Solid State Drives

[KSRBEvans]

I'm looking at doing a general overhaul of my 2012 MacBook Pro: new battery, new SSD, additional RAM. What's holding me up is trying to decide whether I want to stay at a 500 GB drive or upgrade to a 1 TB. I still have another 150 GB or so on my current drive so I don't think I need to upgrade, but as long as I'm getting in there, I'm also thinking about just doing it anyway.

[PedroDaGr8]

I'm looking at doing a general overhaul of my 2012 MacBook Pro: new battery, new SSD, additional RAM. What's holding me up is trying to decide whether I want to stay at a 500 GB drive or upgrade to a 1 TB. I still have another 150 GB or so on my current drive so I don't think I need to upgrade, but as long as I'm getting in there, I'm also thinking about just doing it anyway.

If you only have 150GB left on a 500GB, without a doubt go for a 1TB; if you have 150GB left on a 256GB or 320GB, then a 500GB is likely all you need. With the way prices have dropped recently, namely with 1TB often dropping to the $170-190 price point on sale; it is hard to not upgrade that high. Luckily, your macbook is a generation where apple still allowed you to do upgrades.


Though you might not need it, iFixit has some great teardown info for the Mid-2012 MacBook Pro 13":
https://www.ifixit.com/Device/MacBoo...ibody_Mid_2012

[CitizenBBN]

Now Apple just shoots you quietly when you try to mess with "their stuff".

Unless you're in China, in which case they do whatever the Chinese government says to do.

[KSRBEvans]

If you only have 150GB left on a 500GB, without a doubt go for a 1TB; if you have 150GB left on a 256GB or 320GB, then a 500GB is likely all you need. With the way prices have dropped recently, namely with 1TB often dropping to the $170-190 price point on sale; it is hard to not upgrade that high. Luckily, your macbook is a generation where apple still allowed you to do upgrades.


Though you might not need it, iFixit has some great teardown info for the Mid-2012 MacBook Pro 13":
https://www.ifixit.com/Device/MacBoo...ibody_Mid_2012

Awesome, thanks!

[PedroDaGr8]

Amazon has the SanDisk 480GB SSD for $99.99 right now. This is the lowest I have ever seen for this drive and pretty much the lowest I have seen for this size from a reputable company.

http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Plus-4...dp/B018X8LB2G/

EDIT: Camelcamelcamel agrees, this is the lowest (by $30) that this drive has been since it was introduced on Amazon in January.

[Darrell KSR]

https://tapatalk.com/shareLink?url=h...re_fid=1066842
Pick Your Favorite Flavor of Flash Storage In Today's Amazon Gold Box

[KSRBEvans]

Amazon has the SanDisk 480GB SSD for $99.99 right now. This is the lowest I have ever seen for this drive and pretty much the lowest I have seen for this size from a reputable company.

http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Plus-4...dp/B018X8LB2G/

EDIT: Camelcamelcamel agrees, this is the lowest (by $30) that this drive has been since it was introduced on Amazon in January.

^Ooh, the 960GB version is $199. I've been waiting for the 1TBs to get under $200. Put up or shut up time....

[CitizenBBN]

I've got to go give some plasma and get some money, time to buy some drives.

[PedroDaGr8]

Samsung just released a 500GB version of their 750 EVO drive. This is a budget oriented version of the 850EVO. Current MSRP seems high but I have to say but I expect it to fall rapidly. The performance between the 750 and 850 is the same, only the 750 has a 3yr warranty not five and a bit shorter MTBF. My 850EVO has been STELLAR in performance. It has read speeds of 540MB/s and write speeds of 520MB/s. Truth be told, the difference between a drive with 240MB/s and 520MB/s is not a LOT but this drive also has a rated lifetime of over TEN YEARS assuming I rewrite the drive ENTIRELY every single day for that ten years. So even with the shorter MTBF it is still likely way more than most of us need. So keep your eye on this drive I expect it to hit some interesting price points in the coming months.

