• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

SSD Upgrades for 2010 MBP

Essence_of_War

Essence_of_War

Platinum Member
I'm helping a friend make the switch to an SSD in their older MBP (I think 6,2). I think it's currently running Snow Leopard, but we might use the drive upgrade to make the jump to Mavericks.

Are there any SSD models to stay away from that maybe don't play well with sleep and stuff like that?

I was looking at the usual consumer level suspects:

SanDisk Ultra Plus (256 GB)
Samsung EVO (250 GB)
Seagate 600 Series (240 GB) (if I can nab it in the next few days on sale!)
Crucial m500 (240 GB)
 
Last edited:
FWIW my late 2008 model MBP has a hard time with SSDs. Pinwheels a lot when i use an SSD in it. Never been able to pinpoint the problem. Tried 64GB and 128GB, Crucial and Kingston models. not sure what the deal is, though it might just be its age. it still runs fine with a spindle disk though.
 
There may be an application that you can use to enable TRIM, which may help speed up your SSD.

Also, your late 2008 model MBP might not have the SATA port that takes advantage of the full speeds of SSDs.
 
Note that a few SSDs out there have really high idle power utilization, and much higher than most spindle drives. I'd avoid those obviously.

Paperlantern said:
FWIW my late 2008 model MBP has a hard time with SSDs. Pinwheels a lot when i use an SSD in it. Never been able to pinpoint the problem. Tried 64GB and 128GB, Crucial and Kingston models. not sure what the deal is, though it might just be its age. it still runs fine with a spindle disk though.
Click to expand...
I think there was a bug with older OSes. Doesn't happen with the latest OS versions AFAIK. I noticed it a couple of times too, also with brief freezes.

I'm running the latest Lion on a 2008 MB and Mavericks on a 2009 MBP, both with SSDs, and they both work fine (now).

ChAoTiCpInOy said:
Also, your late 2008 model MBP might not have the SATA port that takes advantage of the full speeds of SSDs.
Click to expand...
Not that matters though. That 2010 MBP will still feel way, way faster regardless.
 
Paperlantern said:
FWIW my late 2008 model MBP has a hard time with SSDs. Pinwheels a lot when i use an SSD in it. Never been able to pinpoint the problem. Tried 64GB and 128GB, Crucial and Kingston models. not sure what the deal is, though it might just be its age. it still runs fine with a spindle disk though.
Click to expand...
I had the same problem with a mid-2009 MBP and a Toshiba SSD. Completely different chipset from yours though. I was going to try another make of SSD, but that may not even help? 🙁 That MBP is running like a slug with a WD Black series HDD, and limited to 4 GB RAM (second DIMM socket seems busted).

FWIW my ancient late 2006 MBP runs fine with the same Toshiba SSD even with its SATA 1 bus. I should've done the upgrade to SSD a long time ago instead of near the end of the system's lifecycle.
 
manly said:
I had the same problem with a mid-2009 MBP and a Toshiba SSD. Completely different chipset from yours though. I was going to try another make of SSD, but that may not even help? 🙁 That MBP is running like a slug with a WD Black series HDD, and limited to 4 GB RAM (second DIMM socket seems busted).

FWIW my ancient late 2006 MBP runs fine with the same Toshiba SSD even with its SATA 1 bus. I should've done the upgrade to SSD a long time ago instead of near the end of the system's lifecycle.
Click to expand...
How long ago? Like I said, it was a problem for me too, and then it stopped being a problem. Not sure, but I think it was fixed after of a point update, at least on my 2009 MBP, a couple of years ago. I was either running Lion or Mountain Lion at the time, I can't remember. Whatever happened, it stopped happening with the same drive, and doesn't happen with a different drive either now. (I'm on Mavericks now on that machine.)
 
MB white unibody with the Samsung 830 Pro 256GB. Yeah it's capped at SATA 1 speeds but I wanted a reliable SSD from a big manufacture and Samsung fitted the bill. I got it at a reasonable price as well.

No pinwheels in Leopard or when I upgraded to Snow Leopard.

