Upload system to ssd macbook pro. Replacing an SSD in a MacBook Air: Instructions

Hello everyone! Today I'll tell you how I changed HDD on the SSD drive in his new MacBook. I already talked about on my blog, and about what I bought Macbook Pro 13 without Retina. So in this laptop is terribly slow HDD Hard disk, its rotation speed is 5400 because of this, there are noticeable freezes when starting certain applications or when waking up from sleep. I especially notice this because desktop computer I've been using it for 3 years now SSD Hard disk, on which I have installed the system and desired programs, plus I also bought one SSD drive for games, sometimes I like to play various cool games.

I'm not saying that Apple missed the mark with this laptop and made it slow, no. Just like anyone else, someone would not even notice this if there was nothing to compare with.

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

Optibay - The thing is very interesting, many thanks to the one who came up with it, I think such a thing will come in handy for those who have a laptop that is not quite new, it will be possible to put an SSD drive instead of a 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 don’t need a second HDD instead of a drive and decided to leave the drive and just put a 256 gigabyte SSD, this is not so little for a working laptop, especially since I have external USB hard and desktop PC.

Let's start replacing this very slow HDD!

The first thing we need is a tool, we need a small Phillips Torx screwdriver, I still have it from the moment when I changed the glass on my old iPhone 4. Hexagon and a plastic spatula, also from the kit. The tool in the analysis of Apple technology plays a very important role! No need to twist those little bolts with a knife! I recommend not to rush and if not necessary tools then it’s better not to take it, but first buy everything you need.

Now you need to remove static electricity from yourself, I searched on the Internet how to do this and decided that it would be easier to just undress 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 in order 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 just such a thing and put the bolts in their places, so that later they can be screwed 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 disassembled my toys as a child

Unscrewed, laid out the bolts, remove the cover and disconnect the power cable! Otherwise, if you accidentally drop a screwdriver or some other metal object on motherboard there will be a short circuit and that's it, kapets, replacement of the motherboard ... and maybe something else.

We do everything confidently and accurately with a plastic spatula!

Next, unscrew the holder hard drive. Again, I’m surprised how simple and high-quality everything is done, 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 a little when hit and does less harm 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 it 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! Let's install everything now. Yes, all data from the old hard drive will have to be transferred by connecting to a computer or via a SATA - USB adapter, I think this will not be difficult.

We connect the laptop to the Internet via a cable (it's faster) or via Wi Fi, it will prompt you to choose 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 full we will see this image:

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

Do not rush to press continue, first go to top menu in Utilities, Disk Utility 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 did not share it:

Waiting for the download process installation files system, it is not necessary to sit and wait, he will do everything to the end in automatic mode, after downloading the files, it will reboot and the installation will begin, which will take place quite quickly.

Here is the result of the speed of work, using the launch example Adobe Photoshop CS6:

There was a case when I installed Windows 8 on an SSD using the installation USB flash drive 3.0, on PC with intel processor i5, to be honest, I was shocked, because the installation time from start to desktop took only 8 minutes! That's cool, what's 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 will write how I installed more random access memory, but for now I'm satisfied with 4 gigabytes on a laptop.

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

Apple offers custom configuration options for its laptops and desktops with more RAM/HDD/SSD, but charges twice as much for components than they cost if bought on their own. In addition, in Russian and Ukrainian realities, ordering a custom configuration results in a “penny” in addition to the increased cost of “proprietary” hardware. Although, it is as branded as bought in any well-known company that sells computer components. Is it better tested and contains latest version Firmare, which is important in the case of SSD, but more on that later.

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

Clone is better than backup

The subject is a 15-inch MacBook Pro from 2011. “Lion”, aka OS X, has already settled on it, but I haven’t switched to using it yet, Snow Leopard is enough, plus this laptop is temporary for me, provided by a good friend until the last generation ordered arrives. That is, it is undesirable 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 a lot of time.

On the Windows platform for full cloning of the system and other partitions, there are third party utilities, although in Windows 7 such a function was already built into the system. In Mac OS X, the standard "Disk Utility" has been able to do this since the very first releases. And everything is implemented very simply, even a beginner will understand. The only problem may arise in connecting a built-in 2.5-inch drive to a laptop via USB. There are several options for solving it. I used an external HDD pocket, shown in the photo above, and a branded hard drive inherited from the old MacBok Pro, and decided to work with it instead of a temporary laptop drive. An external pocket is a relatively inexpensive thing and useful for storing media content on capacious hard drives, instead of optical discs. In terms of price per gigabyte, HDDs are already approaching DVDs. You can also unearth an old USB drive and use its stuffing. On the other hand, some devices of this kind are easily disassembled, and nothing will have to be broken. The last way not very convenient, but possible and, in principle, it will still be easier than the standard procedure for transferring data when changing internal storage 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 is changed in the laptop, the device is assembled and turned on with the Alt (Option) button pressed, after which the volume selection for booting 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 with boot disk Mac OS X. If you boot from it, you will also be able to run " disk utility” (located in the utilities section, in the top menu) and carry out all the same operations as in the OS X environment.

