off - things don't just work when you plug them in, unlike a PC. Basically, to be on the safe side buy one that other Macbook users have confirmed works in your model.
 
I had an OCZ SSD Sata II (128gb) in a 08 MBP (yup - the first unibody one) and it worked fine. The only thing that didnt work was TRIM support, but I knew that would be the case before I bought it.

Since then I've had a 64gb, then 128gb Crucial in a Mac Pro tower as the boot drive - both worked fine.

Cant really use a standard SATA drive as my boot drove anymore tho - they seem so slow - SSD's are really cheap now though so it makes sense to use one.
 
Ingenious said:
A word of warning. If you are looking to replace the system drive rather than have this as a second drive, please Google the exact SSD you decide to buy first along with terms like "Macbook probems" in case anyone else has bought that SSD and cannot get it to work with their Macbook. I recently bought an OCZ SSD (Sata II, 240GB) for my mid-2010 Macbook Pro and it won't work, the Mac won't even recognise it so cannot even partition it. Then I found many, many similar forum threads full of woes for all manner of non-working drives down to some non-standard SATA speed in some Macbooks. This is one of the few things about my Mac that is really p***ing me off - things don't just work when you plug them in, unlike a PC. Basically, to be on the safe side buy one that other Macbook users have confirmed works in your model.
Click to expand...
How To Change Hard Drives: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4040235?start=30&tstart=0
 
8thos said:
Coooool! Which one's better? That Crucial one or Intel?
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Crucial are raved about by the hobbiests so that's where I would spend my money, however you may be wasting your money on a SATA 3 SSD when you're mac only supports SATA 2.

Oh and it's not that it won't work it's just that you wouldn't get the full potential out of the drive.
 
Kingston or Crucial for gaming computers, Samsung or Intel for gaming servers. All my Minecraft servers I use for hosting has Samsung 830's. My computer at home, mostly for WoW has a Kingston HyperX 3K
 
8thos said:
How To Change Hard Drives: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4040235?start=30&tstart=0
Click to expand...

Not sure why you are linking me to this. I already know how to change drives in a Macbook. My problem was not with the technique but rather with a specific drive that doesn't work with a specific Macbook and I am not the only one. I'm just passing on my personal experience here in the hope it helps you avoid the same issue, namely, buy an SSD based on known brands and models that are proven to work with your Macbook version :) BTW when I say "doesn't work" I mean it is not even recognised, so you cannot even partition it. Apple will be no help to you if and when you buy a drive that doesn't work.
 
Ingenious said:
Not sure why you are linking me to this. I already know how to change drives in a Macbook. My problem was not with the technique but rather with a specific drive that doesn't work with a specific Macbook and I am not the only one. I'm just passing on my personal experience here in the hope it helps you avoid the same issue, namely, buy an SSD based on known brands and models that are proven to work with your Macbook version :) BTW when I say "doesn't work" I mean it is not even recognised, so you cannot even partition it. Apple will be no help to you if and when you buy a drive that doesn't work.
Click to expand...
Because in the discussion thread they mention different techniques and post their experiences when the SSD doesn't work isn't recognized.
 
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