MacBook Pro Solid State Drive Upgrade Guide and Performance Testing

February 8, 2012 - 11:00am — brandon

Now that your original hard drive has been successfully cloned to the new SSD, you're ready to install the SSD in your MacBook. First, remove the SSD from the external drive enclosure. After fully shutting down your MacBook, flip it upside-down. The rest of this guide was made with an early 2011 MacBook Pro 13" in mind, but the process for other MacBooks should be similar. For model specific guides on how to replace your Macbook hard drives, you should check out OWC's Tech Center or iFixit for guides.

Use the Phillips 00 screwdriver to remove all of the screws on the bottom. The bottom panel should easily be removeable after all of the screws have been taken out.

A small black plastic bracket that secures the hard drive needs to be removed. Remove the two screws as indicated in the photo below.

After the screws are loosened, you should be able to easily lift the bracket up and off.

Carefully pull out the hard drive, keeping in mind the ribbon cable is relatively fragile. Hold the connector firmly while pulling it off of the hard drive.

There are four Torx T6 screws which need to be removed from the hard drive. There are two on each side of the drive.

Re-install the four screws on the SSD.

Now reverse the steps taken in removing the original hard drive, but with the SSD. Reattach the SATA data/power connector, slide the SSD in place, and secure the mounting bracket.

Confirm that the newly installed SSD is secure, then you can replace the back aluminum plate onto your MacBook.

Comments

April 26, 2013 - 9:38pm — Anonymous

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April 6, 2013 - 3:01pm — Anonymous

iMac 2007 upgrade

There is a tutorial to do this upgrade on an iMac 21" late 2007?

January 9, 2013 - 12:53pm — Anonymous

Only applications on HDD

What if I only want mountain lion and my applications on the SSD and my music, pictures and all other files to remain on my HDD? How do I know what folders to copy over to the SSD?

February 6, 2013 - 2:09pm — Anonymous

Just do a clean install of

Just do a clean install of Mountain Lion on the hard drive and copy your applications folder over afterwards to rewrite the installed applications folder.

December 20, 2012 - 1:54pm — Anonymous

Type of SSD

Do I need to buy the SSD from an Apple Store, or can it be any type of SSD? I tried to install an Intel 520 series SATA II/III SSD in my MacBook Pro 13" (2011) and it didn´t work; I had to restart the computer two times every time I turned it on. (and this SSD was made at an Apple authorized store; after I installed it, they told me it might not work properly!)

November 1, 2012 - 12:32pm — Anonymous

TRIM

What about the TRIM issue...

September 29, 2012 - 11:55am — Anonymous

is MicronC400 Compatible with MAcbook pro 8,1(early 2011) i7 13"

Hi is the macbook pro 2011 (early), i7 2.7ghz compatible with micron ssd c400 256gb (mtfddak256mam-1k12? Thank you

September 14, 2012 - 11:09pm — Anonymous

Thanks for the guide, made my

Thanks for the guide, made my transition to SSD effortless. I used Carbon Copy Cloner and it's still easy. Just wondering how much data does the author had on his hard drive? Because it took me 90minutes to copy 70GB of data from hard drive to SSD. For those who has Steam, do not use case-sensitive for the format because Steam doesn't run on case-sensitive formats. I tried and that's what happened for me. Fix was easy though, boot up from the hard drive just replaced (unless you wiped everything from the old hard drive) and format your SSD to case-insensitive and clone everything back from the hard drive you just replaced. I also read that after changing to SSD I should disable Sudden Motion Sensor, disable Hibernate and disable spotlight and use Trim Enabler. I've read the comment about not needing TRIM but what are your views on disabling this and that? Thanks again.

July 27, 2012 - 2:12am — Anonymous

Can SATA II MPB use a SATA III?

Okay, I know you can't get the 6Gb/s speed on a SATA II system, but can it physically accept a SATA III? I mean, suppose I found a great deal on a SATA III SSD and wanted to put it in my 2010 MBP 6,1 - could I? Or do I have to get a SATA II?

