Samsung 850 EVO in Early Macbook Pro

Just wanted to share my experience installing a Samsung 850 EVO 1TB SSD on my Early 2011 15" MacBook Pro

• First, I made a bootable drive of OS X El Capitan using DiskMaker X. I used a spare hard drive that I placed in an external USB case.
• Next, I physically installed the Samsung 850 EVO 1TB SSD into the main drive bay.
• Then, I tried to power up the Mac while holding down the 'option' key with the bootable external drive already plugged in, but that only lead me to two options: Install OS X El Capitan, or Select Wi-Fi...I clicked Install OS X El Capitan (knowing I had NOT yet formatted the newly installed SSD) and of course, it didn't work. Some funky lines of code ran quickly down the screen and then just a blank white screen appeared. I then shut off the Mac.
• Now to what worked for me: With the Mac still off, I unplugged the bootable external drive, and then I turned it on and held down the 'option' key. This lead me to a gray screen with only one option, 'Select Wi-Fi.' I selected my Wi-Fi and it began Internet Recovery. After about 5 minutes or so, it brought me to the screen I had been hoping for, the OS X Utilities screen. Here I selected Disk Utility and proceeded to format the SSD appropriately. When the formatting of the SSD completed, I shut off the Mac. Then I plugged back in the bootable external drive and powered it on again, holding down the 'option' key. From here I selected 'Install OS X El Capitan' and proceeded as normal.

Again, just wanted to share my experience and what I did to get my 850 EVO SSD up and running on my 2011 MacBook Pro in hopes it might be able to help someone.

Im trying to install the os on 850 eve as i read ur mention that ur using the method of installing via externally using usb port on to the 850 evo ssd..i've try this method but i cannot trimforce so after i restart the os can't boot, found that after ur install the os then u said ur using migration tool then can use the sad right? can you please guid me on step by step how to do so about migration tools ur saying

Samsung Evo 850 SSD work great for me in my Macbook Pro Mid-2012 !......

See my Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qDvPJV11Yk

omy still cloneing the hdd to ssd later i give feedback

didn't work as i follow the video after i put the ssd inside the macbook and start it promt out a picture of a life and [?] letter on it

You can hold down the "option key" when you power on the computer and see what drives are available.

If you don't see your SSD then the sata cable connection is bad or the SSD is bad.

eventho i can boot normally using my old hdd then that means the ssd bad? or maybe sata cable 50/50 can be bad?

Samsung Evo 850 worked for me.....

Works great !....

Macbook performs very very well now.

See my video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qDvPJV11Yk

Also see this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDWZLPoq__4

I purchased a Samsung EVO 850 last year for us in my Mid-2009 MBP. After transferring everything and running great for a while, it stopped booting. Disk utility could not fix it. I finally had to have a friend wipe it with a Windows machine (it was backed up) and I started over with a fresh install of OSX. It would still hang on boot from time to time. Finally, it hung after an update about two weeks ago. It would not boot, and again disk utility couldn't fix it. This time my friend was out of town, and I said "screw it." I ordered and just installed a PNY budget SSD. So far, so good. My suspicion is that it is a TRIM problem, as I know some people had issues with those drives, particularly on Macs.

Thought I would add my two cents here, in case it can help others: I have a MacBook pro (13 inch, mid2012) 2.9Ghz Intel Core i7. I wanted to upgrade with the Samsung V-nand SSD 850 EVO (1TB).

I backed up my MacBook pro HD with Time machine on an external HD and created an HD image on a formated partition of the same External HD.

I installed the Samsung SSD, rebooted holding 'command + R', and chose the restore using Time Machine option. Then rebooted again, and I a message saying the new disk could not be read appear (My Ext HD was still plugged in and the reboot performed on that disk instead of the Samsung SSD). I rebooted again this time with the Ext HD unplugged, and the ? folder appeared, confirming the Samsung SSD could not be read.

Third time's the charm, rebooted pressing 'command + R' with my Ext HD plugged in, this time choose the disk utility option, you'll see the Samsung SSD, select it, choose erase, then format the SSD to MacOS (journaled), call it whatever you want (Mac HD). Once formated, you'll see a new disk partition underneath the first Samsung SSD with the new name.

Now select the image HD on your External HD, and click restore. The source should be your image HD, then click and slide the new partition on the Samsung SSD named 'Mac HD' to the destination box. And press restore, accept to erase data on Samsung SSD and wait until the transfer is done.