[PedroDaGr8]

THe SanDisk Ultra II 480GB is on sale for $108 shipped Neweegg on their ebay store.. This is the higher speed version of the one linked before.

[CitizenBBN]

I'm going to jump on one of these. I upgraded my 256Gb to 500gb with that last amazon one you posted and went great.

I do have a question though, I'm thinking of upgrading a couple of my desktops with these drives. Would vastly increase their speed, and I don't need workstations but it would extend the service life on these quite a bit and if they die I just move the drives.

But would I have to get a SSD in SATA and then get an IDE converter or is that a bad option? Other options for SSD on a desktop? For $100 that's a cheap upgrade for a couple of my machines.

[PedroDaGr8]

I'm going to jump on one of these. I upgraded my 256Gb to 500gb with that last amazon one you posted and went great.

I do have a question though, I'm thinking of upgrading a couple of my desktops with these drives. Would vastly increase their speed, and I don't need workstations but it would extend the service life on these quite a bit and if they die I just move the drives.

But would I have to get a SSD in SATA and then get an IDE converter or is that a bad option? Other options for SSD on a desktop? For $100 that's a cheap upgrade for a couple of my machines.

Check the motherboards, even if the PC didn't come with SATA the mobo's should have it. They have been ubiqioutous for quite a long time. If not, pretty much your only other options are SATA adapter cards (fine for PCIe, bad for PCI) or the IDE adapter.

[KSRBEvans]

SanDisk SSD Plus 480GB $93.79 shipped:

http://smile.amazon.com/SanDisk-Plus...andisk+480+ssd

[PedroDaGr8]

Refurbished OCZ Denava 480GB Flash Sale on Newegg - $73

http://flash.newegg.com/Product/N82E...Slickdeals+LLC

[PedroDaGr8]

For those that need small size SSDs for things like office computers:
http://www.frys.com/product/8727761?site=cemail062016
Sign up for the frys email, they have a 120GB model for $39. Easily cheap enough to get a budget work computer up and running super fast.

[CitizenBBN]

Great find, I may jump on that for a couple of my laptops.

[dan_bgblue]

Please see a bit of info about my laptop in the snipped mage below. Will the referenced SSD work with my system? If it will, can I depend on someone smarter than me to walk me thru the process of imaging/copying everything off the current drive I have onto the new one?

ASUS PC.JPG

[Darrell KSR]

ADATA Premier SP550 2.5" 480GB SATA III TLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) ASP


$93.99

http://m.ebay.com/itm/291544248218?r...ed&_mwBanner=1

[PedroDaGr8]

Please see a bit of info about my laptop in the snipped mage below. Will the referenced SSD work with my system? If it will, can I depend on someone smarter than me to walk me thru the process of imaging/copying everything off the current drive I have onto the new one?

ASUS PC.JPG

It will work with your computer. The biggest thing is that it is a small size, only 120GB. I do not know the size of your current HDD, so I don't know if that is enough. For a work computer, where you don't store a lot of stuff on the PC then it can be useful. Otherwise, the one D linked is a better value (with similar speeds). I can promise you that your computer will run WAY faster after the upgrade. Also, while you are inside the laptop you might as well add some RAM to it (that is super easy and the ram slot is exposed at the same time as the HDD).

[dan_bgblue]

PC has 280 GB and there is 160 GB free, so your point is a good one. As for RAM, I installed additional RAM not long after I got the unit, and I bought and installed all the additional RAM that crucial.com told me that the system could utilize.

[KSRBEvans]

So it seems the prices on SSDs have stopped dropping. For example, the lowest price I've seen for 500GB drives is around $99. Anyone seen anything lower? I'm going to upgrade my 2012 MacBook Pro to 8 GB RAM and an SSD, but I was hoping Black Friday/Cyber Monday would bring even better deals.