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

Naturally, all these operations are similarly performed with SSD, if the user decides to install just this type of drive instead of HDD. By the way, the right decision - the increase in performance is huge and much more noticeable than the increase in RAM from 4 to 8 GB. The only caveat is that you might need to update SSD firmware to implement TRIM command support. It was originally present in Windows 7, and appeared in Mac OS X starting with the release of 10.6.8. Very useful for solid state drives a command that 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 a model. One of the best options marketed by Intel.

Easy to upgrade RAM

Well, the drive is ready, it's time to disassemble the laptop. I recommend putting 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 are unscrewed with some effort, as they contain a sealant (blue blots on the thread). As they are removed, it is advisable to arrange them on the table in the same way 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 sits very tightly and precisely. brute force you should not use it, just gently pull it up from the side of the display hinge. As a result, the view will open such a picture:

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

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

A little more trouble with the drive

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 bar at the edge of the drive (on the side of the optical drive). A Philips 0 screwdriver is also used.

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

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

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

After that, we connect the connector in place, put the HDD into its landing bed and fasten the plastic bar. Well, here, everything is ready:

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

Pay attention to the bottom cover, it can collect dust, and it should be removed.

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

You should boot from the installation system disk, run Disk Utility, partition the drive if you wish, or use one partition and format it in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format. After that you can start Mac installation OS X. Then it is advisable to install everything 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, using the Alt button pressed) is performed from a pre-created on any flash drive hidden section. For this, there is a proprietary free program Lion Recovery Disk Assistant. Next, the system is installed from the Mac App Store, that is, you need an internet connection to download about 3.5 GB of data. The result is a planned recovery from backup as described above. But, it's still easier to pre-clone the disk than tinkering with manually installing the OS and transferring data from a Time Machine backup.

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

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

Apple offers custom configuration options for its laptops and desktops with more RAM/HDD/SSD, but charges twice as much for components than they cost if bought on its own. In addition, in Russian and Ukrainian realities, ordering a custom configuration results in a “penny” in addition to the increased cost of “proprietary” hardware. Although, it is as branded as bought in any well-known company that sells computer components. Unless it is better tested and contains the latest version of Firmare, which is important in the case of SSDs, but more on that later.

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

Clone is better than backup

The subject is a 15-inch MacBook Pro from 2011. “Lion”, aka OS X, has already settled on it, but I haven’t switched to using it yet, Snow Leopard is enough, plus this laptop is temporary for me, provided by a good friend until the last generation ordered arrives. That is, it is undesirable 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 a lot of time.

On the Windows platform, there are third-party utilities for full cloning of the system and other partitions, although in Windows 7 this function was already built into the system. In Mac OS X, the standard "Disk Utility" has been able to do this since the very first releases. And everything is implemented very simply, even a beginner will understand. The only problem may arise in connecting a built-in 2.5-inch drive to a laptop via USB. There are several options for solving it. I used an external HDD pocket, shown in the photo above, and a branded hard drive inherited from the old MacBok Pro, and decided to work with it instead of a temporary laptop drive. An external pocket is a relatively inexpensive thing and useful for storing media content on capacious hard drives, instead of optical discs. In terms of price per gigabyte, HDDs are already approaching DVDs. You can also unearth an old USB drive and use its stuffing. On the other hand, some devices of this kind are easily disassembled, and nothing will have to be broken. The latter method is not very convenient, but it is possible and, in principle, it will still be easier 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 is changed in the laptop, the device is assembled and turned on with the Alt (Option) button pressed, after which the volume selection for booting 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 the "Disk Utility" (located in the utilities section, in the top menu) and carry out all the same operations as in the environment OSX.

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

Naturally, all these operations are similarly performed with SSD, if the user decides to install just this type of drive instead of HDD. By the way, the right decision - the increase in performance is huge and much more noticeable than the increase in RAM from 4 to 8 GB. The only caveat is that you may need 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 of 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 a model. Intel offers some of the best options on the market.

