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Thread: Upgraded a MacBook Pro to a SSD

  1. #1
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    Upgraded a MacBook Pro to a SSD

    I have been wanting to do this for sometime, as I have done several PC's with Windows 7 and 10 and they worked great. But I was a little Leary of the Mac OS. Solid state HD prices are lower than ever, I got a Crucial 500 Gb off Amazon Prime for $57.99 free shipping of course. The hardest part after the Partitioning was understanding the Erase was actually the Format command in Apple! About a 5x speed up at least, and battery life has gone way up. Running nearly 7 hours on a almost full charge! This is a mid 2010 model.
    Last edited by Bill George; 02-04-2019 at 6:56 PM.
    Retired Guy- Central Iowa.HVAC/R , Cloudray Galvo Fiber , -Windows 10

  2. #2
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    While my Mid-2012 MBPr13 came with an SSD, it was way too small for what my ultimate needs were for work. (I bought it originally as a BYOD machine for work) I replaced it with a 480GB SSD after a short period of time and it's been great. It's nice you were able to go that way with your MBP and you will absolutely love the kick in performance as a result. My old 2010 iMac also benefitted greatly from moving from a traditional hard drive to an SSD a few years ago. Folks with current generation MacOS machines MUST buy the larger SSDs from the factory as they are no longer replaceable/swappable. Same for memory.

    The only Windows machine I have is the one that came with my Camaster. I do all my design/development work on my Mac(s) with Windows 10 under Parallels and it's worked great. The singular thing that I had to get used to is that the Apple Magic Mouse is "very" responsive within the Vectric software, largely because it's literally a touch pad shaped like a computer rodent.
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  3. #3
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    This is a timely post for me. I just bought a 2011 13" Macbook Pro from craigslist, as my 2009 can't be upgraded beyond El Capitan, and Fusion 360 requires a more recent OS. I had been thinking to replace the hard drive with an SSD, now I will definitely do it!

    But before I get to that, the previous owner didn't reformat or clean up all his stuff. Good thing I'm an honest guy, all his passwords are in the keychain, and this is a computer science student! Anyway, I'm not sure how to go about cleaning it up or reformatting, not a computer hotshot. The machine has the High Sierra OS, and Microsoft Office, which I'd like to keep. But it didn't come with any discs. Do I need to reformat? Can anyone point me in the right direction, or walk me thru it?

  4. #4
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    Use your google and so some Searching and Bookmarking like I did. Trust me I am not a Mac Whiz I do pretty good on PC's.

    What I did was purchase the new SSD and the USB to SATA adapter, and then downloaded Carbon Copy its free for a one time use. Used the Disk Utility in the Mac OS once the Mac found the new drive, Partitioned, and then Used the Erase (Format) to prepare the new disk. With Carbon Copy on your old drive you can do a 100% back up. https://bombich.com Help here > https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/ssd/owc
    Retired Guy- Central Iowa.HVAC/R , Cloudray Galvo Fiber , -Windows 10

  5. #5
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    Thanks for the suggestions. I have looked at a lot of stuff on google, I'm pretty sure I can manage it.

    Right now I trying to do a fresh install of High Sierra and get rid of the previous owners stuff. Then I'll need to transfer my data and stuff from the 2009 to the 2011.

  6. #6
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    Good news. The SSD makes it a new computer speed wise.
    Retired Guy- Central Iowa.HVAC/R , Cloudray Galvo Fiber , -Windows 10

  7. #7
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    Ordered one yesterday from Amazon, can'r wait to try it. Do the SSD's make good external backup drives also?

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by richard newman View Post
    Ordered one yesterday from Amazon, can'r wait to try it. Do the SSD's make good external backup drives also?
    They will work fine for the purpose, but "big" traditional drives are still more cost effective for off-line storage including backups. Speed isn't as important for that application, IMHO. Also, when an SSD fails, it goes down hard with much less change of recovery. Revolving platters of magnetic media may offer more peace of mind in that respect for longer term storage. At least for now. That could change down the road. I'm actually about to replace multiple 1-3 TB external drives I've been using for along time for extra storage and backup with a single, larger unit (probably with RAID for more reliability) and simplicity. That way I have the performance of the SSD in my machine(s) and the "big space" for utility external. All three of my personal machines (MBPr13, iMac and my CNC Windows machine) have SSDs as their primary storage and I'd never go back to a standard hard drive for that!
    --

    The most expensive tool is the one you buy "cheaply" and often...

  9. #9
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    Thanks Jim, very clear explanation!

  10. #10
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    And before when I was in Parallels it was kinda slow, but now I do not even know when either side is up and running. It just zips along, I ran Corel Draw just now and switched back to the Mac side. I do have one complaint and I think it used to work fine before Carbon Copy cloning. While in the Mac side I can not seem to find the PC side folders and files like I used too. On the PC side I can see both.... I changed nothing, and yet thats the way it is. I even double, triple checked to make sure I have permissions.
    Retired Guy- Central Iowa.HVAC/R , Cloudray Galvo Fiber , -Windows 10

  11. #11
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    Bill, some setting must be amiss...I run Parallels regularly because of Aspire and can see all files from both OS at any time. 'Glad you are seeing the performance benefit already! (not only is file access and application start greatly accelerated, but memory swapping when you have things loaded up beyond your physical memory is also accelerated. I know I benefit from that only have 8GB of RAM. (cannot be increased on my Mid-2012 MBPr13)
    --

    The most expensive tool is the one you buy "cheaply" and often...

  12. #12
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    Heres the deal, it was working exactly like yours before the Carbon Copy disk clone. Maybe I need to contact the Parallels folks in the morning or the website anyway to see whats going on?
    Retired Guy- Central Iowa.HVAC/R , Cloudray Galvo Fiber , -Windows 10

  13. #13
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    Ok Problem found. Somehow in the Cloning the Share for the Windows 7 drive got turned off? Its fixed and working like it should. Thanks for the help.
    Retired Guy- Central Iowa.HVAC/R , Cloudray Galvo Fiber , -Windows 10

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