Finally Placed My Order For An SSD From Crucial.Com.

By kevpan815
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kevpan815

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Bought The One That They Reccommended For My Mid Year 2010 Mac Mini. Had 2 Pay $19.99 for Overnight Shipping, but if everything goes according to plan with both the Credit Card Verification and The Home Address Verification, It should be here by 12 P.M. Tomorrow. There was no way that I was going to buy a SSD from Apple, after all the only one that they have for sale is $999.99! As for the Crucial SSD from Crucial.com, it was $132.99 for a 128 GB SSD Plus $9.00 for Tax, and $19.99 for Over Night Shipping.

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kevpan815

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Congrads. An SSD was one of my best upgrade ever.

I just hope that this Upgrade is going to Speed Up my Mac, all the 8 GB's of Ram Upgrade did was it stopped the Temp Files from building up on Shutdown. By the way: The Solid State Drive was actually $123.99 NOT $132.99! I do have one question about Solid State Drives, however: According to Crucial.Com, you need to Partition the SSD before you start using the Device as the primary Hard Drive, and it was even telling me in some spots on their Website that it may be better to use the SSD as an External Hard Drive and NOT pull the Original Hard Drive out of the Computer. Is this true that I don't partition the Drive first before trying to use it, that it will fail to detect the SSD?

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f0rk_b0mb

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I just hope that this Upgrade is going to Speed Up my Mac, all the 8 GB's of Ram Upgrade did was it stopped the Temp Files from building up on Shutdown. By the way: The Solid State Drive was actually $123.99 NOT $132.99! I do have one question about Solid State Drives, however: According to Crucial.Com, you need to Partition the SSD before you start using the Device as the primary Hard Drive, and it was even telling me in some spots on their Website that it may be better to use the SSD as an External Hard Drive and NOT pull the Original Hard Drive out of the Computer. Is this true that I don't partition the Drive first before trying to use it, that it will fail to detect the SSD?

I've never owned a Cricial before, but I assume you just format the drive in the OS X installer as normal and your on your way. I'd just Google it. <model drive> <OS X version> install instructions. :) Maybe an actual owner would be able to help you more. :)

Also be sure to enable trim:

http://osxdaily.com/2012/01/03/enable-trim-all-ssd-mac-os-x-lion/

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5453/trim-enabler-20-for-os-x-lion-released

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I just hope that this Upgrade is going to Speed Up my Mac, all the 8 GB's of Ram Upgrade did was it stopped the Temp Files from building up on Shutdown. By the way: The Solid State Drive was actually $123.99 NOT $132.99! I do have one question about Solid State Drives, however: According to Crucial.Com, you need to Partition the SSD before you start using the Device as the primary Hard Drive, and it was even telling me in some spots on their Website that it may be better to use the SSD as an External Hard Drive and NOT pull the Original Hard Drive out of the Computer. Is this true that I don't partition the Drive first before trying to use it, that it will fail to detect the SSD?

I'm not sure if it's still the case but when Snow Leopard 10.6.8 was released, you had to use a little hack to enable trim on 3rd party drives. I'd look into that.

As for performance, I think you'll be blown away :)

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threetonesun

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I just hope that this Upgrade is going to Speed Up my Mac, all the 8 GB's of Ram Upgrade did was it stopped the Temp Files from building up on Shutdown. By the way: The Solid State Drive was actually $123.99 NOT $132.99! I do have one question about Solid State Drives, however: According to Crucial.Com, you need to Partition the SSD before you start using the Device as the primary Hard Drive, and it was even telling me in some spots on their Website that it may be better to use the SSD as an External Hard Drive and NOT pull the Original Hard Drive out of the Computer. Is this true that I don't partition the Drive first before trying to use it, that it will fail to detect the SSD?

No. Just boot from the OS installer (USB or CD) and run disk utility from there.

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kevpan815

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No. Just boot from the OS installer (USB or CD) and run disk utility from there.

Thanks for the Reply. I'll have to give your post a Like once I am up and running again (I am using my Mobile Browser at the moment due to the fact that I am currently in the process of going to Line 0 on my old OEM 5400 RPM SATA Hard Disk Drive). As for my OEM Snow Leopard CD, it will most likely no longer work any more due to the fact that Apple gave me a 32 Bit Disk and my system now has 8 GB's of OEM RAM, instead of 2 GB's of OEM RAM. I do however have a Mac OS X Lion Mini USB Thumb Drive (from Apple, you know, the ones that used to cost $69.99 before they made Mac all Download Only with ML, so that should work. One question that I do have however is it possible to install Apple Boot Camp on an SSD?

I'm not sure if it's still the case but when Snow Leopard 10.6.8 was released, you had to use a little hack to enable trim on 3rd party drives. I'd look into that.

As for performance, I think you'll be blown away :)

I will no longer be using my OEM Snow Leopard Disk due to the fact that it's 32 Bit and I now have 8 GB's of RAM in this Machine. I will have to give your post a Like however for that little tip about Snow Leopard just as soon as I am back up and running. :-)

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kevpan815

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I've never owned a Cricial before, but I assume you just format the drive in the OS X installer as normal and your on your way. I'd just Google it. <model drive> <OS X version> install instructions. :) Maybe an actual owner would be able to help you more. :)

Also be sure to enable trim:

http://osxdaily.com/2012/01/03/enable-trim-all-ssd-mac-os-x-lion/

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5453/trim-enabler-20-for-os-x-lion-released

What exactly is Trim? I am very scared about hacking software and equipment that may cause both my Apple Care Extended Warranty and my Crucial Warranty's to be Voided!

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+Warwagon MVC

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frabz-MATRIX-WELCOME-TO-THE-REAL-WORLD-f16102.jpg

You'll love it. Once you go SSD you'll never go back. Every single one of my systems has an SSD. There is one down side to them though. From the moment you first use an SSD every system you use that has a traditional spinning hard drive will seem dog slow!.

