Installing ssd in macbook pro 13. Installing SSD and second HDD. What have we learned new from this story, friends?

Today I would like to talk about my personal experience installing a solid-state hard drive, which is also called an SSD. The point of installing such a disk is very big: the system literally starts working much faster. You can find out which drive I chose for myself, how I installed it, and whether I was impressed by reading this article.

The article was actually written by the administration of OA 3, and was not taken from any third-party resource. It all started when I noticed how my Mac started to slow down a little. This fact amazed me, because I bought the computer in March 2013, one might say that it is a completely new machine. Without thinking twice, I decided to upgrade my computer. It was immediately clear that an SSD and an increased amount of RAM could give me a performance boost.

The RAM in the MacBook Pro 13’ 2012 without retina, which is exactly what I have, can be increased to 8 GB, at least that’s what it says on the Apple website. But it turns out that the well-known company Corsair produces special RAM that works great with computers like mine, and its volume is 16 GB. The RAM must have the following characteristics DDR 3 SO-DIMM 204 pins. But I did not increase the amount of RAM, since most experts advised me to choose an SSD drive.

SSD selection.

Of course, RAM will give a performance boost, but not as much as an SSD drive does. The place to start when choosing a disk is the format. You can find the disk in Yandex.Market. Choose a 2.5-inch SSD drive for laptops.

Next, let's move on to the amount of hard drive memory. The size of the SSD drive will no longer affect performance, so analyze how much memory is currently occupied on your Mac and choose the appropriate hard drive model.

My HDD had 500 GB, of which I only occupied 45, so I realized that a 120 GB SSD would be more than enough for me, and I was not mistaken.

Which hard drive is better?

Let's start with the company. I advise you to consider Plextor, OZI Vertex, Intel, Samsung, Corsair, and Transcend - I chose the drive from this company for myself.

Which hard drive is more powerful?

There are three main factors to consider here.

Write speed - Read speed - Random write speed (4Kb blocks).

For me these figures reach numbers of (520-550-82000).

In principle, this is where we can finish telling what a hard drive should be like.

Installing an SSD in Mac.

How to install a hard drive. I’ll say right away that I’ve never disassembled my Mac, and I never thought about it until I saw how much service centers were asking for a hard drive replacement. So I armed myself with screwdrivers and started disassembling my Mac. I did this according to instructions from IFIXIT.COM, which I recommend to everyone.

To begin, I opened the lid of my laptop, disconnected the battery, and removed the hard drive. Up to this point everything was going very smoothly, but then I ran into a problem. I needed to remove the bolts from the old hard drive, and I didn’t have the appropriate screwdriver, so I took some pliers, carefully wrapped their jaws with a cloth so as not to damage the bolts, and got to work.

Fortunately, everything went well and within five minutes these bolts were sitting on the new SSD drive. Naturally, we then do everything in reverse order and install the new disk in the place where the old one was located.

Installing OS X on an SSD.

That’s it, the SSD drive is there, but it’s empty, how can we install the system there? There are several ways to do this very simply.

1) You can create a full backup of your system in Time Machine by opening Time Machine on your Mac and connecting an empty external hard drive. Then the program will do everything

2) The second method will prompt you to create a bootable USB flash drive, or boot disk. This is the method I wanted to use, but in the end Mac didn’t see the flash drive, and I had to use the third method.

3) Finally, the third method that I used. When you turn on a Mac with an empty SSD, you can connect to your WiFi network and your computer will download and install the OS from the Internet, which is very cool and convenient.

What to do with HDD?

Where to put the HDD that was taken out of the Mac? You can install it directly on your Mac using Optibay. That is, you replace your DVD drive with a hard drive, and as a result, your Mac will have a large amount of HDD+SSD memory, you get a kind of Fusion Drive. But this option did not suit me. I decided to make an external hard drive out of my former HDD by buying a box for it, which cost me 300 rubles.

The box is a box that looks like an external hard drive, only it opens and the HDD is inserted into it. Very convenient, and now this disk can always be with me.

Impression.

