sandisk ultra II 480gb ssd upgrade for macbook pro (5,4) 2009

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sandisk ultra II 480gb ssd upgrade for macbook pro (5,4) 2009

Hi, this is not a question but just some information I wanted to drop by as I was desesperately searching for this but couldn't find any info anywhere here or elsewhere online....

My 6 year old 250GB internal hard drive died and I decided to replace it with an ssd, after looking at all the options and reading about issues of compatibility, crash/booth problems, etc. I decided to (without a clue and fingers crossed) go with the sandisk ultra II ssd 480GB

So far so good, the mac runs amazingly fast, no issues intalling el capitan osx and no issues with negotiated SATA speed, runs at 3gps. It is indeed like having a brand new computer!

Conclusion: 100% reccomended upgrade

MacBook Pro (15-inch 2.53 GHz), OS X El Capitan (10.11.5), 4gb memory

Posted on May 26, 2016 7:32 AM

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Answer 1

May 26, 2016 7:58 AM in response to charlie_ve

I recently made a similar decision for my Mac Pro silver tower server, installing two 960GB SSDs from that manufacturer (Sandisk).

The SATA 3G bits/sec of the Mac's SATA Bus limits you to a maximum of about 375M Bytes/sec. Although this is slightly slower than the maximum speeds that SSD claims (in the range of about 500 M Bytes/sec best case), it is still quite fast.

The speed improvement over a Rotating drive is so great, it is certainly worthwhile.

Be sure you enable TRIM on your SSD. If running 10.10.4 or later you can use the Terminal command:

sudo trimforce enable

(your password is not echoed, you will be warned that this is serious, and a restart will be done once TRIM is enabled.)

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Answer 2

charlie_ve Author

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May 26, 2016 7:55 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

thanks for the reply, regarding TRIM, I read el capitan doesn't need that to be done anymore? or was it just that third party enablers were not necessary anymore?

anyhow, what is the benefit of enabling TRIM? and do I have to run that command everytime I booth the computer?

also what is at stake if I decide not to enable TRIM

thanks!

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Answer 3

May 26, 2016 8:01 AM in response to charlie_ve

what is at stake if I decide not to enable TRIM

Your drive cannot get rid of deleted data blocks. You run the risk that is fills up with deleted data, gets slower and slower, and ultimately chokes and stops working.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2015/06/latest-os-x-update-allows-you-to-enable-tri m-for-third-party-ssds/

.

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Answer 4

charlie_ve Author

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May 26, 2016 8:03 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

wow, that's quite bad!

thanks for the advice, do I need to run the command everytime I rebooth the laptop or that is just done one time and problem sorted?

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Answer 5

May 26, 2016 8:06 AM in response to charlie_ve

Run it once, and it turns the feature on for all potential SSDs for that copy of MacOS. This setting survives a Restart, and works with Safe Mode.

But if you have another copy of MacOS on a different drive, that copy must also have the feature enabled while it is running.

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Answer 6

charlie_ve Author

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May 26, 2016 8:16 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

great thanks a lot!

I just read the link you posted and they say: " It’s by no means a requirement, but it’s helpful and could potentially help the performance of an SSD as it ages."

so what is the general concensus? to TRIM or not to TRIM?

the thing is, my macbook pro ran smoothly for 6 years, i've been upgrading the osx since snow leopard and never had a problem, I work with professional photography and never had any issues with workload or slowness.. I was really proud that my 6 year old mac was better and faster (for my purpose) than any brand new windows machine around.. until a couple of months ago everything started to collapse, everyday was worse and worse, crashes, weird behaviour to the point that it didn't want to booth anymore, not even in safe mode or recovery mode. result: hard drive died.

it was such a frustrating experience that now that the mac is back in full charm and better and faster than ever (i feel like i have a brand new super fast one) I really rather not do anything that is not absolutely necessary...

cheers!

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Answer 7

May 29, 2016 8:00 AM in response to charlie_ve

Apple automatically enables TRIM for all Apple SSDs.

If you run a Third-party SSD, you should be manually enabling TRIM.

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Answer 8

charlie_ve Author

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8 points

May 29, 2016 8:05 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Hi, just following up, I've contacted Sandisk customer support and they have confirmed that we should run TRIM manually and there are no known issues with El Capitan OSX and sandisk ssd internal drives. Here some quotes from the support chat:

"

-Yes it is recommended to use TRIM for life span of the SSD

-The Trim command enables an Operating System to inform an SSD which blocks of data are no longer considered to be in use and can be reclaimed internally by the SSD to ensure that later write operations perform at full speed. Since a memory block must be erased before it can be re-programmed, TRIM improves performance by pro-actively erasing blocks containing invalid (garbage) data, allowing the SSD to write new data without first having to perform a time-consuming erase command. In addition, the wear-and-tear on the SSD is also reduced significantly, as the SSD can effectively manage all the reclaimed spaces.

-There is no compatibility issue. TRIM is an OS feature and our SSD supports TRIM when connected to SATA

-If the OS allows TRIM then it will work

"

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Answer 9

Aug 6, 2016 2:03 PM in response to charlie_ve

Hi Charlie,

I am trying to do exactly the same thing, but cant make it work. I have bought the same SSD to replace on macbook pro. Currently running OS X El Capitan. Are you able to post a step by step guide how you have done it? I created a back up copy using time machine on the new ssd, but when the system will not boot from this. Many thanks.

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