- 500gb Solid State Hard Drive
- Internal Solid State Hard Drive For Mac
- Solid State Hard Drive Vs Regular
- Solid State External Hard Drive For Mac Thunderbolt
SSDs, short for “Solid State Drives”, were only a few years ago out of the price range of consumers and their personal computers – Being used primarily by business users and computer enthusiasts. In 2013, however, SSDs are becoming increasingly affordable, and are a viable option for storage on personal computers – In particular, laptops, as they are sensitive to power consumption and physical wear & tear. This article will explain to you the pros and cons of installing a SSD in your Mac, and ultimately wether it’s worth the money. For those of you who are just looking for our top product recommendations, see the table below. If you’re interested in reading about the benefits and comparisons of an SSD, jump below for our in-depth article.
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So, which Macs can a SSD be installed in? It’s an important thing to know, as there’s no point in reading this article and learning all about SSDs if you can’t even install one in your Mac – Or if your Mac already has a SSD built in, but you don’t know it!
Basically, any Mac that has a user-replaceable hard disk can have a 3rd party SSD installed in it – These include the Classic MacBook Pro, the white Polycarbon MacBook, the Mac Mini and the iMac. Therefore, if you own one of them, this article is for you. And as for the Retina MacBook Pro and the MacBook Air: If you already don’t, you’ll be pleased to know that they already have SSDs pre-installed; standard.
Cost is quite possibly the biggest factor you’ll have to weigh up when deciding wether to buy a SSD for your Mac or not (and if so, which one). A few years ago, SSDs that were little over 100GB in size cost the better part of a grand in price – Nowadays, however, 128GB SSDs barely cost more than their 128GB HDD (mechanical hard disk) counterparts. It’s only when you get up to 256GB and beyond that the SSD pricing begins to pull up & away from HDD pricing. Therefore, the less space you use, the more economical and practical it is for you to get a SSD for your Mac. Don’t know how much space you’ll be needing? Then read on, and we’ll find out how much you’ll most likely need!
One good indicator of how much hard drive space you’ll need is how full your current hard drive is. Finding this out is relatively easy – Simply download iStat Pro freely from MacUpdate here. Once it is installed on your Mac’s dashboard, have at the “disks” section of the widget. Unless you have more than one hard drive installed in your Mac, or have a disk, external drive or memory stick plugged in, a single drive should be displayed. Beneath the name of the drive there will be a two numbers – One marked “U” (for “used”) and one marked “F” (for “free”. Ignore, the “F” digits, and check out the “U” ones. This is how full your hard disk is. Once you’ve noted it down, read on to the next section, to see what sized SSD you’d be looking at if you decide to buy one.
There are four standard sizes of Solid State Drives: 64GB, 128GB, 256GB & 512GB – Although the 64GB size is pretty irrelevant these days, due to it’s small size and the fact that it only costs $20-$30 more to get a 128GB one, which is double the size. So in this article we’ll just look at the latter three models.
When thinking about which SSD size to get, you should look at the amount of space you’re currently using on your current hard disk and round it up a bit – Maybe 30-50GB, as it’s good to have a bit of extra space on your SSD, in case you need it later on. Not to mention the fact that a full or almost-full drive will preform more slowly that one with plenty of free space. So, if you’ve got 70GB used up, for example, the 128GB SSD model would be a good choice. If you had 120GB used up, the 256GB model would be the best choice. Or if you had 300GB used up, the 512GB model would be the best option.
In the United States & Canada, a 128GB SSD costs around $120 US, a 256GB $190 and a 512GB $380. From this you can decide wether or not getting a SSD is worth the money, after you have read about the advantages in the rest of this article. For example, if you only need a 128GB drive, you might think getting a SSD is worthwhile, however if you need a 512GB drive you might decide that getting a SSD is too expensive.
Speed
The primary reason people buy SSDs is because of the speed. Unlike HDDs, which use a spinning platter much like a DVD to store data, SSDs use electronic circuits to achieve the same goal. SSDs most closely resemble USB thumb drives and SD cards, in the way that they use electronic circuits with no moving parts to store data. SSDs are, however, much faster than USB sticks, as they use higher quality components and aren’t slowed down by the sluggish USB interface. So, exactly how much faster are SSDs than traditional hard drives with spinning platters?
Depending on the speed that the platter spins at, traditional hard disk drives usually have a write speed of anywhere between 50 and 120MB/s. High quality SSDs, on the other hand, are almost always above 200MB/s, and the best ones can exceed 500MB/s. This means that you can expect the average SSD to be roughly double as fast when writing data as the average HDD, and in some cases more. But when will you notice this speed increase, while using your Mac?
