SSD FOR MACBOOK PRO

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Level 1

14 points

SSD FOR MACBOOK PRO

HI ALL! I HAVE RECENTLY MOVED TO A 15.4 INCH MACBOOK PRO (JUNE 2012 MODEL WITH 2.3 GHZ i7 and 4 GB RAM) from my beloved macbook air.

even though this is an amazing machine i am finding a lot of waiting time in doing things (a lot of that rainbow round busy icon !) and recon its only because of the lack of a SSD. am i right?

no, if its the only reason then i would like to swap the HDD for a SSD. and my question is has anybody done this? how much difference did it make?

will this SSD increase my battery life? will this void any warranty?

any helpful advise on buying which SSD will be a great help too.

many thanks and hope to hear from all you nice people soon!

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.3.x)

Posted on Sep 20, 2012 1:41 PM

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Answer 1

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Bimmer 7 Series

Level 6

10,337 points

Sep 20, 2012 1:49 PM in response to shawonaries

like yourself - i purchased the base model and upgraded the RAM to 16GB and swapped the hard drive for a SSD.

the advantage - faster boot time 13 secs. and applications runs much better with the RAM upgrade.

your fine with 4GB but you'll be much better with 8GB - around $50......

for the SSD - it all depends on the size you want. expect to spend around $175 to $250 for a 240GB or 256GB.

good brands to consider are the following:

Crucial M4 - best overall performance and very Mac friendly - I have this one in my 15 inch MB Pro.

Kingston Hyper X - very fast but expensive - I have this one in my 13 inch MB Pro

Sandisk Extreme - currently one of the fastest out there.

Samsung 830 Series - this is the same one installed in the Macbook Pro Retina.

Battery life will be a little better since the SSD has no moving parts.

It will not void your warranty when you do a RAM and/hard drive swap. The only time warranty gets void if you damage anything when doing the upgrade.

Good luck

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Answer 2

shawonaries Author

Level 1

14 points

Sep 20, 2012 1:55 PM in response to Bimmer 7 Series

great, many many thanks for such a quick response.

will definately upgrade the RAM and get a SSD.

there are a lot of SSD's from OCZ (NEVER HEARD OF THEM BEFORE ACTUALLY!) are they any good?

they are quite cheap, and was ust wondering if could save some money because i dont mind whatever its called!

thanks abain!

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Answer 3

Sep 20, 2012 2:00 PM in response to shawonaries

OCZ is not bad - if you get the one with updated firmware - they're pretty fast too.

You can't go wrong if you go with OCZ SSD - again, just update the firmware if you decide to go for it...

Good luck.

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