Ssd For Mac
Posted : admin On 9/29/2019Apple Menu - About This Mac - System Report - Hardware - SATA/SATA Express. For my MacBook Pro (Early 2015) this showed the Serial-ATA Device Tree, from which I was able to get the model number for my SSD. This related question, How to get serial number from Mac hard disks? Might help if you think you have an HDD. 1-16 of over 1,000 results for 'external ssd for mac' Skip to main search results Amazon Prime. Eligible for Free Shipping. Free Shipping by Amazon.
(Note: while some portions of this user tip can be used when installing a new hard drive in your MacBook Pro, it is intended only for those upgrading to a SSD.)
There are, with most MacBook Pros (exclusive of the Retina display models) only two modifications that you can make without voiding your Apple warranty or AppleCare extended warranty – upgrading the RAM and upgrading the drive in the hard drive bay. If you’ve already upgraded your RAM and simply want more speed, you may want to consider upgrading your old hard drive with a SSD (Solid State Drive). Many people come to the MacBook Pro forum asking about SSD upgrades, so this user tip is applicable to those, primarily, who have already made the decision to upgrade. Note that I only recommend using a SSD in 2009 and later MacBook Pros with a 3.0Gbps to 6.0Gbps interface speed – and I recommend buying a 6.0Gbps SSD regardless of the fact that models with a SATA II interface won’t be able to use the full-negotiated speed of 6.0Gbps. Why? Because you may want to upgrade your Mac sometime in the future… although you'd likely be upgrading to a Retina model these days. But you may still want to use the SSD in an enclosure or in another machine.
Before you buy…
Before you purchase a SSD, there are a few questions that you need to ask:
What capacity do you need?
It’s just my opinion, but the bigger the better. Now you may want to install a 120-128GB SSD and simply use it as a boot device and as a place to store your most frequently used applications. This is certainly the least expensive approach. But most people will want to store much more than that on an internal drive save, perhaps, for large iTunes libraries and large photo/movie libraries. There are numerous advantages to a larger drive, however. If you do photo or video editing, the SSD makes a super-fast scratch/working drive for individual projects. You can always store your hefty data on an external drive, of course, but for working projects I recommend using your fast internal SSD. Currently, SSDs come in basically three usable sizes: 120-128GB, 240-256GB and 480-512GB. But Crucial is now shipping a 960GB M500 drive that sells for under $600. So decide, first, how much storage you can actually utilize before making any buying decisions. And Samsung now has a 1 Terabyte EVO drive - priced at about $800+ but which can be found for under $650. Decisions, decisions! See here for an excellent review of the Samsung 840 EVO 1TB drive. Crucial also has two high-capacity SSDs - the older 960GB M500 and the recently released 1 Terabyte M550, which sports faster speeds than the M500 series but is still available at a reasonable price. I would recommend any of these three drives, now, for those wanting the higher capacity. See a review of the M550 series here.
Which drive should I buy?
Unfortunately, there are no Consumer Reports articles out for SSDs on MacBook Pros. There is, however, a very good “information and buyers guide” website - Sean’s SSD Buyer’s Guide and Information Thread. It’s chock-full of information about how SSDs work, what technology individual manufacturers employ, and includes not only a ‘buyer’s guide’ but an almost endless thread containing users experiences. Beware, though, as it is primarily geared towards Windows users. Still, that shouldn’t stop you from reading much of the information there. One thing that I always look for in an SSD, too, is the “Mac-friendliness” of the drive – e.g., can the firmware be upgraded using a Mac or must it be upgraded on a Windows machine? Unfortunately, the majority of SSDs fall in the latter category. That, alone, may not be a showstopper for you in determining which brand of SSD to purchase, but it should at least give you pause.