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threetonesun

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One question that I do have however is it possible to install Apple Boot Camp on an SSD?

Sure, why not? :D

FYI, if you're going to install Boot Camp, do it immediately after installing Mountain Lion (unless you're recovery from Time Machine in which case, disregard). I've had issues on two recent computers where ML has said it couldn't partition the drive for boot camp, and it's required a full re-imaging from Time Machine to fix it.

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f0rk_b0mb

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What exactly is Trim? I am very scared about hacking software and equipment that may cause both my Apple Care Extended Warranty and my Crucial Warranty's to be Voided!

Trim is the SSD's garbage collection feature. If you do not enable it, it could wear and stress your SSD which will slow down your computer over time. You aren't "hacking" anything. You are enabling a software feature that makes your drive last longer and stay snappy-- it has nothing to do with any hardware. :)

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Chicane-UK Veteran

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You'll never look back - honestly. I have SSD's in everything now for OS drives and most speed critical applications. Every time I go back to a PC with a mechanical disk it almost feels like there's something wrong with it!

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Tuishimi

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You'll love it. Once you go SSD you'll never go back. Every single one of my systems has an SSD. There is one down side to them though. From the moment you first use an SSD every system you use that has a traditional spinning hard drive will seem dog slow!.

This is why I haven't made the leap yet. That and I need a ton of space. But for my system drive... a 256 or maybe start saving for a 512. Can you safely stripe two 256 drives together, by the way? Will they maintain their efficiency?

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kevpan815

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Thank you guys for your help. What the Crucial Website basically said was that when you buy the disk it comes to you with 0 Partitions Created on the SSD and that Windows and/or Mac Setup Programs will NOT detect the disk if you don't use either Disk Management from an EXISTING Windows Installation and/or Disk Utility from a Mac to first create a Hard Drive Partition before installing either Windows and/or Mac. From their help documents online, it does sound like it is easier to install a Mac OS on it rather than a Windows Install. It does sound like the other posters comment was correct that I can just use my Mac OS X Lion Mini USB Stick to install the OS with Lion as a starter. From the other guys post about Garbage Collection, I assume that I need to Upgrade from Lion to Mountain Lion first, then install Garbage Collection, or is that wrong? Thanks in Advance. Unfortunately while I do currently have Mac OS X Lion on a USB Stick, I will have to Re-Download Mountain Lion from the App Store before I can install it on my Mac.

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kevpan815

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It also does sound like the SSD does come with some Manufacturer Software called Dataplex. I don,t know if this is the so called Garbage Collection Software or NOT, but there is a mention of the Software using a Product Key System on their Website so they apparently don't want you handing out the software to other people!

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kevpan815

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Looks like I have a bit of a Problem! In order to get a Head Start on things, I read my Mid Year 2010 Mac Mini Owner's Manuel! What it said in there was a little Shocking, it said only the RAM is designed to be easily Removed by the Customer to Upgrade the Mac. So I decided to skip the rest of the Line 0 Operation, Power Down the Mac, Unplug the Mac, and Open Up the Mac Mini, sure enough, the Hard Drive is Locked in there Tight with Divits, NOT Screws! It just plain does NOT come out of there! As a result, it looks like I am going to have to use this SSD Externally rather than Internally! :-(

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Brandon H Supervisor

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^ yep, ifixit is your friend when it comes to replacing things in macs :)

also, wow, i forgot how much different and bigger the 2010 model looked over the last couple models

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kevpan815

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http://www.ifixit.co...lacement/3113/1

read that...its replaceable...you just need a torx screwdriver...

and you still over paid :p lol...you can easily get a top of the line SSD for under $1.00/GB

Excuse me but: Did you or did you NOT read my Correction on the Price of the Drive in a later post? It's $123.99 for 128 GB SSD! Just FYI!

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kevpan815

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I also notice that using Trim is NOT exactly approved by Apple according to 1 of those 2 Links you guys provided me, but it looks like I have no choice if I want my SSD to continue to function normally. I have now downloaded 10.8.2 from the Mac App Store and have it ready to put it on the SSD when it gets here (I put 10.7.5 back on my Internal Hard Drive seeing how it can't be removed).

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Farchord

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I also notice that using Trim is NOT exactly approved by Apple according to 1 of those 2 Links you guys provided me, but it looks like I have no choice if I want my SSD to continue to function normally. I have now downloaded 10.8.2 from the Mac App Store and have it ready to put it on the SSD when it gets here (I put 10.7.5 back on my Internal Hard Drive seeing how it can't be removed).

TRIM is supported by apple, but only on Apple's own SSDs, it doesn't care about third parties.

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threetonesun

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I also notice that using Trim is NOT exactly approved by Apple according to 1 of those 2 Links you guys provided me, but it looks like I have no choice if I want my SSD to continue to function normally. I have now downloaded 10.8.2 from the Mac App Store and have it ready to put it on the SSD when it gets here (I put 10.7.5 back on my Internal Hard Drive seeing how it can't be removed).

TRIM isn't necessary, most controllers do some sort of garage collection without it. And yes, the hard drive is removable, you just need a Torx screwdriver, Apple loves to use them.

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psionicinversion

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TRIM is a garbage collection feature to stop the SSD from filling up with crap and slowing down becuase alot of controllers dont do it themselves. The sandforce controllers do though. Not sure if the newer controllers from different manufacturers do or not but Win 7 has it built in so all good with that. As regards to macs i havnt got a clue which is probably why you need to install some software or something to enable it.

SSD's are like fast as hell compared to mechanical drives so youll be good.

Oh and to the partition thing you just create one to make the space usable, all HD's start out like that when new.

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