Reboot normally (with Ext HD unplugged), open terminal and enable TRIM using 'sudo trimforce enable', then check that it was enabled in 'About this Mac'>'System Report'>'SATA/SATA Express, and check 'Trim Support', it needs to say 'yes'. Et voila! Should be good to go. And yes once set up properly with a new Samsung SSD your laptop is a jet! Hope this helps, cheers.

I just wanted to post an update to this discussion: I have been using my Samsung 850 EVO SSD for a year and a half and it has performed flawlessly. I now run El Capitan 10.11.6 on my 2011 MacBook Pro 17" and it still performs really well even against newer model MacBooks.

The 17" MacBook Pro continues to be a workhorse, providing me with the large display and necessary outlets I need when contracting for clients: USB, Firewire, Thunderbolt, Ethernet, and an even an Express Card SD slot. Luckily, after my display and logic board died on me earlier this year it was still under the extended warranty that Apple provided older MacBook owners. They replaced my display and logic board for free. I actually contract for Samsung Mobile now, and sing the praises of the Samsung 850 EVO.

I was also a happy 850 EVO camper (1 TB and 2 TB), but have been unable to get one of the new 4 TB 850 EVOs to work in the internal drive bay of my late 2011 17" MBP. Neither Disk Utility nor System Report can see the drive. I contacted Samsung tech supported, who suggested that the SATA cable must be at fault. I replaced it with a new one, but that made no change. Putting an older 1 TB 840 EVO back in the system worked just fine. The drive *does* work in an external USB enclosure, FWIW.

Does anyone have a 4TB 850 EVO (or any other 4TB drive) working internally in a 2011 17" MBP?

Just adding my two cents on this subject.... I had a 13" Retina MBP, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, Intel Iris Graphics..yada yada yada. I LOVED that machine. As bad things happen from time to time, that machine and I were separated. About a month ago, I ran into a heck of a deal on a 2011 13" MBP ($100!!!). After a little Googling, I went to Best Buy and snagged a Samsung EVO 850 250GB SSD, looked around on eBay and got a generic (not OWC) data doubler and purchased 2 sticks of 1067GHz 8GB RAM also from eBay. Let me first say that I was doing this on an extreme budget. I couldn't justify spending nearly $40 on a data doubler from OWC when devices that looked the same were readily available on eBay for a fraction of that ($10), not to mention the generic version is much more sturdily constructed. After extensive research and shopping on eBay, I also went with Knight RAM ($65.99 for 2 8GB sticks). After requesting the 840 Pro Samsung drive at Best Buy, because the 2011 13" only supports a max of 3GBps, not the 6GBps data transfer rate that the 850 EVO sports, the associate price matched it for me and I got my 250GB SSD for $90. All that said, I was very skeptical about the Knight RAM, and was worried about the generic data doubler fitting properly. First I formatted my new SSD via USB, and then took the back off the MBP and started the upgrades. I put the SSD in the main drive spot, and put the old 500GB HDD in the data doubler for added storage. Next, I installed El Capitan, booted into the OS and immediately enabled TRIM. I started playing around with it and I was compltely blown away. WHAT AN AMAZING MACHINE THIS THING IS!!!! I couldn't believe the latency (or should I say the lack of). Boot times are PHENOMENAL!!! Both on the OS X and Windows side (I do have bootcamp installed with Windows 7 to play SWTOR). The data doubler fit perfectly and the Knight RAM is spectacular. So now I have an SSD-powered MBP beast with 16 gigs of RAM, and to tell the truth, I'm happier with this machine than I was with the 2014 Retina model. Maybe it's the sense of pride from upgrading it, or maybe that I have a fraction of the cost invested into it that compared to what I paid for the 2014 MBP as new in the box, but what it boils down to is that this computer outperforms most computers sold off the shelves even today. The data doubler is not an essential part of the upgrade, but I'm telling anyone that is out there wondering if they should upgrade their 2011 or 2012 MBP with an SSD and more RAM...the answer is an emphatic "YES!!!!" Oh, and the Samsung 850 EVO is also spectacular! No issues whatsoever with it.

Sorry, I was incorrect about it being a 2011 model...it's actually a mid-2010 MacBookPro 7,1, which makes it even more amazing at the performance of it!!!