Getting everything in place…
Before you begin your MacBook Pro surgery, here is a checklist of things you should have on hand:
- SSD of choice
- Enclosure for external drive (can be found at Amazon or OWC, prices range from $8-20, usually, for a USB 2.0 kit will all cables)
- Toolkit that includes a Phillips #00 screwdriver, a Torx T6 screwdriver, and, possibly, a spudger – I recommend this kit - http://eshop.macsales.com/item/NewerTech/TOOLKIT11/ - from OWC
- Carbon Copy Cloner (we’ll get into how to use this in a moment)
Start the process…
There are two ways to go about getting the data from your old drive to your SSD. The first is to install the SSD into your enclosure and make your clone before installing the SSD. The second is simply to install the SSD into your hard drive bay and your old hard drive into your enclosure and boot from the enclosure. No one way is better than the other. We’ll examine both ways here:
Install the SSD into your USB enclosure and plug it up. Use Disk Utility (Applications>Utilities folder) to format the SSD, erasing it and formatting as “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)” with a single GUID partition. Then use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone your hard drive to the SSD. If you are running Lion or Mountain Lion, choose the option to copy the Recovery Partition to the SSD. After the clone is complete, restart your computer whilst holding down the option key and select the SSD as the boot drive. You’ll know in a few seconds if your clone was successful.
Alternately, you can just go ahead and install your SSD into your MacBook Pro (endless number of DIY videos online – see OWC’s Installation Videos - http://eshop.macsales.com/installvideos/) and put your hard drive into the USB enclosure and boot from it. Then just boot from the enclosed drive and use Disk Utility to format the SSD and clone the contents of your hard drive onto your SSD as noted above.
Either method should work just fine. Be sure to visit the OWC video installation page, or the numerous videos on YouTube, about installing the drive into your MacBook Pro.
You’re almost finished…
Now that you have your cloned SSD in your hard drive bay, you should be able to hold down the option key and boot from the SSD. The first thing you’ll want to do is to go to System Preferences>Startup Disk and select your new SSD as your startup drive.
I would also recommend using Trim Enabler to enable TRIM on your new SSD. Not sure what TRIM does? See this Wikipedia article - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIM. Note that with every .1 upgrade to OS X you will have to enable TRIM once again. I just make it a habit when I update my system. Some may ask of TRIM is necessary these days since most SSDs use proprietary garbage collection. I can only say that I still enable TRIM just in case.. and Apple's SSDs utilize TRIM as well.
Up and running…
You should be up and running now, enjoying the many benefits of a SSD – particularly speed. You shouldn’t have any problems if you’ve followed these instructions.
The only problem that some people have run into, in my experience, has been with a faulty SATA cable (affecting 2009 models more than any other). If you’re having problems such a ‘beachballing,’ slow speeds, etc., look at replacing your SATA cable first – it’s the most likely culprit. You’ll also want to make certain that you stay up to date with SSD firmware updates – these cannot only eliminate ‘bugs’ in the firmware, but may also make your SSD operate more efficiently.
Retina model?
Sql server for mac. Mar 22, 2019 Hi Are there plans for a SSMS to run on Mac OSX, since there is a Visual Studio for Mac? Thanks davej Hello, The SSMS team has no plan at this time to move SSMS to be cross-platform. They say they can consider such a project if there is a demand for that, if enough people vote for it. As a result I created the following Connect item to test user. Jul 30, 2017 Azure Data Studio (formerly SQL Operations Studio) is a free GUI management tool that you can use to manage SQL Server on your Mac. You can use it to create and manage databases, write queries, backup and restore databases, and more. Azure Data Studio is. Jan 10, 2019 If you prefer to create SQL Server 2017 containers, see the SQL Server 2017 version of this article. This image consists of SQL Server running on Linux based on Ubuntu 16.04. It can be used with the Docker Engine 1.8+ on Linux or on Docker for Mac/Windows.
The newest MacBook Pros, of course - the Retina models - already come with a SSD installed. Until recently, though, you really couldn't upgrade your flash storage. Now, on certain models, you can upgrade the flash storage (although you'll void your warranty if you crack the case, so buyer beware). Both Other World Computing and Transcend produce flash storage modules so that you can upgrade your storage to up to 1 terabyte. Note that both the OWC and the Transcend modules will only work with 'older' Retina models or MacBook Pro Airs - not the newer models that have a PCIe interface. Still, having these options available is more than you could have hoped for previously. Will there ever be PCIe based flash storage available? Only time will tell. Not much else to say about Retina models.
Final note…
I do not recommend placing your SSD into the optical bay of your MacBook Pro – your start-up drive is meant to be in the hard drive bay and that’s where you want to install your SSD. Installing another SSD or a hard drive into your optical bay is beyond the scope of this user tip. And also note that this tip covers only one method – my preferred method – for getting your data to your SSD.