Since SSDs read & write data faster, tasks on your Mac that require it to read & write data will be faster. These include saving files, opening files, loading games, opening applications and starting up/shutting down. The graphs below compare the speed of a MacBook Pro HDD to a MacBook Pro SSD and a MacBook Air SSD when preforming various tasks:
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Durability
Having no moving parts, SSDs are very durable – Much more durable than regular, mechanical hard drives. This won’t be a huge advantage if you use a desktop Mac, such as an iMac or Mac Mini. However it’s a significant advantage in the case of MacBooks, as you’d no longer have to worry about your Mac’s hard drive being damaged if you drop the computer or subject it to sudden movements. Traditional HDDs are quite sensitive to shock damage, as the head (the arm that reads the platter) can go off-course and scratch the platter, resulting in corruption of the data stored on it. SSDs, however, can be bashed around quite a lot without getting damaged – One of the reasons that they have been used in portable devices like cameras for so long.
Silence
Due to the fact that SSDs have absolutely no moving parts, they’re dead silent. This makes your Mac quieter in general, especially when preforming hard drive intensive tasks, such as copying large files. And while you might not appreciate the silence of a SSD over a traditional HDD during everyday use, you will if you ever do things like leave your Mac on overnight to download a large file, or to do some other task – Your Mac will be 100% silent unless the fans spin up. You also may find, if you happen to own a MacBook, that the computer won’t vibrate as much, due to the fact that most of the vibration of the case would have been caused by the mechanical hard drive’s platter spinning.
Power Consumption
Yet another secondary advantage of SSDs having no moving parts is the fact that they don’t use up as much power. And while this doesn’t matter much when it comes to desktop Macs, it’s a note-worthy advantage when it comes to MacBooks (which SSDs are more commonly found in). The interesting thing is that SSDs neither read nor write data more energy-efficiently than HDDs – So how do they manage to be more energy-efficient overall?
Whilst SSDs don’t read/write more efficiently than HDDs, they do preform the tasks faster. This means that the SSD will finish the task earlier than the HDD, and thus have more idle time – Being idle consuming less power than reading or writing data. However this advantage doesn’t always show up in benchmark tests, as during the course of most power efficiency tests both the drives would be reading or writing data constantly for a set period of time. In the real world though, the SSD will always read or write for shorter periods, due to the fact that it is significantly faster. And therefore the Solid State Drive is more energy efficient than the mechanical Hard Disk Drive.
If after reading the points above you have decided that it’s worth the money to buy a SSD for your Mac, feel free to check out the drives below so that you won’t have to spend lots of time hunting around for one that’s compatible with your computer. With a SSD from each storage tier (64, 128, 256 & 500GB) Crucial, Sandisk and Samsung manufacture high quality drives that have a good reliability record with Macintosh computers. If you’re interested in purchasing one, simply click the “Purchase Amazon” button to be redirected to the Amazon listing, where you can get the SSD with free shipping
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(Note: while some portions of this user tip can be used when installing a new hard drive in your MacBook Pro, it is intended only for those upgrading to a SSD.)
There are, with most MacBook Pros (exclusive of the Retina display models) only two modifications that you can make without voiding your Apple warranty or AppleCare extended warranty – upgrading the RAM and upgrading the drive in the hard drive bay. If you’ve already upgraded your RAM and simply want more speed, you may want to consider upgrading your old hard drive with a SSD (Solid State Drive). Many people come to the MacBook Pro forum asking about SSD upgrades, so this user tip is applicable to those, primarily, who have already made the decision to upgrade. Note that I only recommend using a SSD in 2009 and later MacBook Pros with a 3.0Gbps to 6.0Gbps interface speed – and I recommend buying a 6.0Gbps SSD regardless of the fact that models with a SATA II interface won’t be able to use the full-negotiated speed of 6.0Gbps. Why? Because you may want to upgrade your Mac sometime in the future… although you'd likely be upgrading to a Retina model these days. But you may still want to use the SSD in an enclosure or in another machine.
Before you buy…
Before you purchase a SSD, there are a few questions that you need to ask:
What capacity do you need?
It’s just my opinion, but the bigger the better. Now you may want to install a 120-128GB SSD and simply use it as a boot device and as a place to store your most frequently used applications. This is certainly the least expensive approach. But most people will want to store much more than that on an internal drive save, perhaps, for large iTunes libraries and large photo/movie libraries. There are numerous advantages to a larger drive, however. If you do photo or video editing, the SSD makes a super-fast scratch/working drive for individual projects. You can always store your hefty data on an external drive, of course, but for working projects I recommend using your fast internal SSD. Currently, SSDs come in basically three usable sizes: 120-128GB, 240-256GB and 480-512GB. But Crucial is now shipping a 960GB M500 drive that sells for under $600. So decide, first, how much storage you can actually utilize before making any buying decisions. And Samsung now has a 1 Terabyte EVO drive - priced at about $800+ but which can be found for under $650. Decisions, decisions! See here for an excellent review of the Samsung 840 EVO 1TB drive. Crucial also has two high-capacity SSDs - the older 960GB M500 and the recently released 1 Terabyte M550, which sports faster speeds than the M500 series but is still available at a reasonable price. I would recommend any of these three drives, now, for those wanting the higher capacity. See a review of the M550 series here.
Which drive should I buy?
