Samsung 850 EVO in Early Macbook Pro

Just installed the Samsung 850 EVO in a MacBook Pro 8,2 (15" Early-2011) without any troubles. With a few caveats...

• The Toshiba HDD that I replaced is dated 20 AUG 2011.
• I did an internet restore, which prompted me to install Lion
• From that internet restore, I formatted the drive
• After that, I booted to a bootable USB for a clean install of Sierra. It did turn up a few errors in the install log, but after an EFI update (long tone on restart) it booted to the OS.

Machine is running great and it's absolutely silent. The display makes more ambient noise than the fans or HD. I'm impressed and, after a little more than 24 hours, really pleased.

Actually there is two kinds of problem when trying to boot from SSD plugged in the internal SATA (even if the system can boot on the SSD in USB):

IF YOUR COMPUTER IS BOOTING, but you can't log in and you stucked in the "no entry sign" = "Prohibitory sign".

=> you made a wrong copy of the disk! Redo the job with CCC and no options, add a recovery partition

=> choose to boot from SSD

IF YOU COMPUTER IS NOT MOUNTING THE SSD : you get a question mark "?" at startup, then, it is a problem of cable.

=> change the SATA cable.

Thank you for posting this information. Worked like a charm for my Samsung Evo 850 SSD. I was upgrading from a 128GB SanDisk SSD and kept getting stuck on the blank blue/gray screen when attempting to boot. Cloned the SandDisk to the new Samsung via SuperDuper and the MacBook had no issues recognizing the Samsung drive when connected via usb, but just like you, it worked like a charm when I held down option upon startup. I know this is a two year old post, but I was hoping you'd be able to elaborate on how you were able to make it so your mac booted up off the Samsung w/o having to hold down option each time? Many thanks!

Sorry, I also have a similar question. I have a 13" MBP early 2011 and I'm thinking of upgrading its 750GB HDD with Samsung 4TB EVO 850 ssd. Not sure if it will work. Any input would be appreciated. Thanks.

It should work fine. However, the SATA cable may need to be replaced. The cables are notoriously picky when it comes to SSDs. They'll work fine with a HDD, but then only work intermittently with SSDs.

Also as a side note, the Samsung 750 has a more recent firmware and will have a faster SATA link speed. It's a even more budget model with a shorter warranty, but it is a newer model and should be roughly the same price.

On my 2012 MacBook Pros, the 850 EVO would only connect at 3Gbps, but the 750 EVO would connect at the full 6Gbps. Likewise on the 2009 MacBooks. The 850 EVO would connect at 1.5Gbps, while the 750 would connect at the full 3Gbps.

Not sure why. Regardless of the reported link speed, you'll see a HUGE increase in responsiveness. It's absolutely worth buying. If you've never owned a laptop with an SSD (even a "slow" SSD), then you're in for a treat. 🙂

Hi Muldvarp007,

I Just ordered the 850 EVO for my mid 2012 15" Macbook Pro- NON-Retina display. I hope it works with Yosemite. Anyone else out there?

Are you trying to partition your drive to also run windows? Normally when setting up a drive to install Yosemite you would go to disk utilities click on the disk and select erase disk. Then go to partition chose only one partition. select options and choose GUID. Then go back and do the install.You could see if any of this will helpsupport.apple.com/en-us/HT203176http://

I purchased the 850 EVO SSD this week and installed it in my 2011 MacbBook Pro 17".

Note for Time Machine users: I formatted the partition, set it to GUID, then I tried to do a Time Machine restore to the new drive. Unfortunately, the 850 EVO drive would boot halfway then hang. So I read that Time Machine Restore doesn't like new drives, so I went back erased the 850 EVO drive and installed a fresh version of OSX Yosemite from an external USB Flash drive. I was successfully able to boot afterwards, then I used the migration tool to get back up and running. I run my apps and OS Yosemite on the SSD and have another drive for my documents, media, and assets.

The drive is super fast and noticeably so after using an OWC 6G SSD the past three years. Blackmagic Speed Test benchmarked the Read/Write speeds at 500mbps in most tests.

Overall, I am very happy with the Samsung EVO 850 - 250gb. Now if I can just figure out if I should use Trim Enabler or not.

Your drives are most likely working as Samsung intended. I'm currently upgrading several MacBook Pros for coworkers, and ran into this problem. It will neither format nor install via the internal SATA. The workaround is to connect the drive via external USB. From there you can partition/format/install to the drive. After you're done, you can install it.

However, if you ever plan to erase & install, you'll have to take it out and connect it externally all over again.

From what I gather, Samsung does have Mac specific firmwares for their 830 and 840 series SSDs. Descriptions says it addresses compatibility issues, which we're seeing here. The 850 is brand new, so perhaps they'll release the Mac firmware soon so you don't have to jump through hoops to get it to work.

http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/minisite/SSD/us/html/suppor t/downloads.html

Spoke too soon. Refuses to boot when installed internally, even after formatting & installing over USB.

850 EVO clearly doesn't work with 2012 MacBook Pro, even though they advertise it.

May be a problem with the computer itself. Worked fine in a unibody white MacBook.

Was Trim setup?

That will cause problems with third-party SSDs and Yosemite

http://www.cindori.org/trim-enabler-and-yosemite/

I managed to track down an identical MacBook Pro. It was indeed a problem with the one I was working on. Either the SATA controller or cable is somehow damaged. The teacher brought it in complaining it was slow, so I took the opportunity to go ahead and upgrade it (it was the first laptop I recieved to upgrade.) In any event, it didn't work in that laptop. I put the SSD into the other 2012 MacBook pro and it booted up just fine. Nice and speedy. It was even faster after installing the TRIM enabler.

The old laptop even with the original HDD was having problems booting. So the SSDs appear to be fine. I was even able to erase the SSD when connected internally on the laptop, which is an improvement over the 840 EVO which wouldn't format no matter what when installed, had to do it over USB.

I’ve replaced quite a few drive cables and I’ve also found more than a few cables barely connected to the logic board. Of course when someone brings their computer to be repaired and you ask, “Have you opened up the computer?” you are almost never going to get the answer “Why yes, and after I couldn’t get the new drive to boot I put the old one back in and it wouldn’t boot either. That’s why I’m here.” Given that, I don’t know if I’m seeing problems that naturally occur or whether there’s been some human intervention. I do know that I damaged a cable and I know what I’m doing so they are somewhat fragile.