August 10, 2012 - 3:41am — Anonymous

It should run perfectly fine

It should run perfectly fine at SATA II speed, i mean got a SATA III disk in my SATA II MacBook Pro 2010, and it works like a charm.

July 26, 2012 - 9:40am — Anonymous

Format of SSD

Hi, thanks for a great guide. Why should the format be case-sensitive? /Jonas

July 26, 2012 - 9:46am — brandon

It doesn't really matter, you

It doesn't really matter, you can choose either case-sensitive or not. You SHOULDN'T encounter any issues either way, and if you do it would be rare.

July 6, 2012 - 2:16am — Anonymous

Is it void the warranty ?

Great article, i am planning to replace the hard drive with solid state storage but mine is still under warranty. is it void warranty ?

July 26, 2012 - 9:49am — brandon

Along with the memory (RAM),

Along with the memory (RAM), the hard drive in your MacBook is considered as a user-serviceable part. Keep in mind if Apple finds that you damage your laptop while installing a drive (ex. breaking the SATA ribbon connector), that probably won't be covered by warranty. And the new SSD you put in won't be covered by Apple's warranty, but a new SSD should have its own warranty from the manufacturer.

July 2, 2012 - 4:13pm — Anonymous

Reset PRAM

Thanks for the awesome post; I just upgraded a few days ago to the Crucial M4 and it smokes. The one thing I had to do was reset PRAM as I had a strange 20second boot delay. Once reset it boots in record time.

April 27, 2012 - 12:06pm — Anonymous

Comparison to Apple SSD????

I just wondered if you had any results of a factory fitted apple SSD? This would then make it clear whether it was worth doing a DIY job or paying for the 'branded' version. Thanks

July 26, 2012 - 9:50am — brandon

Sorry no, but as far as I

Sorry no, but as far as I know, the SSDs tested in this review are faster than most Apple branded SSDs (as they use drives from Toshiba or last gen Samsung drives).

February 10, 2012 - 10:25am — Anonymous

Garbage Collection / TRIM

Guys, what's the latest word on TRIM? Are various TRIM-enabling hacks worth the hassle on OS X Lion?

February 10, 2012 - 10:40am — brandon

I'd leave TRIM as disabled in

I'd leave TRIM as disabled in OS X. In general, TRIM is good. But many believe that the stability bugs present in the Sandforce based drives are caused by TRIM. So by enabling it, it can cause some unstability with OS X (or other operating systems). For most users, the garbage collection algorithms used by SSD controllers are good enough anyway.

February 10, 2012 - 10:43am — Anonymous

thanks. great article, by the

thanks. great article, by the way - very useful info.

February 9, 2012 - 10:33am — Anonymous

SSD MacBook Pro Compatibility?

My daughter has a late-2009 13" MacBook Pro. Last I looked into a SSD, there were apparently Apple (OS?) issues which restricted the speed to less than SATA2 (i think it was 150Mbps = SATA1). Has this been resolved? Would she be able to get SATA2 or SATA3 performance out of the newer SSD? BTW, can the MBPs use 9.5mm SSDs or (as I assume) are they limited to using 7mm thick SSDs?

February 9, 2012 - 3:02pm — brandon

You can check what SATA

You can check what SATA version your MacBook Pro supports by clicking on the top-left hand Apple button -> About this Mac -> More Info... -> Select Serial-ATA -> Then in the details section, you should see Link Speed. If it says 1.5 Gigabit, then it's SATA I, if it's 3 Gigabit, then it's SATA II, if it's 6 Gigabit then it's SATA III.

Regardless of what version of SATA your MBP supports, you will still gain a noticable speed benefits. Also, all of the current SATA III SSDs are backwards compatible. I believe that with current software updates installed, you should be at SATA II. And MBPs support 9.5mm drives.

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