Upgrading Mac with SSD

[bimmer456]

How many of you have done this upgrade? This has made my computer 10 times faster at least. It is as fast as the new machines in the Apple store, maybe faster. I'm afraid if I get a touch bar mac it might actually be slower.

[c1pher]

Done it to an older MacBook and an iMac. Definitely helped extend the life of both.

[aozer]

Did it on my old MacBook Pro. It's pretty much a mandatory upgrade to any laptop with an hdd as far as I'm concerned.

[Banana Hammock]

Did this to a early model 06 Macbook Pro. Easily the best thing you can do to it if it doesn't have an SSD in it already.

[mswscco]

I agree. Did this to all the computers at the office. It was a pain, but no more complaints about laggy computers.

[M_Six]

Put a 500GB SSD in mine and moved the original 500GB spinning drive to the DVD bay, so now I have 1TB of space. Never missed the DVD drive. It boots to the login screen in about 20 seconds.

We've upgraded most of the lab PCs at the school like this. Works wonders.

[bimmer456]

Originally Posted by M_Six

Put a 500GB SSD in mine and moved the original 500GB spinning drive to the DVD bay, so now I have 1TB of space. Never missed the DVD drive. It boots to the login screen in about 20 seconds.

We've upgraded most of the lab PCs at the school like this. Works wonders.

Never thought about moving the existing drive to the dvd bay. I did think about putting another ssd in the dvd bay and doing a striped RAID between the two drives for even better performance boost but that's an idea too.

[M_Six]

You can't put an SSD in the DVD bay. Something about the connection to the motherboard. Unless some company has come out with a new kit in the couple of years since I made the move. But at that time, the DVD bay kits wouldn't support SSDs.

[bimmer456]

Originally Posted by M_Six

You can't put an SSD in the DVD bay. Something about the connection to the motherboard. Unless some company has come out with a new kit in the couple of years since I made the move. But at that time, the DVD bay kits wouldn't support SSDs.

Yeah it depends on the motherboard if the dvd drive still uses the older ide connector. On my MacBook it uses the newer connector so I can put an ssd in there. My computer is super fast as it is though so I'll leave the DVD burner for now. I'm running high Sierra without any issues but if the next version is slower I may do the raid drives.

[P1]

This applies across the board for any Mac or PC.

[bimmer456]

There was a video on unbox therapy showing the SDD Raid upgrade involving removing the dvd drive so I know it's possible. It can be done with or without an adapter to the connector depending on what you have. Though the older connector won't yield as much of a speed improvement.

[M_Six]

Originally Posted by bimmer456

Yeah it depends on the motherboard if the dvd drive still uses the older ide connector. On my MacBook it uses the newer connector so I can put an ssd in there. My computer is super fast as it is though so I'll leave the DVD burner for now. I'm running high Sierra without any issues but if the next version is slower I may do the raid drives.

Yeah, I have a 2012 13" MBP. On the page linked below there are some precautions about using 6GB/s SSDs. My spinning drive is only used to store RAW files and processed images, so there's no need for major speed. When I first download RAW files, I keep them on the SSD until I've finished processing with PS, then I move the RAW files I want to keep and the finished images to the spinning drive.

https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/DDAMBS0GB/

[bimmer456]

Originally Posted by M_Six

Yeah, I have a 2012 13" MBP. On the page linked below there are some precautions about using 6GB/s SSDs. My spinning drive is only used to store RAW files and processed images, so there's no need for major speed. When I first download RAW files, I keep them on the SSD until I've finished processing with PS, then I move the RAW files I want to keep and the finished images to the spinning drive.

https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/DDAMBS0GB/

some of the older ones had the 3gb/s on the optical drive so there would be less benefit to an ssd in that bay but I did check mine and it is 6gb on both. That was mentioned in the unbox therapy video that you might see that on some machines.