Easy to upgrade RAM

Well, the drive is ready, it's time to disassemble the laptop. I recommend putting 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 are unscrewed with some effort, as they contain a sealant (blue blots on the thread). As they are removed, it is advisable to arrange them on the table in the same way 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 sits very tightly and accurately. You should not use brute force, just gently pull it up from the side of the display hinge. As a result, the view will open such a picture:

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

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

A little more trouble with the drive

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 bar at the edge of the drive (on the side of the optical drive). A Philips 0 screwdriver is also used.

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

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

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

After that, we connect the connector in place, put the HDD into its landing bed and fasten the plastic bar. Well, here, everything is ready:

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

Pay attention to the bottom cover, it can collect dust, and it should be removed.

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

You should boot from the installation system disk, run Disk Utility, partition the drive if you wish, or use one partition and format it in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format. After that, you can start installing Mac OS X. Then it is advisable to install all system updates through the "Software Update" function and you can roll up the Time Machine backup. In the case of OS X Lion, booting (similarly, via holding down the Alt button) is performed from a hidden partition previously created on any flash drive. To do this, there is a proprietary free program Lion Recovery Disk Assistant. Next, the system is installed from the Mac App Store, that is, you need an Internet connection to download about 3.5 GB of data. The result is a scheduled restore from a backup, as described above. But, it's still easier to pre-clone the disk than tinkering with manually installing the OS and transferring data from a Time Machine backup.

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

Apple has always valued storage in its devices at a premium. And in the iPhone, and in the iPad, and in the MacBook, every step to increase the storage medium flies a pretty penny. And gigabytes from Apple are significantly more expensive than the average market level. There is no doubt, usually these are very fast gigabytes, and there is no particular regret about the overpayment. And yet sometimes the toad chokes. And buy a version with a smaller drive. Hoping to shrink and somehow get by. But you always, absolutely always face a lack of volume.

In the case of the iPhone and iPad, the problem is partly, and on relatively old MacBooks (until 2016), you can change the SSD. But in the case of using original components, this is a very expensive pleasure. For example, a 256-gigabyte drive will cost 30 thousand rubles if you take a new one, and 18-20 thousand for a used one. It bites, you know. Meanwhile, "just an SSD" of this volume is sold for 9-10 thousand. For 16-18 thousand, you can take a model of 512 gigabytes. The proprietary nature of the Apple connector is managed with the help of an adapter, which costs about 1000 rubles on Aliexpress, and 2-3 thousand in Russian shops.

The autopsy revealed...

I will talk about my own experience with the MacBook Pro 13, model Early 2015. I got it with a 128 gigabyte SSD, which, in general, was enough, but still somehow itched - all of a sudden I need to mount some kind of incendiary video, and not enough space? For some reason, I did not want to spend 30 thousand. But even with non-native SSDs, everything is not so simple. The fact is that Apple has its own troubles, due to which disks from other manufacturers are seen by the operating system only after dancing with a tambourine, shamanism is also required to enable TRIM, and there are still problems with hibernation, which has to be turned off.

In particular, such overlays happen with the Samsung 960 EVO, which is often bought to upgrade MacBooks. I didn't want to deal with something like this.

It's even funny that Samsung SSDs are trying to fail in MacBooks, because, as you can see, the original SSD (pictured below) was made by a known person.

Deep googling revealed that one of the least problematic SSDs for MacBook Pro Early 2015 is the Kingston KC1000. A 240-gigabyte model (I certainly don't need more) costs an average of 8,500 rubles. For this we get a drive with a declared read speed of 2700 MB / s, and writes of 900 MB / s. For comparison, the original Apple SSD delivers 1200/700 reads and writes, respectively. Here it is worth mentioning that Kingston's recording is relatively slow only on the younger model, and already from 480 GB it grows to 1600 MB / s. But, I repeat, I do not need such a volume, and the overpayment would not make any sense.

Considering that I had never upgraded macbooks before, I asked the guys from the Fixed.One service to help in this matter. Looking ahead a little, I will say that with special screwdrivers (five- and hexagonal stars), the operation can be done at home.

Let's go. First unscrew back cover and admire how everything inside is beautifully arranged. The SSD is fixed with one screw. A slight movement - and the slot is free.

Above Kingston SSD with adapter already installed

The adapter came from China, it looks modest, but, on the other hand, it does not need to work miracles. There is no electronics on it - everything is limited only to redirecting contacts from the Apple connector to a regular M.2 connector. Something similar happened with Sony's proprietary cards: it quickly became clear that regular microSD cards could be inserted into the PSP portable console via a cheap adapter.

