[Closed] MacBook SSD Upgrades

I'm toying with one of those conversions to swap the superdrive (which is kaput) for a drive bay, and then move the OS and Apps to an SSD and put all the data on the 500GB 7200rpm drive.

not sure I can afford it at the moment tho, as about to pull the trigger on an 11" air but I reckon once I'm used to the speed of the air (for apps and bootup, not raw performance) I'll be convinced to upgrade the old MacBook Pro

replaced my dead drive with an SSD

only time i notice the speed increase is if the battery has died and the laptop "wakes up"

@chomp, after seeing the price of a 32Gb memory stick at maplins for £15 i'd be tempted to do the same. with it in place of the superdrive (with adapter) access speed may be an issue though.

i toyed with it and discovered it can cause issues with incremental backup software, then the price put me off

Recently put on of these http://www.mushkin.com/Digital-Storage/SSDs/MKNSSDCR240GB-DX.aspx in my MBP 5.1

Significant increase in speed.

Mind you, i've found ssd's @120Gb for £60 from ebuyer, wow prices have dropped!

I stuck one in my MacBook pro - from memory it was a Samsung I think. Speed increase was notable - it was a pre-unibody from 2007/8 - 17". I think the drive cost me approx £180 for 256GB and was a complete doddle to install.

Yep! Good thinking

I replaced the DVD drive in my bran new MBP with an SSD - re-installed OS-X on that and then made some pointers for documents photos downloads etc so they sit on the HDD

so operating system and desktop are on SSD
documents, mail, downloads etc are on HDD

it works really really well - Apple should offer it as an option.
The DVD drive goes into an external USB enclosure so it's still available - I haven't ever used it though

been meaning to remove the Samsung 32gb mSATA ssd from my laptop and replace it with a bigger one for the OS which is currently on the 750gb HDD - it uses the 32gb ssd as cache and hibernate.

Having trouble finidng a 128gb samsung 830 mSATA drive so probably going crucual M4 mSATA (they are smaller with no housing). Later on when prices drop i'll probably replace the 750gb HDD with a 500gb SSD too and get rid of all mechanical drives.

Not yet. Have been wanting to for some time now, but bank balance says no. I can't even justify the £13 or whatever it is to upgrade to Mountain Lion so an SSD just ain't gonna happen!

I put one in my 13" MBP a couple of months ago - made a huge difference to the laptop. That and 8GB of memory have made it a completely different experience.

Rachel

I've installed a 256G OCX Vertex4 in my 8,3 Sandy Bridge MBP & put the old 750G drive in the optibay. Upgraded to 16G of memory at the same time. All runs fine.

My setup same as mega, but the HDD is where the superdrive used to be. Got a £16 caddy off ebay which works a treat, no need to spend $$$ on a OWC one. Haven't needed an optical drive since*. Installed Mountain Lion etc from USB stick.

Mine SSD is a Crucial M4 128GB hosts OS/Apps/Docs/VM Images. Photos on the 500GB HDD.

As noted, boot, wake from hibernate, restore virtual machine image, etc are all sub 10 seconds. Apps Launch quicker too, but the speed becomes 'normal' unless you have another non-SSD computer to compare it to.

* My OH has my old optical/HDD equipped Macbook which we use for ripping CDs etc.

. I think the drive cost me approx £180 for 256GB and was a complete doddle to install.

Sounds the same age as mine (15" though) and I'd say it was straightforward rather than a doddle - 27 screws in the Core2 Macbook Pros to get the drive out. Take it steady, on a nice clean towel and sticky tape the tiny screws in order, and its about a 1/2 hour job.

If it was a standard macbook it's just in a little hatch. I was peeved to find this out after 🙂

i did the drive bay conversion and have just fitted it again to a brand new MBP with no issues, i use it partitioned as a scratch disk and a temporary back-up. not bothered with any trim enabler.
i would stick to samsung/crucial/intel drives as they seem to manage with their own firmware to deal with bad blocks than a trim hack. will get one for the main drive bay soon to run 2xssd's

forgot to add that the drive bay may only be 3gbs but on my new MBP it's 6.

MrSmith - Member

i did the drive bay conversion and have just fitted it again to a brand new MBP with no issues, i use it partitioned as a scratch disk and a temporary back-up. not bothered with any trim enabler.
i would stick to samsung/crucial/intel drives as they seem to manage with their own firmware to deal with bad blocks than a trim hack. will get one for the main drive bay soon to run 2xssd's

Trim is nothing to do with bad blocks but rather to stop them slowing down over time.

yeah it does stuff i have no idea what exactly i just need to know if stuff works without it. (it does) 😀