Macbook Pro 13" Mid 2010
Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 2.4Ghz
4GB DDR3 Ram

Original Hard Disk : Seagate Momentous 5400 250GB

Upgraded Hard Disk : Hitachi TravelStar 5400 B version 500GB Hard Disk

Before upgrading, went to Machines, Max Studio, asking about the upgrade. Most inane answer came from MacStudio. Best answer came from machines.

Bought Philips #0 Screwdriver RM6.80

Bought Torx T6 Screwdriver RM14.80 (Comes in one set)

Bought the HDD RM230

Testing it out now. Upgrading not that difficult.

Hmm,

Just for those who wishes to upgrade and those who has upgraded.

I did some research before I did the hard disk upgrade on my Macbook Pro (Mid 2010), and it seems that some of the more famous mac forums are debating the suitability of the Western Digitals, especially the Scorpio Blue and the Scorpio Black (depending on what speed you want)

Complaints have ranged from drawing too much power because of frequent throttling, parking and conflict with Mac OS X SMS (Sudden Motion Sensor). One side says everything's fine, the other side says got problem, go get the seagate.

On the Macbook 2010, funning thing is the max negotiated SATA link speed is 1.5Gb, although the controller reported that the max speed it could run was 3Gps (Those having NVIDIA MCP89 ACHI chipsets). The drive was super quiet, a customized seagate drive I presumed.

Went shopping in lowyat, but it seemed that everyone there was selling WD's until I actually found one shop that sells hitachi 5k500 B's. Its a Travelstar 500GB hard drive, with some good review, and some mac forums are recommending the drive over the WD's, and even Seagates. (Comes from the IBM dna i suppose, the Hitachi Storage Technology actually is a marriage between IBM and Hitachi's storage technology).

Plus of using the 5k500b <== B version, there's an A version, don't buy that one.

1. Super quiet
2. Super low energy use
3. Full link speed using MCP89 chipset.

I'll tell more as i use it.

Its C-Zone. Go and find one Chinese lady, seems to be the taiko there. I rounded the place 3 to 4 times before she served me, asking what I wanted, so I told her I wanted a 500GB hard drive, and if she carries other brand beside WD.

That's when she told me about the Hitachi's that she stocked. Especially for Mac users. Heck, one guy there offered me a 1TB WD, which after I query, he didn't really know if the drive could fit the macbook pro because of the 12.5mm height.

The clicking sound, from my research seems to be the head parking itself thinking its about to crash, a conflict with SMS. Or shifting to idle mode too fast. At least that's what is being discussed in the other mac related forums. Some solution advocated is hdapm, located at here.

It may solve the annoying clicking sound you have. Tell us if it helps, okay?

If that's the case, WD must really make lousy hard drives that only clicks on macbook pro's.

Aisey, now Seagate has already come out with hybrid drives already. The Momentus XT. 4GB SSD + Hard drive spinning at 7200RPM. Think it'll be good for our macs?

As for the most reliable drives list for macs, I think...

1. Hitachi
2. Seagate / Toshiba
3.
4.
5. WD (Most problematic)


This post has been edited by mfitri77: May 25 2010, 09:23 PM

I've used hitachi 5400rpm drives and it worked fine, but does anybody here have any experience with the 7200 drives? Also, have anybody here tried putting a 1tb hard drive in a macbook pro 15? mid 2010?

The small hard disk in my new 13" Macbook demands an upgrade, so I went around Lowyat yesterday trying to source out a hard disk.

The SSD guy I talked to couldn't give me a definite warranty period for a X-25M 160GB SSD, so after some though, decided to buy a standard rotational hard disk. I reasoned that the only advantage of an SSD is loading speed, and no shock problems, but these days they should have eliminated it from standard hard disk also.

My normal supplier didn't have a hitachi drive in stock, nor the 1TB hard disk (seems many came back complaining that they can't fit the bigger drive into the notebook bay. She then suggested the WD Scorpio Black, 500GB 7200rpm drive. After some though, decided to take a chance I upgraded.

