Upgrading Macbook Pro 13 inch (mid-2012) i7 ver.

I would avoid the Samsung SSD. If you scan these forums, many users have had difficulties with Samsung SSDs. (Some have not) Note that Samsung fails to mention Mac compatibility on their web site. I find that telling.

I can recommend Crucial SSDs based on my experience of installing three of them in my MBPs. OWC SSDs also have an excellent reputation.

I can endorse the Crucial RAM. I have 16 GB of Crucial RAM installed in two of my MBPs. 16 GB RAM should present no problem for your MBP. OWC also is an excellent vendor of Mac compatible RAM.

Ciao.

OWC may be a bit more in price but the reputation is good as well as the company service. I have had the Crucial SSDs for about six months with no problems. It is a small sample, but so are the negative reviews. The one hitch that I had was due to a lack of not having the latest firmware installed. It was easily resolved.

Ciao.

sultan.naf wrote:

Dear Apple Community

Greetings,

i would like to hear your thoughts about upgrading Macbook Pro 13 inch (mid-2012) i7 2.9 ver. with the following:

1- replace the stock HDD 750 GB to a Samsung EVO 850 SSD 1 TB in the link below

http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-2-5-Inch-Internal-MZ-75E250B-AM/dp/B00OAJ412U/ref= cm_cr_pr_product_top?ie=UTF8

As Oglethorpe said, the Samsung 850 series is problematic. Recently two users here reported they were told by Samsung Tech Support personnel that it isn’t compatible with Macs. On the Samsung Web site it lists only Windows support. I personally had 2 fail but an OWC is working just fine.

2- replace the stock RAM memory which is 8 GB (2x 4GB) to 16 GB (2x 8GB) in the link below

http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-DDR3L-1600-PC3-12800-CT2K8G3S160BM-CT2C8G3S160BM/d p/B008LTBJFW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1450…

i know that apple is stating that 8GB is the maximum RAM.

is it ok to do so?.? (system and stability wise not hardware wise)

will i be experiencing any issues with the system after the upgrade?.?

i had done a lot of research regarding that matter but am not sure yet.

Apple states its specs at the time the computer ships and never updates them. It is quite common for manufacturers to release larger RAM chips after the computer ships. OWC and Crucial state your computer can be upgraded to 16GB.

your help is much appreciated

Thanks in advance

Best Regards

I have a bit of experience with that exact Macbook Pro. The samsung drives are good drives. They aren't as well established and upgradable friendly. Transcend on the other hand makes a series of ssd for that exact model. I believe its the Transcend 750. I would take a look at that drive. It is a bit on the spendy side but it has great software that comes with it to maintain and help install. As far as the crucial Ram 8gb x 2 I have the same set-up in my early 2013 and it runs like a dream. I also use a transcend ssd that is built exactly for my 15.4" Macbook pro. SO I don't know if that helps at all. But the Smasung I know is more of a OEM drive for apple so they have a good rep. I actually pulled out a samsung and replaced it with the 750 transcend version for my Macbook and it runs fast. The Transcend is a 1tb as well. So I don't know if you have went that far as to looking into that set-up. But it couldn't hurt.

Cheers and good luck,

J

You’re welcome. OWC and Crucial RAM prices change frequently, sometimes one is less expensive, other days the other is. OWC and Crucial have become my choices for SSDs. I took a chance on a Kingston drive when the sale price was just too good to pass up and I’ve had no problems with it but its write speeds aren’t quite as good as the OWC or Crucial drives.

sultan.naf wrote:

But yet again, am considering OWC SSD & RAM since they guarantee the compatibility with mac although the Samsung EVO 850 SSD is a bit faster and cheaper than Mercury Electra 6G SSD.

OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G

MacBook Pro (15-inch Mid 2012), OS X El Capitan(10.11.2), i7 480GB SSD 16GB RAM iPhone5 iOS9.2, Parallels10.0.2

This is a better comparison page:

(Also note the 5 year warranty)

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/OWC/Mercury_6G/

Depending on your usage and work flow your consumer grade SSD may well be sufficient.

Otherwise the merits of a prosumer grade maybe worth the upfront cost.

Incompressible data — data that does not shrink when lossless compression is applied, or even grows in size.

Incompressible data includes certain types of TIF and PSD*, JPEG, video and sound files, ZIP files, etc. The incompressible-write speed hit is for writes.