I'm amazed at what happened to my computer. Now it turns on in 12 seconds, instead of the usual 55 seconds; after turning it on, you can immediately start working on it, launching “heavy” programs. I haven’t encountered any lag since installing the SSD, and professional programs such as Photoshop CS 5 Extended open in 2 seconds. All standard applications open instantly. The computer runs silently and does not heat up at all, although before this it worked quietly.

The hard drive itself cost me 3,800 rubles, which is not that much money. Therefore, I strongly recommend that anyone who is not satisfied with the speed of their Macintosh do this procedure.

Let's figure out whether it is possible to upgrade the MacBook Air at home by increasing its memory.

It is not difficult. But there are several very important points that you need to know. Otherwise you will lose money.

Which MacBook Air models can replace the SSD drive?

IN MacBook Air before 2010 you can replace the drive with a 1.8-inch SSD with a SATA interface. We won’t talk about them today, since the computers are outdated, and the SSD drives themselves of this form factor are publicly available and do not differ in any features critical for the Mac. Just bought it and installed it.

IN MacBook Air models from 2010 year, you can also replace the SSD drive. But there is a rare form of it, hence the need for this article.

Apple in its repertoire. SSD drives in all modern MacBook Airs have a rather specific connector 28pin. Thank you for at least not unsoldering the drive on the motherboard.

Posted by site (@site) Dec 6, 2017 at 11:53 PST

Because of this, replacing an SSD becomes very difficult, leaving the following options:

1. Buy an original SSD drive for your MacBook. You will have to look for such components, and the price for them is frankly not encouraging.

2. Find a similar third-party SSD. Again, it all comes down to price, as they say, the game is not worth the candle.

3. Use a special adapter. A small adapter for $13 on Amazon or $9.5 from AliExpress allows you to install almost any modern M.2 drive instead of a standard one.

A suitable 256 GB SSD will cost 7-10 thousand rubles. For 15-17 thousand rubles. (the difference between MacBook Air models) you can find a 512 GB model.

After the upgrade, you will still have a 128 GB stock drive that can be sold.

Important: it’s not enough to just buy a “flat” SSD

Not every SSD drive is suitable for use with an adapter.

Firstly, The SSD must support the Serial ATA interface and the AHCI (Advanced Host Controller Interface) mechanism. This is usually indicated in the device specifications.

Secondly, the drive must have a connection key M or universal B&M, but not key B.

Third, the length of the SSD board should not exceed 80mm, otherwise it will not fit. If the drive is too short or an adapter board is used, you will most likely not be able to fit into the mounting hole and will have to use double-sided tape to secure the drive.

How to replace SSD on MacBook Air

Attention! Replacing computer components yourself will void the warranty. You carry out all actions at your own peril and risk.

To replace you will need a pair of screwdrivers: T5 Torx And P5 Pentalobe.

1. Using P5 Pentalobe, unscrew the 10 screws on the back cover of the laptop.

2. Carefully lift the cover near the display hinge.

3. To disconnect the laptop and prevent accidental startup, it is recommended to disconnect the battery. To do this, you need to find the power connector and pull the plastic tab.

4. Using a T9 Torx screwdriver, remove the screw securing the SSD drive.

5. Install a new drive and repeat the operations in reverse order.

That's not all, you need to configure macOS

After replacing the disk, you can perform a clean installation of macOS or roll a backup copy. In any case, after starting the system, you will need to perform another operation.

When using a third-party SSD with macOS, you must enable the TRIM command. Otherwise, over time, the drive's performance will decrease and write operations will be slower.

Since version OS X 10.11 El Capitan You can activate TRIM on all SSDs using the terminal command:

If you have already changed the HDD, that is, a regular hard drive, of your MacBook to an SSD, that is, a solid-state drive (and you succeeded), then it will be superfluous to tell you how much faster the laptop becomes after such an upgrade.

However, as it turned out, even in such a not at all complicated upgrade, you can do things wrong if you don’t have the proper experience. In this regard, about one mistake that the author of this post first managed to make, and then had to fix it when he decided to change the HHD to an SSD in his work MacBook. By the way, regarding Apple repair issues in Kyiv, this link will tell you and help you.