[PedroDaGr8]

So it seems the prices on SSDs have stopped dropping. For example, the lowest price I've seen for 500GB drives is around $99. Anyone seen anything lower? I'm going to upgrade my 2012 MacBook Pro to 8 GB RAM and an SSD, but I was hoping Black Friday/Cyber Monday would bring even better deals.

There was a SanDisk Ultra II 480GB for $84 yesterday, but yeah it looks like that is getting close to the floor for prices. At least for now. The issue is that there just isn't that much demand for higher capacities which would drive down the price of the 1TB and smaller drives.

[KentuckyWildcat]

I really need to upgrade to an SSD, but I'm lazy.

[PedroDaGr8]

I really need to upgrade to an SSD, but I'm lazy.

Trust me, it is by far the best upgrade you can do on a computer

Sent from my LGLS992 using Tapatalk

[KSRBEvans]

So I'm a little frustrated with the prices of SSDs. Spinning hard drive prices continue to fall, but SSD prices remain about the same.

Pedro started this about 18 months ago with a post about a 500GB SSD for $150. I looked on Amazon to see if they had any Prime Day deals, and most 500GB drives are still around $150--I saw one "deal" for $136. That's higher than prices we've listed here before. Guess demand is keeping prices up.

[Darrell KSR]

These Amazon Prime deals are driving me crazy.

a) There are too many of them. I can't keep up, and it's frustrating to try.
b) Many of the prices are ridiculous--such as the one you just posted. OK, so if I'm going to buy a product "anyway," I'll take the extra $3 off. But that's not what I expect when I see what is marketed as a quasi-Black Friday Deal.
c) On the rare occasion when something seems good--it seems I have already missed out...such as a $50 Panera Gift card for $39.50. That's free money since we occasionally go there. Of course, I can't get that one. And I need that $10.50 to pay car insurance!

[KentuckyWildcat]

I finally did it. Definitely helped my laptop and now I'm using my 1 TB as an external to rip my daughters movies for Plex.

[PedroDaGr8]

So I'm a little frustrated with the prices of SSDs. Spinning hard drive prices continue to fall, but SSD prices remain about the same.

Pedro started this about 18 months ago with a post about a 500GB SSD for $150. I looked on Amazon to see if they had any Prime Day deals, and most 500GB drives are still around $150--I saw one "deal" for $136. That's higher than prices we've listed here before. Guess demand is keeping prices up.

Yep, it has been really really surprising that flash memory prices have not dropped further. Based on what I am reading, it is because of a combination of high demand across cellphones, computers and other devices and the transition from 2-D to 3-D NAND technologies that has resulted in VERY VERY high demand and not enough supply to fill it. NAND prices are actually UP almost 20% over last year, with no major declines in the near future anticipated. As for spinning platter prices dropping, of course they are, almost nobody wants a spinning drive anymore.

[KSRBEvans]

Well, finally broke down and did the deal--got a Crucial 525 GB SSD for $145 on Amazon. Some pain in cloning it*, but once I got it done--Oh. my. gosh. If I'd known how much speedier it would make this computer, I would've paid twice that and done it a couple of years ago. It used to labor to open my photos, and opening Word took a couple of minutes. And forget about having the 2 open at the same time--that would lock up the computer. Now photos open in about 1 second, and Office apps open in a fraction of a second. I keep opening and closing programs just to watch it go. Whatever anyone's told you about what a difference it makes in your computer's performance, well, it's an understatement.

Also, somehow I ended up with an extra 100 GB of storage. My old hard drive had used about 390 of 500 GB. After cloning the SSD and installing it, it says I've used 269 GB. Checked for documents, photos, music, etc. and that all seemed to copy over as part of the clone, so not sure where the extra storage came from, but glad to have it. Definitely time & money well spent.



*--Tried to do a Time Machine backup and restore from that and got nothing but error messages I couldn't work around. Finally got a SATA to USB enclosure put the SSD in there, cloned my hard drive to it using Carbon Copy Cloner and that worked like a champ.

[CitizenBBN]

Oh yeah, SSD is sweet.