Installed snow leopard, ilife and mac office. During installation, while the DVD player was spinning, the system was heating up, and I was worried that the temp increase was due to the HD. Finished installing, and after a standard use (office, web surfing, some light gaming), am happy to report that :-

1. During normal operation, laptop stays cool and comfortable.

2. Noise coming from the notebook is not really that noticeable - Unless you put your ear directly over the hd enclosure.

3. Performance didn't really notice, maybe a bit fast at loading/startup, happy to report that some beach balls have disappeared,=.

4. Sudden Motion Sensor didn't conflict with the HD - Although mine didn't come with the free-fall sensor, maybe that's why no kernel oanic so far. Its a BEKT drive (No free fall, sudden motion sensor)

5. No clicking sound as the drive tries to park the head during use.

Overall, I'd say good value.

Okay, reporting back on a certain WD Scorpio Black 500GB. Guess what, that's out of the window, and nestling inside my MacBook Pro is an OCZ Vertex 2 SSD (120GB).

Why OCZ?

1. Researching the web points out the fact that if you use Mac OS X that does not come with TRIM support (It reports TRIM as No in System), your best option would be Sandforce Based SSD (Spesifically SF-1200 controllers, either the OCZ Vertex 2, Agility or Corsair Force - Those are the ones that are available retail).

2. Other controllers require TRIM support to keep writing performance at max. If you use Mac OS exclusively, do not buy Crucial. Requires TRIM support to ensure peak write performance over time.


3. Its either OCZ, Kingston, Intel or Corsair. Heard a rumor about Corsair's firmware issues. Intel, still too expensive, Kingston one gen behind.


First impressions :-

1. Whisper quiet - Seriously, the only noise I hear now is the aircond in my loft, the click of the keyboard and nothing else. The annoying low frequency whine is gone.

2. Blazing fast - Seriously, installed a fresh copy of Snow Leopard in under 20 minutes. Everything pops out now.

Problem isn't the brand, it's the format of the drive. For you to use it must be in a format that mac os can read such as fat32. I don't think mac os can read/write ntfs, unless you install a driver.

No problem, just format the drive in something universal, like fat32.

Hardware : MacBook Pro 13" Early 2011 2.3Ghz Core i5

One thing is certain, the Sandy Bridge processors are very powerful. Imagine, before this, even with my Core i3 Desktop, still takes about and hour and half to just encode a long DVD (In this case, Avatar). The stock Pro did it in less than one.

Then again, what's the fun in stock

Upgrade 1 : 8GB DDR3 Ram (2 x 4GB DDR3 - Mushkin Enhanced Essential 10666)

Upgrade 2 : OCZ Vertex 2 240GB SSD

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If you are shopping at Lowyat Plaza, down here applies to you.

For the latest Pro, make sure you get the DDR 1333, since it seems that this is the only option for Sandy Bridge based laptops. Prices have now dropped to around RM125 per 4GB DIMM, compared to around RM380 charged by any of the Apple branded stores, which seems to be the norm.

Advice - Just get the memory from the stores on the 2nd floor, they are cheaper, and they do work. The good ones there would even help you upgrade and test if you want, and they have a 7 day 1-1 exchange policy should you find any problems beforehand.

Kingston KVR rams are everywhere, but few do stock up on Mushkin and Corsair. Mushkin, try at CZONE, Corsair at Viewnet. I avoided Sri and Jayacom just because they look at me funny when I asked what is the largest SSD drive they have. For that, Viewnet got my money.

I've been searching the net for comparison between Kingston, Mushkin and Corsair, and in the end concluded its just about the same. Mushkin though slapped a very noticeable notice on the box (Assembled in America), but again, your mileage may vary, and you should take the 7 days 1-1 or bring your unit and do a hardware test on the spot, just to be on the safe side.