The installation procedure is as follows: first insert the adapter into the connector, then the new SSD into it. If we are talking about a capacious model (for example, per terabyte), it makes sense to wrap the contact point with thermal tape for secure fastening and additional heat dissipation. But in our case, this would be clearly redundant, because this model Kingston heats up quite moderately, and in conjunction with the existing adapter, it sticks out above the board a little higher than the original and makes excellent contact with the thermal interface on the cover. In length, the match is complete, so the KC1000 was fixed with a screw from its predecessor.

When turned on, the macbook expectedly swore at the lack of a boot disk, but after inserting a flash drive with the High Sierra distribution kit, I immediately saw a new SSD and offered to install the OS on it. Very important point: no upgrade to High Sierra install third party drive it is impossible, and it is necessary to upgrade the operating system BEFORE replacing the drive.

Installation went without a hitch. It's real - there's nothing to tell. After completion, I restored all the data from the Time Machine copy on the flash drive. This turned out to be significantly faster than over the air, but still slow relative to the capabilities of the flash drive. It can transfer up to 300 megabytes per second, and recovery proceeded at an average speed of 20 megabytes, only sometimes rising to 40-50 megabytes.

Immediately after the recovery, I launched a benchmark and, frankly, I was pretty discouraged: according to its data, the read and write speed was below 400 MB / s. At the same time, the speed of work was the same. Launching applications, switching between them - everything. I had a suspicion that the matter is in the background tasks with which the system loads the disk, and in particular, the Spotlight indexing service. The latter works furiously in the first days after installing a new drive, re-examining files, letters, contacts, etc., which leads not only to a slowdown in work, but also to increased energy consumption. You can turn off indexing by entering the command in the Terminal sudo mdutil -a -i off. But it's probably better to just wait until the system becomes aware of itself again and calms down.

Actually, the very next day the benchmark showed completely different, more pleasing numbers. This is not at the peak of SSD capabilities, but it is noticeably higher than on the original drive, released, let me remind you, three years ago.

What pitfalls can arise? Firstly, with a non-native SSD, the MacBook Pro tends to wake up incorrectly from hibernation - it crashes and goes into reboot. I had this a couple of times, but only on the first day, when FileVault data was encrypted in the background. After it ended (pah-pah-pah) everything became normal. If your problem persists, you need to type the command in the terminal sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 25. But the best thing, as experts say, is to reset the laptop and set it up from scratch, and not restore it from Time Machine. Then there will be no problems with getting out of sleep. I haven't tested it myself yet, but I trust experts.

Secondly, the drive may not work to its fullest. This is also stated in honest descriptions of adapters: they do not pump more than 2 GB / s. Plus, not all lines can earn PCI Express, for example only two instead of the maximum four. For me, in the diagnostic utility, sometimes x2, then x4 are shown. This does not affect performance. And by the way, I don’t even know - maybe the original SSD also jumped.

But in general, especially after the release of High Sierra 10.13.3, third-party SSDs work decently, and if you are lucky with the adapter, you will save a very significant amount. To be lucky, it is still better to buy it in Russia and in companies that conduct preliminary testing of this kind of hardware.

Many thanks to Fixed.One for helping with the upgrade. The Kingston KC1000 proved to be fully usable in a MacBook, and given that they have a maximum capacity of 960 GB, this will allow someone to increase the storage capacity to a very impressive size at a very reasonable cost.

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In the basic configuration of the McaBook Pro, Apple installs hard drives at 5400 rpm. And their performance with modern operating Mac systems OS X (10.6-10.8) leaves a lot to be desired. And it’s not for nothing that Apple is gradually, but surely, moving to installation in all laptops ssd drives.

We think it's time to spruce up your favorite MacBook too. You just need to install an SSD drive in it. And so that you are not embarrassed by the limited volume of ssd, you can install second hard disc in place of the DVD drive.

Which laptop models are suitable for this solution? - Yes, to almost all MacBooks and MacBook Pros except MacBook Pro Retina

SSD 120Gb	SSD 240Gb	SSD 500Gb	SSD 1Tb	SSD 2Tb
9 000 rub	12 000 rub	20 000 rub	55 000 rub	94 600 rubles

In laptops, the combination of read / write speeds from / to a hard disk at a disk spindle speed of 5400 rpm. does not even reach 50 Mb / s. A 7200 rpm drive will almost double your MacBook's life: the read/write speed can range from 80 to 105 Mb/s.
It is worth noting that there are also Seagate hybrid hard drives on the market, in the design of which a 7200 rpm hard drive with a 16 MB data cache and an 8 GB ssd drive. With such a "combo" drive, the read/write speed can be increased by another 5-7% compared to a conventional 7200 rpm drive.

