MBP SSD

kg648 · 23 Mar 2011 at 23:07

I have a oldish (2006 i think) coreduo MBP, since the laptop wont support trim or I am assuming it won't would this make it pointless getting a SSD for it?

How easy are these laptops to take apart to replace the disk?

Thanks.

MagicBoy · 23 Mar 2011 at 23:22

They're a pain in the bum to get open. Off the top of my head it's about 20 screws of a number of different types to get the top plate (including the keyboard) off. Then you need to get the wireless and bluetooth wiring out of the way. You'll need a small crosshead and a T8 Torx.

Compared to something like an IBM Thinkpad they're not the most elegantly designed machine under the hood with wires and sticky tape all over the place. The Plastic MacBooks and later Unibodies are much easier to work on.

TRIM - not sure. OS X doesn't support it in the OS. Not sure on the chipset, suspect the ICH7M is too old.

kg648 · 23 Mar 2011 at 23:23

Would you say without TRIM it is not worth getting an SSD? and just getting some faster disk like a WD black?

MagicBoy · 23 Mar 2011 at 23:31

My SSD experience is limited. Without wanting to be rude it's an old laptop, hence why I sold mine and swapped to a unibody recently. OS X 10.7 Lion will support TRIM, however it seems likely the Core Duo machines will not be supported as the developer builds are 64-bit only.

If you need more space I'd chuck a decent 5400rpm drive in. I put a 5400rpm 250GB drive in mine and it felt significantly quicker booting up and loading Apps than the shipping drive. Geekbench HDD scores were 30% up IIRC.

Space Cowboy · 24 Mar 2011 at 08:08

TRIM isn't a deal breaker. Everyone who is using a third-party SSD in their Mac is using it without TRIM right now. There's less of a need for TRIM on HFS+ volumes.

I'd say go for it - buying an SSD was the best upgrade I made for my MBP.

Deku · 24 Mar 2011 at 09:57

Space Cowboy said:
TRIM isn't a deal breaker. Everyone who is using a third-party SSD in their Mac is using it without TRIM right now.

Excuse my ignorance, but I didn't think the SSD's with Sandforce controllers needed TRIM? ie the vertex line and OWC.

glitch · 24 Mar 2011 at 13:24

kg648 said:
I have a oldish (2006 i think) coreduo MBP, since the laptop wont support trim or I am assuming it won't would this make it pointless getting a SSD for it?

It's not a hardware issue with regard to TRIM, it's an OS issue and one that's likely to be fixed in Lion. But as Space Cowboy has already mentioned, it's not a deal-breaker.

An SSD is the best upgrade you can do to a MBP - get one bought.

kg648 said:
How easy are these laptops to take apart to replace the disk?

Looking at this, a damn sight harder than a Unibody, but by no means impossible - just go carefully.

kg648 · 24 Mar 2011 at 18:39

doesnt look too bad just lots of screws, only thing that looks scary is the ribbon.

MagicBoy · 24 Mar 2011 at 18:46

Oh, gotta be careful with the keyboard connector. They're a bit fragile - someone I know managed to break his by being a bit cavalier with it. Cost him £150ish to fix as the keyboard only comes as a complete unit with the top plate apparently.

iraiguana · 24 Mar 2011 at 22:40

You have to be careful not to bend the top with the keyboard, other than that keep all the screws somewhere safe and divided up and you wont have a problem. ifixit has a good guide on how to do it with step by step pictures.

If your careful as you go, you shouldn't have too much trouble. I slightly bent mine trying to detach the keyboard and top, so wouldn't recommend it to someone else to be honest.