Apple 512gb Solid State Drive Kit For Mac

(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.

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 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.

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 -.

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:.

Macbook Solid State Drive

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 -from OWC.

(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 (ApplicationsUtilities 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 - ) 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 PreferencesStartup Disk and select your new SSD as your startup drive.

I would also recommend using to enable TRIM on your new SSD. Not sure what TRIM does? See this Wikipedia article -. 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? 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 and 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.

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Editor's note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that RAM in MacBook Pro laptops with retina displays could be upgraded. The story has been updated with the correct information. When Apple began shipping the MacBook Pro Retina in late 2012, it announced that the built-in solid state-drive (SSD) and RAM would not be user upgradable after purchase. Well, the SSD part of that is no longer true. Other World Computing (OWC) has moved to single-handedly fight Apple's planned obsolescence for MacBook Pro laptops with retina diplays (mid-2013 and beyond) and this month MacBook Pro Retina- and MacBook Air-compatible Aura PCIe SSDs.

Further reading: OWC has also for MacBook Pro Retina laptops from 2012 through early 2013. If you purchased a, you already shelled out at least $1,300 for the 13-in. So, it's reasonable to assume you might have skimped a bit on the internal storage, which ranges from 128GB to 512GB. Heck, even if you splurged and purchased the highest-end 15-in.

Apple Solid State Drive

MacBook Pro for $2,500, the largest SSD you could get until recently was 512GB. Note: A 1TB SSD is now a $500 option for the current top-end MacBook Pro. Lucas Mearian What's incluced in the OWC Aura PCIe SSD upgrade kit. The new OWC Aura PCIe SSDs for MacBook Pro Retina laptops come in.

You can also purchase a complete upgrade kit, which includes the OWC SSD, screw drivers, a USB standard A to micro B cable and an external PCIe SSD enclosure with USB 3.0 port for $399 (480GB model) or $649 (1TB model). The kit is actually a pretty good deal because just to purchase the would cost you $79. Once you've installed the OWC SSD, you can use your Mac's original flash drive in the enclosure as a fast external USB drive with transfer speeds up to 355MBps. I did a read/write speed test on my factory installed SSD once I'd turned it into an external drive using the OWC Envoy Pro enclosure and it had a read/write speed of 304MBps and 253MBps, respectively.

It was not quite as fast as OWC said it would be but it was certainly respectable. Now, on to the internal SSD changeover. I've said it many times before: Adding an SSD to your computer is the single best upgrade you can perform for the money. It improves both performance and reliability.

But, when you already have an SSD, the next best upgrade is a bigger SSD. The OWC PCIe SSDs allows you to increase the capacity on your MacBook Pro up to eight times that of the factory drive and it offers up to 5.8 times faster performance than Apple's factory installed drive.

The OWC Aura PCIe SSDs offer up to 763MBps sustained read and 446MBps write rates. They also come with native AES 256-bit encryption and a three-year limited warranty.

Prior to installing a new OWC 1TB Aura SSD, I performed a performance benchmark test on my factory installed 256GB PCIe SSD using, a free app. As expected, it was blazing fast, offering up to 723MBps sustained reads and 661MBps writes. I was excited to see just how much faster OWC's SSD would push the MacBook Pro's performance. Using BlackMagic disk benchmarking software, I tested the Aura PCIe SSD once it had been installed. It revealed a maximum read/write speed of 700MBps and 423MBps, respectively. In other words, the OWC SSD had slightly slower performance than my factory installed SSD, but the difference was not noticeable. How to perform the SSD upgrade First things first.

Upgrade the to the latest version of OS X - in this case it would be El Capitan v10.11.4. Next, because you're not likely to simply swap out the OWC SSD for the factory drive without migrating data over, you'll want to perform a Time Machine backup to an external drive. This will safeguard your data in case something goes wrong. Lucas Mearian You'll first need to remove the 10 pentelope screws securing the rear cover of your MacBook Pro. Swapping out your flash drive, whether it's a 2.5-in. SSD or a PCIe card, is about the simplest upgrade you can attempt. It'll take about 10 minutes, not including the data migration.

While I've swapped out dozens of SSDs without one, you should consider purchasing an anti-static mat on which you'll perform the upgrade;, and when you consider you just spent up to $649 on an SSD, it's a small price to pay to avoid damaging the NAND flash chips. Lucas Mearian The factory-installed Samsung PCIe SSD is in the upper right hand corner. The first step to changing over your SSD is to remove the 10 screws on the back cover of your MacBook Pro using a Pentalobe P5 screw driver. Next, you'll need to unscrew the one Pentalobe screw holding the PCIe SSD in place.

Lucas Mearian Remove the SSD retaining screw using a Torx T5 screw driver. Then you simply pull the SSD from its socket, insert the OWC SSD and secure it with the screw. The only thing you need to do is to replace the MacBook Pro's rear cover and either download a fresh version of OS X onto your new SSD, or migrate the OS and your data from the old drive.

Lucas Mearian After gently pulling the factory-installed SSD from its PCIe socket, insert the OWC Aura PCIe SSD and re-attach the Torx retaining screw. Creating a bootable El Capitan (OS X 10.11) installer There are couple of ways to install OS X El Capitan onto your new OWC PCIe SSD.or at least there should be. You should be able to install it using the external adapter. But once I uploaded El Capitan, my MacBook's native drive refused to recognize the external drive. So I was forced to install the OWC SSD first. As you power up the computer, press the CMD + R keys to access the disk recovery menu. That allows you to choose the internal drive for the OS X download.

But, a funny thing happened. Apple would only allow me to download Yosemite onto the new drive. So, Yosemite came first, then came the upgrade to El Capitan, which took an additional 20 minutes. Lucas Mearian When you're finished installing the OWC Auro PCIe SSD, you can insert your factory SSD into the PCIe adapter and use it as an external drive so it doesn't go to waste. Now that you've got OS X El Capitan on your OCW SSD, you'll need to migrate the data from your original SSD.

You can use an updated Time Machine backup, but I prefer to simply insert the factory SSD into the OWC adapter, plug it into the USB port and then go into the Utilities folder and select the Migration Assistant. After that, it's just a matter of selecting the source drive (your factory SSD connected via the USB 3.0 cable) and the target drive, your new OWC SSD. I had 240GB worth of data to migrate, the process took about 45 minutes. I can't emphasize enough what a relief it was to avoid having to dump data off my old drive in order to free up space. With the new 1TB Aura SSD, I've got plenty of breathing room for years to come.

And, if I ever decide to get a new laptop, my mid-2013 MacBook Pro will have at least as good an SSD as Apple is likely to offer any time soon.