Unfortunately, there are no Consumer Reports articles out for SSDs on MacBook Pros. There is, however, a very good “information and buyers guide” website - Sean’s SSD Buyer’s Guide and Information Thread. It’s chock-full of information about how SSDs work, what technology individual manufacturers employ, and includes not only a ‘buyer’s guide’ but an almost endless thread containing users experiences. Beware, though, as it is primarily geared towards Windows users. Still, that shouldn’t stop you from reading much of the information there. One thing that I always look for in an SSD, too, is the “Mac-friendliness” of the drive – e.g., can the firmware be upgraded using a Mac or must it be upgraded on a Windows machine? Unfortunately, the majority of SSDs fall in the latter category. That, alone, may not be a showstopper for you in determining which brand of SSD to purchase, but it should at least give you pause.
Getting everything in place…
Before you begin your MacBook Pro surgery, here is a checklist of things you should have on hand:
- SSD of choice
- Enclosure for external drive (can be found at Amazon or OWC, prices range from $8-20, usually, for a USB 2.0 kit will all cables)
- Toolkit that includes a Phillips #00 screwdriver, a Torx T6 screwdriver, and, possibly, a spudger – I recommend this kit - http://eshop.macsales.com/item/NewerTech/TOOLKIT11/ - from OWC
- Carbon Copy Cloner (we’ll get into how to use this in a moment)
Start the process…
There are two ways to go about getting the data from your old drive to your SSD. The first is to install the SSD into your enclosure and make your clone before installing the SSD. The second is simply to install the SSD into your hard drive bay and your old hard drive into your enclosure and boot from the enclosure. No one way is better than the other. We’ll examine both ways here:
Install the SSD into your USB enclosure and plug it up. Use Disk Utility (Applications>Utilities folder) to format the SSD, erasing it and formatting as “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)” with a single GUID partition. Then use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone your hard drive to the SSD. If you are running Lion or Mountain Lion, choose the option to copy the Recovery Partition to the SSD. After the clone is complete, restart your computer whilst holding down the option key and select the SSD as the boot drive. You’ll know in a few seconds if your clone was successful.
Alternately, you can just go ahead and install your SSD into your MacBook Pro (endless number of DIY videos online – see OWC’s Installation Videos - http://eshop.macsales.com/installvideos/) and put your hard drive into the USB enclosure and boot from it. Then just boot from the enclosed drive and use Disk Utility to format the SSD and clone the contents of your hard drive onto your SSD as noted above.
![Solid State Hard Drive For Mac Solid State Hard Drive For Mac](https://techsviewer.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Best-SSD-for-Upgrading-Macbook-Pro.jpg)
Showbox for mac. Either method should work just fine. Be sure to visit the OWC video installation page, or the numerous videos on YouTube, about installing the drive into your MacBook Pro.
You’re almost finished…
Now that you have your cloned SSD in your hard drive bay, you should be able to hold down the option key and boot from the SSD. The first thing you’ll want to do is to go to System Preferences>Startup Disk and select your new SSD as your startup drive.
I would also recommend using Trim Enabler to enable TRIM on your new SSD. Not sure what TRIM does? See this Wikipedia article - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIM. Note that with every .1 upgrade to OS X you will have to enable TRIM once again. I just make it a habit when I update my system. Some may ask of TRIM is necessary these days since most SSDs use proprietary garbage collection. I can only say that I still enable TRIM just in case.. and Apple's SSDs utilize TRIM as well.
500gb Solid State Hard Drive
Up and running…
You should be up and running now, enjoying the many benefits of a SSD – particularly speed. You shouldn’t have any problems if you’ve followed these instructions.
The only problem that some people have run into, in my experience, has been with a faulty SATA cable (affecting 2009 models more than any other). If you’re having problems such a ‘beachballing,’ slow speeds, etc., look at replacing your SATA cable first – it’s the most likely culprit. You’ll also want to make certain that you stay up to date with SSD firmware updates – these cannot only eliminate ‘bugs’ in the firmware, but may also make your SSD operate more efficiently.
Internal Solid State Hard Drive For Mac
Retina model?
Solid State Hard Drive Vs Regular
The newest MacBook Pros, of course - the Retina models - already come with a SSD installed. Until recently, though, you really couldn't upgrade your flash storage. Now, on certain models, you can upgrade the flash storage (although you'll void your warranty if you crack the case, so buyer beware). Both Other World Computing and Transcend produce flash storage modules so that you can upgrade your storage to up to 1 terabyte. Note that both the OWC and the Transcend modules will only work with 'older' Retina models or MacBook Pro Airs - not the newer models that have a PCIe interface. Still, having these options available is more than you could have hoped for previously. Will there ever be PCIe based flash storage available? Only time will tell. Not much else to say about Retina models.
Final note…
Solid State External Hard Drive For Mac Thunderbolt
I do not recommend placing your SSD into the optical bay of your MacBook Pro – your start-up drive is meant to be in the hard drive bay and that’s where you want to install your SSD. Installing another SSD or a hard drive into your optical bay is beyond the scope of this user tip. And also note that this tip covers only one method – my preferred method – for getting your data to your SSD.