I have a late 2011 MacBook Pro 15". I would like to upgrade the 5400rpm hardrive for a fast SSD. Is it easy to do yourself or should I get this done in a store?
MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2), Late 2011 15"
Anybody?
Sorry - this one slipped past me...
It's easy to DIY. I put a 512GB Crucial m4 into my 15" late 2011 MacBook Pro last April. There are hundreds of videos on YouTube on how to install the drive.
First, decide on which drive you want - there's a good info and buyer's guide here. Although much of the discussion is about drives for Windows machines, most buying advice is good for Mac's, too. You'll also want to get yourself a toolkit and an external enclosure for your old drive - I got both from OWC.
After you have the drive installed, follow the directions here to format the SSD and clone the 'old' drive to your new SSD.
Any questions? Yell back...
Clinton
Hey Clinton,
thanks for the quick reply.
If I install the SSD and then want to do a complete fresh install, is it possible to do that from recovery or is that partition actually on the old disk?
If you want to do a clean install of Mountain Lion? Just download the "Install OS X Mountain Lion.app" again and quit when it tries to install. Then use Lion DiskMaker to create a bootable drive (either/or a 8GB+ USB flash drive (my preference) or a dual-layer DVD (slow)).
Install the SSD and boot from your USB flash drive. Use Disk Utility to format the SSD ("Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" with a single GUID partition) and then install Mountain Lion on the SSD. Option boot and select your SSD as the startup drive. ALSO, after booting, make sure that you go to Startup Disk under System Preferences and select the SSD as your startup drive.
Then you can restore your data and apps in a number of ways - I just like the clone method because it's much simpler and faster.
Clinton
Thanks again...
Perfect... time to get out the credit card!!
Now how are you going to use that card? That is to ask: do you already have a SSD picked out?
Clinton
Not yet, but I've heard good things about the Crucial M4 that you picked.
Hi, I know this post is 3 years old but just wondering, I've read that for the late 2011 models only 3G SSDs will work, not 6G. But it looks like the 512GB Crucial m4 you mentioned is a 6G.
Who should I trust?
I know this comment is 3 months old but...
I have a late 2011, I installed a 6G Samsung 850 EVO 120GB yesterday with no problems at all. I'm using said laptop to write this comment.
Though if you're using something like this: (UK: http://amzn.to/1OW5bgX US: http://amzn.to/1OW5kRx) then I would recommend putting the HDD (rather than the SSD) in the adaptor.
INSTALL SSD IN MACBOOK PRO LATE 2011