In general, the essence of the fable is that the Mac OS operating system, unlike Windows, does not automatically enable the TRIM command for newly installed solid-state drives. However, if your MacBook was originally equipped with an SSD, then when you replace it (for example, with a larger drive), TRIM will already be enabled by default.

What is TRIM? In short, TRIM is a special command that, when deleting any file, is sent by the file system drivers to the SSD disk controller. Having received this command, the controller “understands” which data stored on the SSD is no longer needed and clears it in the background, freeing up memory blocks for new data. This is one of the specific features of flash memory. And in this way, data is rewritten to SSD memory blocks at approximately the same speed as on HDDs, in which data rewriting is performed according to a different principle (new ones are written “on top” of old ones without preliminary cleaning).

Another thing is that not all operating systems support the TRIM command. And, as in my case, the user finds out about this after the disk replacement has begun and after an “unclear problem” has arisen.

Therefore, if you are planning a similar event, I recommend that you first check whether this same TRIM team works there.

You can do this as follows:

• Click the Apple icon (in the upper left corner of the screen) and in the menu click “ About this Mac «;
• In the next window, click the button “ System report «;
• in the left part of the window that opens, find and click “ Hardware " and then in the list - " SATA/SATA Express «;
• Now scroll to the right side to the line “ TRIM support «;
• if we see nearby " Yes", it means the command is enabled if it says " No“, then TRIM must be enabled separately.

How to enable TRIM on MacBook:

First, let’s double-check that you are logged into your laptop with administrator rights. After that:

• launch Terminal (you can simply find it through Spotlight);
• recruiting a team sudo trimforce enable and click Enter ;
• enter password the account that is currently in use and click Enter ;
• the system will ask you to confirm your actions, read the request, write y and press again Enter ;
• now the system will ask for permission to reboot - write again y and click Enter .

After this, all that remains is to wait until the laptop reboots, and you can consider the job done. But for the sake of order it’s better to go to “ System report" and check if TRIM is working. And then you can change the disk. Read more about the features of replacing components and repairing Apple equipment, in particular Macbooks, iPads and iPhones of any model and year of manufacture here - http://wefixit.com.ua/remont-iphone.

So there will be no excess disk space. There will always be something to fill it with.

Apple offers custom configuration options for its laptops and desktops with increased RAM/HDD/SSD capacity, but charges twice as much for the components as they cost if you buy them yourself. In addition, in Russian and Ukrainian realities, ordering a custom configuration costs a pretty penny, in addition to the increased cost of “branded” hardware. Although, it is the same branded one as purchased from any well-known company that sells computer components. Is it better tested and contains the latest version of Firmare, which is important in the case of an SSD, but more on that later.

In any case, if in the USA a HDD upgrade costs $100, then in Russia or Ukraine it will cost all of $150, or even $200 as part of ordering an individual PC configuration. The conclusion is simple - in the case of a MacBook or MacBook Pro, it is much cheaper to change the equipment yourself. Unfortunately, this does not apply to the MacBook Air. In it, the RAM is soldered into the motherboard, and an SSD of this format is difficult to find on sale for reasonable money, plus a special and rare screwdriver is required for disassembly - Pentalobe (5-petal flower). Today I would like to talk about replacing the drive in a MacBook Pro, I’ll talk a little about upgrading RAM and ways to quickly transfer personal data from an old HDD/SSD to a new one.

A clone is better than a backup

The test subject is a 15-inch MacBook Pro from 2011. “Lion”, aka OS X, has already settled on it, but I have not yet switched to using it, Snow Leopard is enough, plus this is a temporary laptop for me, provided by a good friend until the latest generation one I ordered arrives. That is, it is not advisable to somehow change the composition of the software on its HDD, so that if necessary, everything can be quickly returned to its original form. Thus, we will start upgrading the drive, one might say, from the end - with the transfer of personal data. This will save significant time.