Koing
 
Eug said:
How long ago? Like I said, it was a problem for me too, and then it stopped being a problem. Not sure, but I think it was fixed after of a point update, at least on my 2009 MBP, a couple of years ago. I was either running Lion or Mountain Lion at the time, I can't remember. Whatever happened, it stopped happening with the same drive, and doesn't happen with a different drive either now. (I'm on Mavericks now on that machine.)
Click to expand...
It must have been November, and I cloned a ML install using CCC. Maybe the logic board is on its way out; one of the RAM slots is unusable (it was previously causing major instability). The HD SATA cable had been replaced a couple years ago. So capped at 4 GB RAM in the remaining slot, an SSD would be a huge upgrade as you're fully aware.

I'll probably try the firmware update you linked in PM and try once again with Mavericks clean install onto a Samsung SSD.

Is there a good system burn-in tool I can use with OS X?
 
You can always go with a good old intel ssd with power protection (to avoid running out of juice and corrupting the ssd), avoid sandforce drives, they tended to have sleep/hibernate problems back in the day! not sure if that is 100% fixed but the samsung 840 pro have been pretty stable as far as failure rates on both PC and MAC environments when we've deployed
 
I think there was a bug with older OSes. Doesn't happen with the latest OS versions AFAIK. I noticed it a couple of times too, also with brief freezes.

I'm running the latest Lion on a 2008 MB and Mavericks on a 2009 MBP, both with SSDs, and they both work fine (now).
Click to expand...

Nice, so it would probably be a good idea to do an OS update also while we're at it?
 
Essence_of_War said:
Nice, so it would probably be a good idea to do an OS update also while we're at it?
Click to expand...

That's what I did when I popped a M500 into my 2011 MBP. I was still running Snow Leopard but didn't see a reason not to go ahead and upgrade the OS along with the drive. Luckily the process is pretty painless.
 
Is the upgrade from Snow Leopard to Mavericks an in-place upgrade? Or would I have to do a clean install?

I know SL->ML is in-place, and I know ML-> Mav is in-place also, but I feel like transitivity is out the window in general 🙂
 
I'm pretty sure you can do an in place upgrade from 10.6.8 or higher but I might be mistaken.

I went ahead and did a fresh install since it was a new hard drive though.
 
Essence_of_War said:
Nice, so it would probably be a good idea to do an OS update also while we're at it?
Click to expand...
Of course, esp. since SSL is not secure on older versions of Mavericks.

What you need to know about Apple's SSL bug

However, it should be noted that Mavericks has caused problems with some NAS OSes out there. As I understand it, people think it's due to Apple's implementation of SMB 2, but some NAS OSes have issued updates to fix the incompatibility anyway. When I first installed Mavericks, I was having periodic problems with file access from my Mac on my Synology NAS, but after Synology updated their OS, the problems went away.

Mavericks' SMB2 problem and fixes

If I had known about that in advance, I wouldn't have upgraded to Mavericks until it was fixed.
 
Last edited:
Nope. SL is no longer supported. Dunno about the SSL bug there though.
Click to expand...

Yikes, I did not know that, I'll be pushing my friend to do an upgrade to latest mavericks when we do the SSD install.

Also, the TigerDirect has the Seagate 600 Series 480 GB for only $230. Seems like an incredible deal if I can push them to make a move now!
 
With Apple, you really need to upgrade. They don't carry on the IBM way of insuring backwards compatibility for life.
 
I bought a 2009 MBP and put an OCZ Summit (slow SSD, but still much faster than spindle) in it, then upgraded to an OCZ Vertex 2, and then finally to a Samsung 840. That's what is in it now, and it runs like a champ. Oh, the other thing I did was upgraded to 8GB of RAM. My wife uses it for her work and it's great.

I got a new 13" MBP (mid range one with 2.4 GHz i5 and 8 GB ram), and love it. Performance-wise, for standard things like office and internet, my old one is just as fast. Of course I can play games on this one that I couldn't on my old one, and this one is much thinner and lighter.

tl;dr - 8GB RAM and a Samsung 840 made my 2009 MBP a champ again
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top