Comments on: MacBook Pro 256GB SSD upgrade experience

By: Ben

Ben — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 12:06:22 +0000

I had noticed the same thing, i am future proofing my mbp its a late 09 model 5,5 (just ordered 8gb or ram) I think the link speed will limit how much you can get from the ssd, so if you where think of using vertex 3 there wouldnt be much point as vertex 2 would give you the same increase, still seems like ppl are having problems with them tho with the 13′ mbp, not sure which ssd to go with.

By: Timothy Nguyen

Timothy Nguyen — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 02:29:36 +0000

Wonderful write-up!

I’ve just installed a new Crucial M4 in my mid-2009 MBP 5,3 after reading this blog post. One thing I’ve noticed though is that, under the System Profiler, it lists the “negotiated link speed” as 1.5Gbps instead of 3.0Gbps. Has anyone else noticed this? My mac is fully updated (OS 10.6.8).

By: Nicholas Johnson

Nicholas Johnson — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 07:34:28 +0000

Thanks for your post. I was surprised that the performance improvement was not assive, as I’ve been toying with the idea of replacing my main hdd with an ssd for a while. I have a 2008 Santa Rosa 17″ Macbook Pro (which I love) maxed out at 4Gb.

Like other people here, yesterday I replaced my superdrive with a 5400 1Tb Optibay, and I’m very pleased with the results. I’ve moved 160Gb of stuff off my primary hdd (my home folder) and now everything is swishy fast again, plus I don’t need to worry about downloading lots of podcasts, running VMs or filling up the scratch disks when photoshopping.

I was very impressed with the Optibay, super easy to install, and it came with a free enclosure for the old superdrive. Rather ironically though, the instructions were supplied on CD :)

By: Ankur Jain

Ankur Jain — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 01:28:40 +0000

Damien
Very impressive guide on the SSD’s. I have been (the fact I am here!) scouring the forums for information on installing a ssd on my mac. I have a mid-2009 13″ MacBook Pro 2.53 GHz (4gb ram) , same generation as Scott above. Recently I have noticed 2 issues, the never ending plagues –
1. Slow computer using Aperture, stumbled upon the nifty Activity Monitor to realize I had 41 megs free ram left – yikes, shocking since I thought 4 gigs would be enough to last me a lifetime! Thankfully, I can upgrade to 8gigs.
2. 250 hdd is running low on space – I have a 80 gb aperture library and another 80gb itunes collection.
I have been toying with the idea of replacing my hdd with a faster, bigger one and have scrunched on the idea of jumping onto the ssd bandwagon owing to he high costs. Last night I stumbled upon a an article on OWC that opened my mind to repacing the superdrive slot to a second drive. I started toying with the following config and hence had some questions. By the way, I loved your primer on the usb install disk if you dont have a superdrive – will be my case soon!

My ideas on the new config – replace the existing 250gb, 5400rpm hdd with a 600gb 7200rpm for data storage and use a ssd as the boot drive and for installing applications.

Q’s -

1.Should the ssd be in the slot the hdd is or is it ok to be in the ‘optical drive’ position.
2.I think my system is still a 3Gbps, which amongst the OWC vs the crucial vs ocz vertex 2 should I try since they are very similar price ranges?
3.Would it slow down aperture to use application launch from the ssd and data from the hdd? Same for itunes. How does the dual drive sonfiguration work for this scenario?

Any help would be awesome. Thanks to Scott for sharing his insight into the OWC install with the 13″.

Ankur

By: Scott Boydman

Scott Boydman — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 02:41:13 +0000

Damien, just wanted to thank you for a great post!

