SSD for a mid 2010 MBP

[HorneyMX5]

Hi All,

After some advice on which SSD to buy and how to get it to work in my mid 2010 MBP running Yosemite. I think the OE HDD is failing and figured this would be a good upgrade along with a complete tear-down and re-install of the OS as after 5.5 years it's running a bit slow.

Cheers!

[elliotff]

I would buy the largest capacity and best speed one your budget can stretch to...

Putting the new drive in is not to hard however it can be a little fiddly.

Once the new drive is in one CMD and R and you will boot into the recovery, from there just format and reinstall the OS

[Thorburn]

CMD + R won't boot to recovery if your SSD doesn't have a recovery partition, which it won't have if it is blank.

Either create a bootable USB installer and install from that, or connect the SSD via a USB caddy and install OS X to it via Recovery prior to installing it.

[HorneyMX5]

Cheers. Any recommendations for actual drives? I'm not actually sure what sort I should be looking for. It's 20+ years since I tinkered with the innards of a "PC".

[HorneyMX5]

Thanks, that tool looks useful. I want to do a complete wipe and re-install though as there's just load son jump on this thing that needs clearing off. I feel it's better to restart with a clean slate.

[poing]

I put a Samsung EVO in my 2011 MBP and it's been perfect ever since, if you're on PH and you want a SSD it really needs to be one called an EVO surely?

I put the original HD into a caddy that takes the place of the DVD drive and it's now my Time Machine backup drive.

[andy-xr]

I have the same MBP and put a 240GB Sandisk in it (whatever was reasonably priced from PC world) and it's done a pretty good job

Read?write speed wasnt as advertised when tested, maybe 2/3rds the speed, but it's a lot sharper than it was with the old 2.5 HDD

[ZesPak]

HorneyMX5 said:

Cheers. Any recommendations for actual drives? I'm not actually sure what sort I should be looking for. It's 20+ years since I tinkered with the innards of a "PC".

I would go for Samsung these days. Very good VFM and proven to be extremely reliable.

Get an 850 with 256GB minimum. Don't be tempted by a cheaper 128GB.

[CrouchingWayne]

I've got a mid 2010 MBP 13" - I installed a 250gb Samsung EVO 850 along with an upgrade from 4GB to 8GB of RAM. The Samsung drive is well regarded so I'd go with that.

I did this last year and I've added a chunk of usefulness to the laptop - was way too slow before. Only reason I'd upgrade now would be for a better screen.

[MethylatedSpirit]

Check up on how to change the date/time from the command line.

If you remove the battery connector, the date reverts to 1999 (or something like that). The OS refuses to start if it realises the date is further back than when the software was released.

My 2010 MBP is a different laptop with the SSD. So much faster.

[N0ddie]

I put a Samsung 850 Evo 1TB SSD in my iMac last weekend. Read and write speeds are 10 x faster (From 50Mb/s to 500Mb/s). I was £244 for the SSD from Amazon.

Edited by N0ddie on Friday 19th August 09:32

[8bit]

I put a Crucial MX200 256GB in my Mid 2010 MBP a year or so ago.

Booted the Mac into recovery mode, attached the SSD to the machine via a SATA to USB converter and used disk tool to clone the HD to the SSD. Once that finished, switched it off, swapped the HD for the SSD and off it went. Job done.

I had to use a third-party tool to enable TRIM support, I forget the name but I think there's a way to do it now in OS X without requiring a third-party tool.

Crucial drives are very good, IME. Samsung would be my second choice but only really because I've used Crucial stuff more so have built more confidence.

[JakeT]

Samsung is good, and I like the fact that they make all of the components, Many buy in NAND or a controller. Also you might need to make sure when you first create all of the partitions that you align them. Otherwise it will make the SSD slower and not last as long.

[CrouchingWayne]

Something to remember is that the Mid-2010 has a relatively old SATA connection if I recall correctly so won't be able to max out the speeds of newer drives (or even the 850 Evo I recommended earlier). Obviously a better drive can then be taken out and used in another machine in future etc. so not a total waste I guess.

[BRISTOL86]

Another vote for the Samsung Evo, I have one in my 2011 MBP

[ZesPak]

JakeT said:

Samsung is good, and I like the fact that they make all of the components, Many buy in NAND or a controller. Also you might need to make sure when you first create all of the partitions that you align them. Otherwise it will make the SSD slower and not last as long.

By that logic maybe people should buy Samsung laptops .

[JakeT]

Touché. My dad had run a Samsung ultrabook for a few years as his work machine, carried it across the world and never had an issue with it. If it were me though, ThinkPad all the way.

[NordicCrankShaft]

Another vote for the Samsung. Put a 250gb Samsung Evo in mine two years ago.

[Thorburn]

Samsungs SSD pricing is pretty firm at the moment, but the 750 256GB isn't too badly priced: http://amzn.to/2bvnTwb

[dxg]

Buy a drive caddy and use carbon copy cloner to create an image of your old drive on your new one. It will deal with the additional space just fine.

Then put the new drive in the laptop. No need to reinstall anything. Has worked for me a few times, but takes ages.