On the Windows platform, there are third-party utilities for complete cloning of the system and other partitions, although in Windows 7 such a function was already built into the system. In Mac OS X, the standard Disk Utility was able to do this from the very first releases. Moreover, everything is implemented very simply, even a beginner will understand. The only problem may arise when connecting a built-in 2.5-inch drive to the laptop via USB. There are several options for solving it. I used the external HDD pocket shown in the photo above, and a proprietary hard drive inherited from the old MacBok Pro, and decided to work with it instead of the temporary laptop drive. An external pocket is a relatively inexpensive thing and is useful in households for storing media content on capacious hard drives, instead of optical disks. In terms of price per gigabyte, HDDs are already approaching DVDs. You can also tear up an old USB drive and use its contents. On the other hand, some devices of this kind can be easily disassembled, and you won’t have to break anything. The last method is not very convenient, but it is possible and, in principle, it will still be simpler than the standard procedure for transferring data when changing the internal drive, which we will talk about later.

A standard external USB drive of sufficient capacity is used - a clone of the system partition is made on it, then the HDD in the laptop is changed, the device is assembled and turned on with the Alt (Option) button held down, after which the choice of volume to boot will appear. Naturally, an external drive is indicated. After the system boots from it, the reverse cloning operation is performed using Disk Utility. In addition, all this can be done if you have a Mac OS X boot disk. If you boot from it, you will also be able to launch “Disk Utility” (located in the utilities section, in the top menu) and carry out all the same operations as in the environment OS X

Pay attention to the screenshot above. It clearly shows what needs to be done to completely clone the system partition. In particular, you should launch “Disk Utility”, select any drive and go to the “Recover” section. In the “Source” field, using the Drag-and-drop method, the current system partition is dragged - a clone will be made from it; in the “Destination” field, a new drive is dragged if it was connected via USB, or any external HDD, but it should be remembered that all data on it will be deleted. That is, it is worth taking care of their preservation in advance. It is imperative to check the “Clear destination” option, which involves not simply deleting data (if any), but also formatting the partition in the desired format (Mac OS Extended (Journaled)). After everything is selected, click the “Restore” button. In my case, about 100 GB of data was copied in just over an hour, although the system initially indicated that it would take all of three hours.

Naturally, all these operations are carried out similarly with an SSD, if the user decides to install this type of drive instead of an HDD. By the way, the right decision - the increase in performance is huge and much more noticeable than increasing RAM from 4 to 8 GB. The only caveat is that you may have to update the SSD firmware to implement support for the TRIM command. It was originally present in Windows 7, and appeared in Mac OS X starting with the release 10.6.8. A very useful command for solid-state drives, which allows you to avoid a significant decrease in device performance when it is full and used for a long time. In general, before installing an SSD, I would like to advise you to first read thematic forums and decide on the model. Intel offers some of the best options on the market.

RAM is easy to expand

Well, the drive is ready, it's time to disassemble the laptop. I recommend placing it upside down on something soft - a microfiber cloth or a neoprene case, as in my case. To remove the cover, you will need a Philips 0 screwdriver. The bolts take some effort to unscrew, as they contain a sealant (blue blots on the thread). As you remove them, it is advisable to arrange them on the table in the same pattern as they are located in the laptop, since there are several parts that differ in length.

The bottom cover may not give in the first time - it fits very tightly and precisely. You should not use brute force; just gently pull it up from the side of the display hinge. As a result, the following picture will appear:

In the 13-inch model everything is very similar, except that there is only one fan. There is access to the HDD and RAM too. Before getting into the inside of a computer, it is necessary to remove static charge from the body so as not to damage delicate electronic components. You can touch a metal part inside the laptop, such as the optical drive housing, or touch a metal faucet in the bathroom or kitchen. If you want to change the memory, just move the antennae along the edges of the slot, the RAM strips will rise on their own and will be easy to remove. Install the new ones carefully and tightly: insert the bar at an angle into the connector (the angle is the same as when removing the part), slightly press forward so that it fits into it, then lower the RAM down until it clicks. Make sure that the latches end up directly opposite the corresponding cutouts in the memory strips. I personally came across a situation where a person simply did not insert the RAM into the slot, but was able to lower it to a horizontal position. Actually put the slats on top. The result was expected, the PC did not start without RAM. Although this was in the Mac mini, the design of the connectors and fasteners for RAM there is identical to that in a laptop.

