Samsung 830 - Series MZ-7PC256N/AM 256 GB 2.5 Inch SATA III MLC Internal SSD Laptop Kit with Norton Ghost 15
This is my very first Solid State Drive (SSD) purchase, which I put into my late 2008 unibody 15-inch Macbook Pro (MBP) 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 4 GB of RAM. I was initially going to purchase a new laptop as my MBP seemed to be running a bit slower and hung up here and there when I had many applications running. In particular, I experienced considerable slowness and lag after I would finish using my VirtualBox (free virtualization software) to access Windows XP whenever I needed to use Internet Explorer.
My main reason for choosing the Samsung 830 SSD over others, was due to the fact that Samsung makes all the components in this SSD and that Apple themselves currently use Samsung and Toshiba as suppliers for SSD - and we all know how serious Apple is about their quality control and selection of vendors/suppliers they use. In addition, I had read good reviews from online sources such as AnandTech.
I wanted something that was reliable and was easy to set up. In addition, this SSD does not need a separate enclosure as the device itself is enclosed and it comes with the SATA/USB connection cable.
For all of you out there with a Macbook thinking about upgrading, I would highly recommend this. I read through tons of websites and how to's and wanted to share the steps I took below in swapping out my hard drive for the SSD, for those of you out there thinking about upgrading their MBP with a SSD in simple steps. See below (bear in mind that depending on the model and year of your MBP, it maybe easy or more difficult to access your hard drive vs mine)
All I had to do to replace my hard drive with this SSD (for my Macbook Pro) was to:
1) Download Carbon Copy Cloner (free, find it using google)
2) Open the Carbon Copy Cloner application
3) Insert the SATA connection (the SATA/USB connection is included in the box) into the Samsung 830 SSD, and plug in the USB connector into my MBP -> use Disk Utility to format the SSD (do your partitions once it's been formatted if you want)
4) Then using Carbon Copy Cloner -> clone my current hard drive into the Samsung 830 SSD (took me about 2 hours or less to copy over 140GB worth of data)
5) Test the Samsung 830 SSD by booting up through the external Samsung 830 SSD, by restarting the MBP, then holding onto the Option key before the gray screen appears, then boot it up
6) Once external booting through the external SSD is successful, shut down the MBP, open and swap out the hard drive with the SSD (make sure you have the necessary tools to open and access your hard drive in your MBP)
7) Power up your new MBP and enjoy your new and fast Samsung 830 SSD
*After I had cloned my hard drive to my new Samsung 830 SSD, it took me a whole 15-20 minutes to swap out the hard drive and I'm now using my MBP to type this review. I read some PC users installing their SSD's taking ages, reinstalling software and operating systems. This is the easiest and simplest solution for me (thanks to Carbon Copy Cloner as it copies everything including the operating system) and allows me to get back to work on my MBP with little to no down time and no hassles with reinstalling anything* Just in case people were wondering, this was my first time swapping out any hard drive, so I have little experience with computer components, yet it was super easy for me to do.
I'm currently running my new SSD with no issues and enjoying the speed that comes with having a SSD vs the traditional hard drive. I'm glad I chose Samsung. As I use my MBP primarily for work, I need the reliability and do not want the hassle of having my SSD returned or having the controller die on me as I read happens on a lot of other SSD's.