This article was originally written in 2015 but it is still relevant. I have just updated it given that SSD prices have dropped dramatically in the last 3 years. Upgrading the boot drive on my Mac Mini to an SSD drive was by far the biggest speed enhancement I’ve experienced on any computer! The speed increase is incredible – almost hard to believe. Boot time went from 60 seconds to under 30 seconds, and applications launch instantly – no bouncing dock icon. In terms of bang for dollar, upgrading to an SSD drive is by far the best upgrade you can do.
SDD stands for ‘Solid State Drive.’ SSD drives are the same shape and size as a traditional drive. The difference is that an SSD drive uses RAM chips instead of a spinning hard disk to store information. This makes it much, much faster.
SSD drives are now reasonably cheap. I’d suggest you upgrade your entire hard drive to SSD.
1. Order an SSD.
There have been issues in the past with SSD drives and there have been some brands not working with OSX, so make sure you get a good one.
The first place I would recommend is macsales.com. I have one of their OWC Mercury SSD drives in 2 of my laptops. They have a screen where you choose your macintosh computer, and it tells you which SSD drive is compatible. Just click here and you will be asked what mac you have, follow the prompts. (I have signed up to be an affiliate of Macsales so I get a commission if you use these links.) Last check a 1TB drive was under $400. When I first wrote this article a 480G SSD drive was $1579.99!
The second place I would recommend is crucial.com. If you do get a Crucial SSD you can go for the MX or BX series. I’ve also got a Samsung EVO drive running in a 2012 Macbook pro and it’s running fine. Buy a new SSD not a second hand one. They do degrade over time.
2. Temporarily connect the new SSD Drive to your Mac.
For this you will need a cable to connect your SSD drive to your USB port. They are only about $20 and they look like this:
The external drive enclosures for normal hard disks should also work with an SSD.
Plug the SSD into the enclosure, and then into the Mac, and it should appear on the desktop as an ‘Untitled’ drive.
3. Format the SSD Drive using disk utility.
After your SDD drive is plugged in you’ll need to use Disk Utility to format it – Mac OS Extended (Journaled):
4. Copy everything onto the new boot drive.
Now you need to copy your entire drive onto your SSD drive. You can’t do this by hand – there are hidden files that need to be copied, so need to make what is called a ‘Clone.’ Apple’s built-in Disk Utility won’t do this so you will need an app like Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper.
Using Carbon Copy Cloner, select your boot drive as the target Disk and then select ‘Backup Everything’:
Click ‘Clone’ and your boot disk will be created on the SSD disk.
The other option is to use Super Duper. There’s a free version that will enable to clone your drive. Select ‘Backup -all files’ to make a clone.
Making a clone of you drive can take a long time – hours – so take a break!
5. Reboot from the new SSD boot drive.
Under System Preferences click Startup Drive select the SSD Drive, then restart! (wow – notice how fast it is!)
6. Swap the internal Hard disk for the SSD drive.
Now that it’s working it’s time to get rid of your old hard drive and physically replace it with the working SSD.
The difficulty of this varies according to what kind of a Macintosh computer you have. I’d check out ifixit.com for the best instructions according to your mac model.
Mac Pro
Difficulty: easy – 30 seconds.
For a mac pro it simply connects into the spare optical bay slot – no adapters needed, a 30 second operation – see how here. I just sat the SSD drive in and added a bit of gaffe tape but there are some great adapters out there eg Angelbird SSD Adapter
Macbook
Best External Hard Drive For Mac
Difficulty: moderate – 1 hour.
For a Macbook or Macbook Pro can replace the internal optical drive with your old Hard Drive or order a large SSD drive and replace your old hard drive with it. You can find instructions here.
Mac Mini
Difficulty: hard – 1/2 hr.
For a new aluminium mac mini you will need to replace one of the internal drives. This involves pulling out the fan and motherboard to get the new SSD drive in. You can get the old hard disk out without pulling out the motherboard but the SSD drives are actually ever so slightly thicker and more uniform in shape so the motherboard needs to come out to manoeuvre the SSD drive in place. There’s easy to follow instructions here at mac fixit.
iMac
Difficulty: hard – 1/2 hr.