The effect on the macbook pro is among other, higher ram usage for the Intel Graphics 3000. System profiler reports that it is now using 512MB of memory, but then again, I wouldn't know until Steam finishes loading for me to do some test. Anyone here can point out a mac version of 3D Mark?

------

As for the SSD, Sandforce based controllers in the Corsair F Series and the Vertex 2 are the ones to go for, because it is quite balanced in terms of write, read, garbage collection (very important since Snow Leopard seems to not have trim support yet) and warranty. Much have been written about the SF-1200 controllers, check www.anandtech.com for more details.

Your other option would be to use intel or kingston. The X25 160GB drives are disappearing from the market, not many are carrying it now, because of the premium in price and the fact that Intel's update in the 310 and 510 drives are coming. Again, the read is good, but the write is slower that the competition. However, a bunch of OEM drives are being sold in the Garage sale section for half the price here, so maybe you could get one there, but again warranty could be an issue. Kingston have a bunch of drives under so many designation using several controllers, but the top end drive you can get (a V 100 - 256GB) cost about RM100 less that the OCZ, while being terrible in random writes. In practice though, maybe you wouldn't notice.

OCZ seems to be the most balanced drive you can get, and I have experienced using the drive before to make some comparison. However, the Corsair also uses the same sandforce controller, so maybe the performance of both drives are identical.

What I do know is this. Using my stock configuration, bigger apps like itunes, aperture icons would bump for several times before launching - using SSD, only one bounce, and even then I think that bounce is because of the GUI elements in play. Currently steam.powering up my mac, and will report again on what I find.

This post has been edited by mfitri77: Mar 10 2011, 10:23 AM

Yeah, I was thinking about waiting for the whole Sata 3 thing also, but then we wouldn't know how much they are going to charge for the drives anyway.

The thing about upgrades is that you don't know what is in store for the future. And I don't even know how long this laptop will stay with me also.

At least, until I see what Thunderbolt brings to the table.

This post has been edited by mfitri77: Mar 10 2011, 02:30 PM

Or most likely you have something eating up processor time during boot. Just check if you have installed anything else after that may affect your speed, such as the Steam client and telling it to load at startup.

The dispute between Intel and NVIDIA concerns the chipset, not GPU. Specifically NVIDIA's chipset above the Core 2 Duo, the i-family first gen. Intel bars NVIDIA from making Chipset for the i-family, among the main reason why NVIDIA decided to stop making chipsets altogether. The 320M is based on an NVIDIA design, which is why you could only get those with a core 2 duo.

If you are thinking of the 6490, what I read is that if you run it under Mac OS X, its fine. Performs okay for me playing Starcraft II at full res on a MBP 15". Not for hardcore like CoD or the like. The other thing to remember is that it may run hotter under Bootcamp Win 7.

In my experience, upgrading RAM from 4GB to 8GB doesn't make your Mac faster or slower, just better able to handle a lot of programs in memory. For example, running iMovie eats up a lot of Ram until there is less than 100MB available, which slows things down when I want to do something else while waiting.

But because RAM is dirt cheap these days, just go and upgrade to 8GB anyway. A pair of Corsair 4GB DDR3 cost about RM136 ringgit yesterday at Lowyat and compatibility has never been a problem when talking about RAM. Apple's very own manuals don't say you need Apple specific RAM, they just gave out a general spec RAM. Heck, everything that comes out of the Mac is made by Samsung anyway, a standard CL9 RAM.

But if you really want performance, then your answer is SSD. My Pro 13" 2011 boot times, sucked. Performance sucked also while on Lion largely because of the insistence of the OS to load everything back up when I booted in. On average, the boot time is between 30-40 seconds at least.

And then the annoying icon bounce as it tries to load itself. Because of the full screen swiping and all, the annoying bounce delay is even more annoying.

Now, a bit of a disclaimer. I am also a reseller for Intel, so it makes sense for me to promo SSD here. (Help out some more la, huh?). But that doesn't mean I don't look for value and performance. So here is a bit of a research that I did based on my own observations and tests, and my answer to some of the questions that my customer have asked.