I came across your article around September, 2010, and after doing a lot of research, I purchased an OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 120 GB for my mid-2009 13″ MacBook Pro 2.26 GHz. At the same time, I upgraded RAM from 2 to 4 GB. I’d like to share some experiences with you. The installation of drive and RAM were a piece of cake. I easily restored my system from my Time Machine Backup. Performance was very good, but I experienced the Hibernation lockup that was known to occur with the Sandforce SSD Controller chipset. Undeterred, I initially disabled Hibernation by issuing sudo commands in Terminal. Ultimately, I downloaded and installed the SmartSleep pref panel (now available as an app through the Mac App Store, and highly recommended for users with SSD boot drives. I also configured the system to disable last-access time and confirmed it’s operation by entering “mount” in Terminal (noatime is displayed for the boot drive parameters).

Several weeks ago, OWC posted a firmware update that cures the Hibernation ills that plagued this drive and Mac OS. Since there as yet was no Mac OS firmware updater (though it should be available soon), I temporarily installed Windows 7 using Boot Camp just for this purpose. The firmware update was non-destructive. Hibernation issues were cured. SmartSleep is now set to sleep until 20% power level, then hibernate. This saves time, but protects your data — a great compromise. I initially disabled the Motion Sensor, but after lots of research, I decided to reenable it, without seeing any “stuttering” in video playback.

So far, so good. But here is my best modification up to this point. I happened to return to your post, and noticed your update concerning TRIM with Mac OS X 10.6.7. I followed your link and downloaded the TRIM Support Enabler v1.1. Once the patch was installed and working, I followed suggestions to erase the SSD’s free space using Disk Utility, and entered the 3 Terminal commands that were listed. When I rebooted the second time, the boot process seemed to be much faster. In fact, before enabling TRIM support, the boot process needed about 14 revolutions of the progress gear that appears beneath the Apple logo. Following TRIM enabling, the progress gear only requires about 5 revolutions for the boot — improved by a factor of 3! I am ecstatic with the performance of my MacBook Pro, having seen improvement in battery life (by the way, if you haven’t seen it, check out “Watts” Battery Utility by Binary Tricks), reduced noise and heat, and confidence that my data won’t be destroyed by dropping my laptop. My experience has been better than I expected!

Sorry for being long-winded, but I thought you and your readers might be interested in my experience. And thanks again for updating your great post!

By: Jesse Rhodes

Jesse Rhodes — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 21:53:45 +0000

Here’s my Question… Why is there no program that lets you sleep one drive (SATA) and not sleep the other drive (SSD)? on a Mac?

Please please can someone write this program? Will be very helpful for the integration of SSDs and traditional dives.

Thanks!

By: Marie

Marie — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 05:50:12 +0000

:) The post I made above was so many hrs ago and have learned so much since from this site. This will be my first laptop. I’ll get the SSD & install on my own – anxious, yaay!

By: Marie

Marie — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 22:43:53 +0000

Just wanted to say Thank you! Yes :) budget dictates. Mine for the MBP17 is $2500, give or take a smidgen if xtremely necessary. Im researching between 750 or 500GB Serial ATA Drive @ 7200 RPM -or- the 128 Solid State -also- wondering if I’d be foolish not to sincerely consider 2.3GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7 for the extra $250 -verses- the 2.2GHz. Im graveling at it all, but within the next 2 weeks I’ll be at the counter to purchase:) I’ll be using this for graphics and such. I would appreciate your thoughts.

By: John G.

John G. — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 12:56:31 +0000

“Don’t let your laptop run out of power as it copies the RAM to disk each time (2-8GB)”
Actually, when you sleep by default the “Safe Sleep” feature is enabled and it writes memory to disk. I noticed this when I upgraded to 8GB of RAM from 4, and it literally took 2x the time to go to sleep.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.5/en/10328.html

By: Damien Guard

Damien Guard — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 17:46:15 +0000

The Crucial is still a good drive and prices have dropped – it’s now $474.99 but it was $699 when I purchased it.

I don’t keep completely up with new developments but there are some new drives due this real soon – Intel’s G3, Crucial’s C400 and OCZ’s Vertex 3 all of which will be faster (but not necessarily cheaper)

[)amien