It’s quite complex to pull the iMac apart and you need a vacuum clamp to pull the glass screen off. This is easier than it sounds, but you still need to but the suction caps to do it. It requires some mechanical skill. There are good instructions here and crucial have their own guide here.
So how fast is it? Here’s a demo of how quickly applications launch from my new SSD drive…
7. Check if you need to Enable TRIM.
Some Hard Drives do not come with TRIM support and so you need to download this TRIM Enabler app and run it. This will enable OS X built in TRIM support which keeps your SSD drive lean and clean.
The SSD I recommend above (Crucial M4) does not need TRIM support (read this article for more information). You can turn it on anyway no problems. The OWC Mercury SSD drives do not need TRIM enabled either.
STOP PRESS: There are new reports that TRIM enabler does not work with Yosemite. Read this article for more information.
8. Time Machine
If you already have a Time Machine backup, when you change Hard Drives it starts all over again and won’t recognise the old Time Machine backup. Read this post for info on how to get around this. Also here is another very good article on this.
I also just found this GREAT article on keeping Time Machine working when you change the Hard Drive.
If you don’t have a Time Machine backup now is a great time to start! You can use your old Internal Drive as a backup drive.
Related posts:
What is TRIM and do I need to turn it on in OS X?What’s the best SSD drive for a Mac and how do I install it?The best place to buy RAM for your macbook or imac.How to use 2 monitors on your mac7 ways to make your Mac boot faster.« Older CommentsStevesays:February 25, 2019 at 4:02 pmI am using a Seagate 250GB USB 3.0 as the boot drive (Mojave) on my 2014 Mac Mini. Seriously fast boot-up and excellent system responsiveness compared to the 1TB internal hard drive. No need to pull the Mac apart to upgrade the boot drive (just leave the internal spinning disk in place as your data drive, it works fine as an APFS volume, provided its not the system disk).
Installing an internal SSD may give you optimal performance but using an external USB boot SSD still gives a much more responsive system than the old hard drive, for minimal upgrade difficulty and minimal cost.
(I don’t have any trim issues either).
ReplyWaynesays:February 28, 2019 at 12:20 pmYes now that they have fast External SSD drives with thunderbolt/USB-C this is certainly a great option.
ReplyS Bartruffsays:April 15, 2019 at 11:39 amHelp….I have established the SSD as the start-up drive (Mac Mini 2012) and it works effectively (much faster).
However, during the night the Mac reboots and establishes the Mac HD as the default start-up….How do I remedy this issue?
Thanks.
ReplyBartruff Stuartsays:April 30, 2019 at 8:21 amI may have solved the reboot problem by not allowing the Mac mini to transition to a sleep mode
ReplyStuart Bartruffsays:April 16, 2019 at 4:08 amFollow-up to my prior comment. The MAC rebooted again to default the MAC HD as the start-up. I received the following error message: The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer.
ReplyBobsays:May 30, 2019 at 6:46 amI did this with my wifes’ old 21′ Imac…those horrible ones that come with the built in memory. We were going to replace it , but this solution made it work like a new machine…much faster overall. I used a 256 Samsung T5, erxactly as described here.
Replynmetrosays:June 28, 2019 at 3:26 pmI bought a SanDisk Extreme Portable 1TB SSD dirve at Amazon.
I plugged it into my USB 3.0 port on an iMac late 2014 4k system, with soldered 8 GB memory.
I went through the formatting process with Disk Utility. Making sure that GUID was set.
I downloaded Carbon Copy, and ran it clicking on Trial. I then closed the disks (it took about 40 minutes for 6 GB)
I rebooted, when it was done, held down the Option key and selected the new disk.
I was up in under a minute. I tried a few things and they run much, much faster.
The SSD disk, I purchased, supports USB 3.1 and USB-C. It is also very tiny, light, and it wrapped in rubber to protect it. It is so small it can be attached, by Velcro, to the back of the monitor stand. I wasn’t that comfortable trying to take apart an iMac just to replace the disk.
I do not use my iMac for heavy duty gaming, and the like, but I feel like that I have a new computer.
Ssd For Macbook Pro 2013
So these instructions, at least in my situation.