Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

SSD in my older MBP

i have an older MBP, 2.4Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo 15 inch 160 GB drive with 4GBs memory in and would like to put in an SSD drive to give it some more life. i read the max drive i can have in it is 256Gbs.


is this correct? and which drives fit my machine? any? Any idea how to tell?


im UK based and was looking at the Samsung 830/840 range...

OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Nov 14, 2012 4:55 AM

Reply
4 replies

Nov 21, 2012 5:36 AM in response to mumbles2701

anybody?


i dont know about drive speeds, drive connections, i can have in my older MBP.


What can my MBP achieve in Read Write speeds?


some drive achieve '• 230MB/s Read, 190MB/s Write' and others 'Drive • 500MB/s Read, 260MB/s Write'. can my MBP take account of these speeds? how do i find out what it achieves on its original drive still fitted?


any help would be gratefully recieved...

Nov 21, 2012 6:28 AM in response to mumbles2701

mumbles2701 wrote:

i dont know about drive speeds, drive connections, i can have in my older MBP


Download the free MacTracker, do a Apple Menu > About this Mac > More Information and find your Model like "MacBook Pro 1,1" and use that to find your Hard Drive Interface, likely only SATA 1 which is only 1.5 Gb/s.


SSD is really only good for newer machines with SATA 3 6Gbp/s.


In your case I would opt for a 7,200 RPM drive as this will give performance and large storage as your processor is 32 bit, thus has a 3.5GB or so RAM limit, and thus needs to swap memory often with the hard drive.


SSD would be a waste of money for a machine on it's last legs anyway, they only last about 4.5 years with near daily use.


Install/upgrade RAM or storage drive in Mac's


How to erase and install Snow Leopard 10.6

Nov 21, 2012 12:46 PM in response to ds store

thanks DS


Mactracker tells me:


Hard Drive Interface 1.5 Gbps Serial ATA (SATA)


does that mean a 3gbs SATA speeds drive would be useless? such as a drive as:


256GB Crucial v4 SATA 3Gb/s 2.5-inch SSD

256GB Crucial v4 Internal 2.5-inch (9.5mm) Solid State Drive • 230MB/s Read, 190MB/s Write
Part #: CT256V4SSD2


this does say its SATA and not SATA II or III such as some other drives from the same manufacturer suggest...


Nov 24, 2012 1:47 AM in response to mumbles2701

An upgrade to an SSD on any SATA interface (I, II, III - 1.5, 3, or 6Gb/s) will be a dramatic improvement. Sequential and Random reads/writes are substantially higher on an SSD compared to any mechanical drive in any situation. SATA is backwards compatible, you could (and should) purchase a SATA III SSD, it will perform fine on your SATA I interface - plus - you'll be able to take advantage of the newer SSD chipsets and a more mature feature-set. I do suggest getting one based on a Sandforce chipset.


SSD's longevity - 4.5 years? Wrong. they last significantly longer than that and have an average lifespan about twice as long as traditional mechanical harddrives. This measure of lifespan is a huge misconception in current market SSD's.


My Western Digital RE4 mechanical drives have an MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) of 1.2 million hours, my Patriot and Corsair SSD's all have 2 million hours with an enterprise class Corsair having 10 million hours. I have a 6 year old Samsung SSD that acts as a cache drive in a heavy use server, this really is a worst case situation for an SSD and I've had no problems at all and it's going on six years old.


Best of luck.

SSD in my older MBP

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple ID.