I will add that Apple previously recommended disconnecting the battery when replacing components, although this was at a time when laptops were equipped with a removable battery (models produced before 2008 inclusive). You can disconnect the power connector now, as I did when I changed the HDD and RAM in 2009 in my new 13-inch Proshka at that time, but, as practice has shown, this is unnecessary. And there are no instructions in this regard in the official instructions. A good friend is a technical specialist at an official reseller of Apple equipment, and without disconnecting the battery, he replaced dozens of memory sticks and drives, no problems arose, the main thing is to remember to completely turn off the laptop before doing this, and not put it into sleep mode, and also remove the static charge.

With a storage device there is a little more hassle

Now let's move on to the HDD. It is not screwed tightly to the laptop, but lies in a special seat. To remove the drive, unscrew the plastic strip at the edge of the drive (on the optical drive side). A Philips 0 screwdriver is also used.

After this, you need to pull the strap and carefully remove the drive, disconnect the connector - it can be easily removed.

There are four bolts with a Torx 6 head screwed into the sides of the HDD. You should take care in advance to look for such a screwdriver or attachment, since you won’t be able to pick them out with a small flat or Phillips head, the bolts are tightly seated. We unscrew them from the old drive, screw them to the new one, everything is simple.

The plastic strap can be re-glued onto a new HDD or SSD - it can easily withstand a dozen such operations without losing its adhesive properties.

After that, we connect the connector in place, place the HDD in its mounting bed and screw on the plastic strip. Well, here you go, everything is ready:

As they say, it’s better to see it live once than to read it 100 times, so I suggest watching a video of the entire process filmed by a foreign colleague with the nickname JaymarkTech:

Pay attention to the bottom cover; dust may collect on it and should be removed.

If the system partition was cloned to the new drive in advance, then you can turn on the laptop and enjoy the update. Otherwise, you'll have to use a Mac OS X boot disk and a Time Machine backup (or the USB drive option described above). The procedure is simple, but takes longer than cloning a system partition through Disk Utility.

You should boot from the installation system disk, run Disk Utility, split the drive into partitions if you wish, or use one partition and format it in Mac OS Extended (journaled) format. After this, you can begin installing Mac OS X. Then it is advisable to install all system updates through the “Software Update” function and you can roll up a Time Machine backup. In the case of OS X Lion, loading (similarly, via holding down the Alt button) is performed from a hidden partition previously created on any flash drive. For this purpose there is a proprietary free program Lion Recovery Disk Assistant. Next, the system is installed from the Mac App Store, that is, an Internet connection is required to download about 3.5 GB of data. As a result, a planned restoration from a backup follows, as described above. But, it’s still easier to clone the disk first than to mess around with manually installing the OS and transferring data from a Time Machine backup.

That's all, actually. There is nothing complicated about this - try it, and you, dear readers, will definitely succeed.

Hi all! Today I’ll tell you how I changed the hard drive to an SSD drive in my new MacBook. I already talked about on my blog, and that I bought a MacBook Pro 13 without Retina. So, this laptop has a terribly slow HDD. Its rotation speed is 5400. Because of this, there are noticeable freezes when launching certain applications or when waking up from sleep. I especially notice this due to the fact that I have been using an SSD Hard Drive on my desktop computer for 3 years now, I have the system and the necessary programs installed on it, plus I also bought one SSD drive for games, sometimes I like to play various cool games games.

I'm not saying that Apple missed the mark with this laptop and made it slow, no. It’s just different, someone wouldn’t even notice it if there was nothing to compare it with.

This laptop has a disk drive, I found a lot of videos and articles on the Internet about the upgrade option by replacing the disk drive with optibay (DVD slim 9.5mm adapter for HDD) in which you can put a hard drive instead of a disk drive and put an SSD in the place where the HDD was. I bought everything, an adapter and an SSD drive for 256 GB Vertex 450 from the manufacturer OCZ (It has a crazy price of 7890 rubles.) Why did I choose OCZ? – For me, this is a proven longevity manufacturer, since SSDs have a limited number of write cycles.

