SATA 3 or 6 in 2012 Macbook pros?

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Level 1

12 points

SATA 3 or 6 in 2012 Macbook pros?

hello everyone!

i realized that my macbook is upgradable! i own a 2012 mbp 2.6 NON retina, and i really need the max performance out of it.

so my next step nowadays is to upgrade from 8GB ram to 16GB, which appeared it can take up 16GB where apple stated its only up to 8GB.

and to install two drives and remove the optical drive, not sure yet two ssd's or one ssd and one HD, and i already need a blueray burner so that dvd thing is not working for me anymore.

soo what confuses me now are the internal SATA interfaces, what are they? SATA 3 or 6? i couldnt find a reliable info about it, im having a hard time choosing what to buy for my mbp.

any idea/recommendations guys? it will be much appreciated =)

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.4)

Posted on Nov 1, 2012 6:04 PM

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Answer 1

Nov 1, 2012 6:07 PM in response to Khaledw

6

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Answer 2

Khaledw Author

Level 1

12 points

Nov 1, 2012 6:10 PM in response to Templeton Peck

Both the optical drive and the HD are SATA3/6GBs?

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Answer 3

ds store

Level 7

30,855 points

Nov 1, 2012 6:16 PM in response to Khaledw

Khaledw wrote:

What are they? SATA 3 or 6?

Both are SATA 3 - 6Gb/s

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA

two ssd's or one ssd and one HD

SSD in the boot drive spot, original HD in the Superdrive spot using a caddy, Superdrive itself goes into a external enclousre.

Of course losing the internal Superdrive means you can't boot off disks, likely can't watch movie DVD's neither, but it can be used externallly.

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Answer 4

Lanny

Level 6

13,225 points

Nov 1, 2012 6:19 PM in response to Khaledw

It should tell you in Apple System Profiler under hardware, serial-ATA.

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Answer 5

Khaledw Author

Level 1

12 points

Nov 1, 2012 6:26 PM in response to Lanny

yes it says:

Product: 7 Series Chipset

Link Speed: 6 Gigabit

Negotiated Link Speed: 3 Gigabit

and for the optical drive it says:

Product: 7 Series Chipset

Link Speed: 6 Gigabit

Negotiated Link Speed: 1.5 Gigabit

both link speeds are 6 GBs but that negotiated link speed what confuses me >_>

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Answer 6

Lanny

Level 6

13,225 points

Nov 1, 2012 6:37 PM in response to Khaledw

It could be related to the stock hard drive being a 5400 rpm drive.

Specs for a typical 5400rpm 500 Gig drive:

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Answer 7

ds store

Level 7

30,855 points

Nov 1, 2012 6:39 PM in response to Khaledw

It could be related to the stock hard drive being only SATA 2 - 3Gb/s 😁

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Answer 8

Khaledw Author

Level 1

12 points

Nov 1, 2012 6:43 PM in response to Lanny

woow so i can slide in a sata3 with 6GB/s in my mbp 😀😀😀😀😀 thats a relief! thank you Lanny you're the best!

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Answer 9

Lanny

Level 6

13,225 points

Nov 1, 2012 6:56 PM in response to Khaledw

Except for the fact that many of the 7200 rpm drives that I see being advertised are only capable of 3Gb/s.

You're going to need a SSD to probably take advantage of the 6Gb/s.

Be careful with the B and b. The correct spec is Gb/s or Giga bits per second. GB/s would be Giga bytes per second.

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Answer 10

Nov 1, 2012 6:54 PM in response to Khaledw

I have the MBP 15" Early 2011 and it has Sata 3 interface for the Hard Drive and Sata 2 interface for the Superdrive. When Apple did the tech refresh earlier this year they add Sata 3 interface for the Superdrive. However the Superdrive is not capable of anything over Sata 2.

I replaced my HD with a Samsung 830 Series 512GB SSD which uses the Sata 3 interface and I can say it is fast.

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Answer 11

Jun 19, 2017 11:45 PM in response to ds store

Not true if your external case is Firewire based...

Just a thought.

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Answer 12

Lanny

Level 6

13,225 points

Jun 20, 2017 6:01 AM in response to Martin Joseph

A thought about 5 years too late. Check the posting dates.

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