[cliverman]

3yr iMac 27 just got a SSD drive and it's incredible how much faster it is.
SAMSUNG 850 EVO 2.5" 250GB SATA III 3D NAND Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MZ-75E250B/AM
and freakin' cheap!
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...3yRBLyPn-8g%3D

[bimmer456]

Originally Posted by cliverman

3yr iMac 27 just got a SSD drive and it's incredible how much faster it is.
SAMSUNG 850 EVO 2.5" 250GB SATA III 3D NAND Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MZ-75E250B/AM
and freakin' cheap!
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...3yRBLyPn-8g%3D

I got the 500 gig version of the 850 EVO and yeah it's a great upgrade especially given the price. I can boot up in just a few seconds and apps load quick. I also upgraded my ram so I can have more apps open.

[eluded]

Originally Posted by bimmer456

How many of you have done this upgrade? This has made my computer 10 times faster at least. It is as fast as the new machines in the Apple store, maybe faster. I'm afraid if I get a touch bar mac it might actually be slower.

And you're going to upgrade a five year older Mac why?

You're on the BMW forum, head to the Apple Store and pony up.

[zx10guy]

If you all are happy with how fast your SATA SSDs are performing, you'll be blown away with M.2 NVMe PCIe SSDs. Many current laptops are now coming with these SSDs as standard. The next step is to move storage right onto the memory bus. We're seeing this with NVRAM technologies and products which are starting to hit the market based on Intel's Optane and 3D Xpoint.

[Violator]

Originally Posted by eluded

And you're going to upgrade a five year older Mac why?

You're on the BMW forum, head to the Apple Store and pony up.

I just ordered a new SSD (Crucial MX300 1TB) and RAM (Crucial 16GB kit) to upgrade my mid-2012 MacBook Pro thanks to this thread.

[bimmer456]

Originally Posted by zx10guy

If you all are happy with how fast your SATA SSDs are performing, you'll be blown away with M.2 NVMe PCIe SSDs. Many current laptops are now coming with these SSDs as standard. The next step is to move storage right onto the memory bus. We're seeing this with NVRAM technologies and products which are starting to hit the market based on Intel's Optane and 3D Xpoint.

Good to know. At some point the fastest ssd will be faster than the aging processor in my MacBook can handle so it may not yield much more of an improvement over current ssds (I have an early 2011 so six years old).

[bimmer456]

Originally Posted by eluded

And you're going to upgrade a five year older Mac why?

You're on the BMW forum, head to the Apple Store and pony up.

I upgraded my 6 year old Mac a few months ago and it feels faster than a new Mac.

[KingOfJericho]

Originally Posted by eluded

And you're going to upgrade a five year older Mac why?

You're on the BMW forum, head to the Apple Store and pony up.

I barely my home computer so it doesn't make sense to pony up at all. For my minimal usage, I upgraded my mid-2009 Macbook Pro to SSD and max RAM and it runs like a dream. The battery is shot (despite also being replaced) but it runs fast as hell.

I also have an iMac that I don't even have hooked up anymore. I literally put it in the basement.

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by bimmer456

Good to know. At some point the fastest ssd will be faster than the aging processor in my MacBook can handle so it may not yield much more of an improvement over current ssds (I have an early 2011 so six years old).

I put in an Intel P3608 1.6TB NVMe drive in my gaming box. I did some Crystal Mark benchmarks on it. From what I remember, read/write performance was around 2500 MB/s.

Also, not all SSDs are created equal. As an FYI, there are three types of flash memory used in SSDs: SLC, MLC, and TLC. SLC SSDs are stupid expensive but perform the fastest for both read and write operations. These are some times referred as write intensive drives. The others listed fall under mixed use or read intensive applications.

In addition, you all should pay attention to a durability rating which some times a manufacturer will list for a consumer grade SSD. Enterprise SSDs always report this parameter. It's called DWPD or drive writes per day. If you want some sort of reliability, you want a drive that has at least a 1 DWPD rating. What this means is if you have a 500GB SSD with a 1 DWPD, this means you can write 500GB of data to the SSD every day for I think 5 years. SSDs do fail. One of my clients tried using Samsung 840/850 EVO drives because they thought an SSD was an SSD. Why spend 2 to 3 times more for an enterprise SSD? Well, they found out as they were burning out their 840/850 drives at an alarming rate. They've since gone to enterprise level drives. I run some servers in my home network and they're using SAS SSD drives rated at 3 to 5 DWPDs with drive sizes of 1.92TB and 3.84TB.