Optibay - This is a very interesting thing, many thanks to whoever came up with it, I think this thing will be useful for those whose laptop is not quite new, it will be possible to install an SSD drive instead of a disk drive and Windows will work many times faster even on not very powerful hardware.

I thought for a long time and decided that, in principle, I didn’t need a second HDD instead of a disk drive and decided to leave the disk drive and just install a 256 gigabyte SSD, this is not so small for a work laptop, especially since I have an external USB hard drive and a desktop PC .

Let's get started replacing that very slow HDD!

The first thing we need is a tool, we need a small Torx Phillips screwdriver, I still have it from the time I changed the glass on my old iPhone 4. A hexagon and a plastic spatula are also included in the kit. The tool plays a very important role when disassembling Apple equipment! No need to twist those little bolts with a knife! I recommend not to rush and if you don’t have the necessary tools, then it’s better not to start, but first buy everything you need.

Now I need to remove static electricity from myself, I looked on the Internet how to do this and decided that it would be easier to just strip down to my underpants than to look for all sorts of antistatic agents

Turn off the laptop and turn it over

Before unscrewing, draw a diagram on a piece of paper so as not to get confused in the bolts, because in all Apple technology, almost all the bolts are different. Here we have 3 long and 7 short in these seven by 4 there is a border, this is important.

So we draw something like this and put the bolts in their places so that we can screw them back into place without any problems! This method works in disassembling any device, and it is very effective - why didn’t I know about it when I was disassembling my toys as a child?

Unscrew it, arrange the bolts, remove the cover and disconnect the power cable! Otherwise, if you accidentally drop a screwdriver or some other metal object on the motherboard, a short circuit will occur and that’s it, replace the motherboard... and maybe something else.

We do everything confidently and carefully with a plastic spatula!

Next, unscrew the hard drive holder. Again, I’m surprised at how simple and high-quality everything is made, the holder is metal, the orange rubber bands in the photo clamp the mounting bolts so that the hard drive feels comfortable, I think it even cushions it a little when hit and causes less damage to the hard drive.

After removing the holder, carefully lift the hard drive and pull out the SATA cables; if it is difficult to disconnect, pry it off with a plastic spatula.

We twisted it, now we put our SSD in place, carefully connect the cable, and first insert the lower bolts into the orange rubber bands and clamp them with the holder.

We close the lid back, take the bolts from our diagram, and screw everything into place.

Don’t worry about the operating system, Apple excelled here too! Now we'll install everything. Yes, all data from the old hard drive will have to be transferred by connecting to a computer or via a SATA to USB adapter, I think this will not be difficult.

We connect the laptop to the Internet via cable (this is faster) or via Wi Fi, it will ask you to select an access point, which one to connect to, enter the password and that’s it.

Turn on the laptop and hold down the CMD + R keys until the progress bar appears, after the bar is filled we will see this image:

Unfortunately, they offer to install OS X Mountain Lion, although OS X Mavericks has been released for a long time, but it’s okay to update later, we don’t have Hackintosh (I used Hackintosh on my desktop PC for about a year, that’s when my craving for Apple began, especially caught the attention of Time Machine, this thing will never be in Windows!)

Do not rush to click continue, first go to Utilities, Disk Utility in the top menu and create or partition a hard drive. After that, click “Continue”, accept the license agreement, and select the disk on which we will install.

I have one, I didn’t share it:

We are waiting for the process of downloading the system installation files, it is not necessary to sit and wait, it will do everything to the end automatically, after downloading the files, it will reboot and the installation will begin, which will proceed quite quickly.

Here is the result of the work speed, using the example of running Adobe Photoshop CS 6:

There was a time when I installed Windows 8 on an SSD using a USB 3.0 installation flash drive on a PC with an intel i5 processor, to be honest I was shocked because the installation time from start to desktop took only 8 minutes! This is cool, what will happen in the future?

That's all, I think the information will be useful. Thank you for your attention! Subscribe to my blog updates. Ask questions in the comments, in the future I think I’ll write about how I installed more RAM, but for now I’m happy with 4 gigabytes on the laptop.