Late 2008 Unibody Macbook--SSD?

THank You, I didn't have that link handy. I respect your opinion having read your advice before, do you think the risk is worth taking? I really want to put an SSd in my imac but I also run Yosemite....I'm weighing my options.

Hey I accidentally posted this response to your post. I was trying to post on another page about a MBP sorry

Mike, I had installed a SSD some time ago (two years?). I installed Yosemite when it was released not realizing that Trim Enabler would be automatically turned off. Quite accidentally I decided to check TE about two months ago and discovered it was Off.

At that point I did as much research as I could... Finally I made the choice to activate Trim and disable kext security signing. That's my personal choice based on my own computing habits. So far there have been no disasters. Fingers crossed. Whether the risk is worth taking I think depends on one's own computing habits. Mine are pretty routine and I am not about to do anything adventurous, so I'm guessing Im ok.

Thanks for the opinion. I'm just not sure I can bring myself to disable kext signing globally. My best option if I really want to install the SSD might be to revert back to Mavericks.

Apparently there is a third option, viz. to "trim" the drive occasionally! See the post in this thread:

http://www.larryjordan.biz/caution-ssd-drives-and-yosemite/

If you only wish to “trim” your SSD’s once in a while, then instead of turning trim on and turning KEXT off, there is a much better method.

Reboot your mac and Go into Recovery mode (while rebooting keep the Command + R buttons pressed). Once in recovery, go to Disk Utility. There, click on “Repair Disk”. Although there might be no problems with your disk, the essence is that at the end of the Repair Disk, the Disk Utility runs the trim command on the disk and that should probably do the trick. Check the messages that are displayed on the Disk Utility while you are repairing your SSD drive, you’ll see what I mean.

Very interesting read. I really liked the article it linked from OWC as to why they say their ssd doesn't need trim. I'm thinking my best bet is just to buy the OWC ssd and pay the few extra bucks. I trust them and it's probably well worth it. thanks Eustace

Hey, I am a bit confused… didn't you earlier recommend to avoid the SSD3 with SandForce? (I do have NVidia MCP79 …. ) The OWC SSD uses SandForce.

Thanks.

I am considering upgrading my late 2008 MacBook aluminum with an SSD and am trying to figure out the requirements. From this thread, I am concluding that - I need SATA, but not SATA III

- I need 3gb/s and not 6gb/s

- Yosemite kills Trim, so better go with OWC (and potentially occasional disk repair) to avoid the need for trim

Do I have the basics right?

Also, do I need a special case for the cloning step of transitioning to the new hard drive?

And can I use the old hard drive as an external storage after I yank it out?

Lets deal with the questions first:

Also, do I need a special case for the cloning step of transitioning to the new hard drive?

And can I use the old hard drive as an external storage after I yank it out?

To transfer data between the drives, you need to be able to connect both drives at the same. You can do that with an inexpensive enclosure like this for example. This is just an example. http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=177939 9&CatId=2781

Put the new drive in the enclosure, connect it and transfer the data. Next, verify that you can boot from the external and use it to check that the drive has everything it should have.

Next swap the drives. And yes, you can now use the old drive as an external.

From this thread, I am concluding that - I need SATA, but not SATA III

You can use SATA I, II or III. The faster drives will work - they are backwards compatible.

Finally, a comment about Trim on Yosemite. My understanding is that the kext signing security feature was implemented on Yosemite, and does not exist in Mavericks. If that is the case, I see no benefit in going back to Mavericks to keep Trim enabled. In both cases - Trim with Mavericks or Trim in modified Yosemite - there is no kext signing security.

According to OWC support due to a hardware conflict if you have the Nvidia MCP79 (3GB) controller you should avoid using SATA III (6GB) ssds that use the sandforce controller as they will only run at SATA I (1.5GB) speeds. A SATA II (3GB) SSD will run at full speed even if it has a sandforce controller. A Samsung drive even though it's SATA III will run at SATA II speeds because it doesn't use sandforce.

OWC says that their drives don't need TRIM because of the garbage collection scheme that they use but there are conflicting reports on that too, it all depends on who you choose to believe. I put an OWC SATA II 3GB SSD in my imac recently and right now have not enabled TRIM. I'm waiting for an update to Cindori's software that hopefully will work in Yosemite without turning off kext signing.

You just need a 2.5" usb drive enclosure and can certainly use the old drive for storage. Partition and format the new SSD before you put it in your macbook.

Does that make it more clear?

OWC says that their drives don't need TRIM because of the garbage collection scheme that they use

Does OWC manufacture SSD drives?

Eustace Mendis wrote:

OWC says that their drives don't need TRIM because of the garbage collection scheme that they use

Does OWC manufacture SSD drives?

Excellent question. I don't know, I have one and it looks like they might. I'm just passing along information they gave me when I was considering different drives for my iMac.

Eustace Mendis wrote:

Finally, a comment about Trim on Yosemite. My understanding is that the kext signing security feature was implemented on Yosemite, and does not exist in Mavericks. If that is the case, I see no benefit in going back to Mavericks to keep Trim enabled. In both cases - Trim with Mavericks or Trim in modified Yosemite - there is no kext signing security.

I agree to a point.....I suppose the security issue is a wash between the two OS's but in Yosemite if you reset the PRAM or update your OS and forget to turn off TRIM your Mac isn't going to start. Could be a problem for some.

if you reset the PRAM or update your OS .....

Yes indeed. Cindori warns us about that.

Might interest you to know that I have updated the OS (10.10.1 to 10.10.2) and the update automatically disabled Trim! I did this while booted from an external. For obvious reasons I did not want to test it on my internal start up drive.)

I just hope the "teaser" on Cindori's web site is indeed a version that just works with Apple's kext signing.

Hey guys, i would be really glad if someone could help me. My english is not the best but i think u understand what my problem is.

So i wanted to upgrade my macbook late 2008 with an SSD. I already got 4 gb of ram in it. I bought the PATRIOT Blast with 240 gb which should work with macbooks. Because the macbook is that old i wanted to set it up new. I made a bootable usb stick which all worked well. I put the ssd in an USB case and connected it to the macbook. Then i installed os x from the usb stick to the ssd (all by usb).

Everything worked fine but only if the ssd is connected by usb!!! By usb the macbook boots very fast and easy but when i connect the ssd with the sata cable, it starts but nothing happens, only the apple logo and a full loading bar...

When i press "alt" after starting tone, i can boot via ssd and the recovery partition... So everything looks good but why isn't it working? 😟

I also resetted pram or how it is called: pressing option + cmd + p + r.

Any ideas what could cause the problem? Is the sata cable not working with the newest ssd's? But it should be downgradable and i mean, the macbook is recognizing the ssd but only boots when it's connected via usb.