Q1 : Sata 2 or Sata 3

I had played around with OCZ's Vertex 2 before, some lucky forum member here got the unit I used from me. the 240GB OZC uses a Sata II, and to be honest, I wasn't really impressed with the speed. I don't feel that there is much of a difference between the 240GB and my HDD to be honest.

Now, if you are talking abut SATA III, things are a little different. Test have shown that some SSD are actually capable of shoving close to 400mb per second down the SATA channel, so the performance are noticeable.
My Pro boots up less than 10 seconds. How's that for speed?


Q2: Sandforce vs Intel (or Marvell)

Intel 320 series are good SSD, if you want space. Speed? The 510. Then again you should consider Sandforce if you want more speed. Reliability is a question though, but most people having problems with the BSOD Sandforce bugs are not using Macs to maybe you'll luck out as I did.

Reliability is another question, and for me, all things being what it is, I think its about equal for all manufacturers. Intel got showstopper bugs, Sandforce also got showstopper bugs. Your luck may vary, so maybe we do need some of of registry on what SSD works with what Mac.

Q3: What Are You Using?

Kingston HyperX. Now, on this I got a pretty good deal actually. And the performance is not something to sneeze at either. OCZ may be known as the Mac of SSD, since its pretty much the same controller, but priced higher.







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Trim performance under Mac OS X, is for a lack of a better word, garbage. Basically, the system doesn't actually support TRIM, so garbage collection is full under the Sandforce chipset's control. Won't know until a few days if what I am doing now (a lot of video encoding/editing would effect the performance.)

Did you get one of those Black drives from WD? Don't. Can't see much performance benefit from them, in fact the only thing new it introduced would be the annoying "buzz" from spinning too fast.

My take on hybrid is this - Not enough. I mean, yes, you can get moments drives at RM399 in some places now but speeding up about 4GB or files? Sooner or later, you are going to hit the drives anyway, and having it trash itself trying to figure out which files to keep in SSD or the standard drive?

I'd be surprised if the RAM doesn't work.

No, just changing the hard disk won't void your warranty, just as adding ram yourself does not void the warranty. Dual setups which replaces the optical drive does void the warranty however.

Adding SSD means faster booting up (Less than ten seconds)

Faster application loading (One bounce of the icon and straight away open)

Faster anything that accesses the storage.

Plus you can move your computer around without having to worry about crashing the hard disk head.

Minus the smaller storage (Unless your are rich)

Minus the odd problems that may crop up (Strange BSOD errors)

I would be the first one before this to say that the RAM you use may not affect your performance. I am now retracting back that statement.

Bought a pair of 4GB KVR Kingston to upgrade a 13" Pro. Immediately I noticed that :-

1. Power reading is all over the place, running down the battery about 2 hours faster.

2. The system feels sluggish, especially when you do a lot of encoding movies.

Did the whole memtest thing, nothing came out. In the end, installed it in a Windows notebook and did diagnostic, no problem.

Or maybe it was just the Kingstom ram. Anyway, ordered A-spec ram and things are running much-much better. Corsair at RM120 for 4GB.

Sorry, but that is nonsense. The only way you mac cannot boot or hand is if you didn't install the memory right or you put in wrong memory, or you are talking about PowerPC macs. In fact, I have used a lot of corsair rams before, and mushkin in a lot of macs before without any problems. Even then, the symptoms of a bad memory doesn't usually manifest themselves that clearly. Or maybe it's just placebo effect.

The ones that do give me problems are KVR rams, or any Kingston, to be exact. A lot of resellers are selling Mac tested ram, for me I would recommend Corsair Mac rams if you could get them, barring that, get the mushkin or normal corsair ram. In my experience, they have the least problems when paired with an intel mac.

Whatever you do, don't go to Authorized reseller like MacXXXXX la or MacXXXXX la. That is like going to sacrifice yourself at the altar of stupidity of paying a premium.