SSD read/write performance varies from manufacturer to manufacturer and model to model. In addition, the prices of ssd drives have not yet reached a level comparable to conventional hard drives. The price is gradually falling, and even top-end ssds with a capacity of 500 and 960 GB are approaching $ 1 for 1 GB of storage.

Since Mac OS X is very compact operating system, and in the set with the majority necessary programs the total volume on the disk usually does not exceed 30-50GB, you can safely look at ssds with a capacity of 120GB or more.
Although, in our opinion, it is already worth considering an ssd with a capacity of 180GB or more.

It is precisely because the volume of an ssd, combined with its price, that limit most users in the direction of choosing to use an ssd - we suggest you consider the option of a high-speed ssd and a good capacity of a hdd installed in place of a DVD drive.

For upgrade Apple Mac Book Pro 2011-2012, we need 3 screwdrivers: torx 6, torx 8 and Philips 00 or 000 Phillips screwdriver.

Remember! Dispose of any residual static electricity before disassembling any device.

Unscrew 10 screws on the bottom cover, 3 of which are long.

This is what a MacBook Pro 13 looks like from the inside

Before changing anything in the laptop configuration, you MUST disconnect the battery from the motherboard. We do not want to start repairs with you with the replacement of the motherboard after a short circuit, do we?

We install an ssd-drive in place of the standard "slow" hard drive, and we can old disk put in optibay in place of the DVD drive. In our case, we put in optibay new disk with a capacity of 750GB at 7200 rpm, in order to increase the speed when accessing user data, which we plan to store on hdd.

Unscrew the two screws on the bracket that holds the hard drive.

4 screws (torx 8) around the perimeter of the "old" hard drive are transferred to the ssd drive.

We install ssd in place of the system disk and fix it with a bar on two screws.

We install the hard drive in Optibey and be sure to screw it with reverse side two screws.

Remove the optical drive.

We need to disconnect 5 loops.
We do it very carefully.

Disable

• hard drive cable
• optical drive cable
• wi-fi cable
• camera cable
• speaker cable

We unscrew the speaker and disconnect the antennas from the Wi-Fi module and put the speaker aside.

DVD superdrive. Unscrew the three screws and pull it out.

We rearrange the data cable and the mounting bracket from the dvd drive to optibay, observing the direction of installation of the corner.

Install optibay with hard drive in place of dvd drive.

We put back the plastic bar of the speaker and connect the antennas to the Wi-Fi module.

We connect in reverse order the loops and cables to system board. And connect the battery.

Close and screw the bottom cover.
We install the system from an external boot drive or through the system Mac recovery OS X via the Internet (using the Cmd + R combination when booting the computer).

Now, at the owner's disposal, a very fast 2011 Apple MacBook Pro: the system itself and all programs run several times faster than with a standard hdd. The system responds instantly. With a significant amount open applications there are no fading and hanging of the “spinning colored candy”. Programs that use production data caching work with big files without any delay. And when processing very large arrays of information, the execution time was reduced (according to the owner of the laptop) by 2-3 times.
It is worth noting once again that the hard drive is limited physical ability read/write on rotating metal plates. Therefore, his throughput» does not exceed 115 MB/sec. (best case scenario). There are no mechanical elements in ssd, so the read / write speed on ssd can reach 550 megabytes / sec. There is an option to theoretically increase this value to 1.2 Gigabytes / sec, but for this you need to use an external hardware RAID array that is NOT system drive connected at best over a 10 Gigabit/s (or 1.25 Gigabyte/s) Thunderbolt bus and communicating with another similar RAID array over the same Thunderbolt bus.
If you own an Apple Mac Pro, you can install four or more ssd drives, make a large RAID array (but note that it will not be hardware, but software if you do not use a special RAID controller). And even then, you can achieve theoretical data transfer rates of up to 750 MB/s (corresponding to a 6 Gigabit/s sata bus data rate).

In the next article, we will tell you how to make a Fusion Drive yourself on an Apple laptop with two or more hard drives installed. And how, in our practical opinion, Fusion Drive differs from the operation of a conventional combination of SSD + HDD.

The article was prepared based on the results of repair work Service Center macfix.

The cost of installing an SSD on a MacBook in our service center

SSD 120Gb	SSD 240Gb	SSD 500Gb	SSD 1Tb	SSD 2Tb
9 000 rub	12 000 rub	20 000 rub	55 000 rub	94 600 rubles