Help Upgrading My Macbook Pro (2012)

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averagejoe27

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Jun 8, 2015
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Hello everyone and thanks in advance for any help! I know this has been asked a lot before and trust me..I have been reading posts and forums for days! However, I keep finding conflicting information and cannot seem to find everything I need in one place.

First off, my specs:

OS X Yoesmite 10.10.5 - 15 inch, Mid 2012
2.3GHz Intel Core i7
16GB 1600 MHz DDR3
NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M 512 MB


So what I want to do is upgrade my hard drive to a SSD, then replace my optical drive with another HDD.

Here are my main concerns:

1) TRIM - I get completely opposite opinions on TRIM during my research. Some say you need it, some say you don't. I've also read that in Yosemite 10.10.4 and on, you can activate TRIM (if need be) with a simple terminal command. Is TRIM something that I have to worry about at all? Or can I just move forward with my SSD upgrade?

2) What exactly will I need to copy my HDD now to my SSD? I keep reading about brackets, enclosures, Carbon Copy Cloner?? Can someone please help me figure out the tools I would need for this copy process?

3) I've also been reading that replacing the optical bay with a HDD can actually slow down the new SSD. Is this true? Is there anyway to know if this will happen before hand?

As far as the physical process of replacing the HDD's, I've found good videos and picture descriptions on this. I am only being held back by the 3 points made above. (Also, I am looking at a Samsung 850 EVO for my upgrade. If anyone wants to throw in any advice on that, or if I should get OWC or Crucial, it would be much appreciated!!)

Thank you so much for any help!!!
 
Solution
Solandri
I don't know about this model in particular, but...

1) TRIM was very important in the early days of SSDs (just 5 years ago - hard to believe it was that recent). The garbage collection algorithms on modern SSDs have gotten much better and are much smarter about recognizing the common filesystems, so TRIM is not as important today with a modern SSD. It's still preferable to have TRIM, but I would say it's no longer essential.

2) Any program which can do a sector-by-sector clone of your HDD to the SSD will work. Since it's a bit-for-bit copy, it doesn't matter if it's a Windows or Mac or Linux program. All that's required is the formatted space of the source HDD be smaller than the space on the SSD (you can enlarge the partitions...
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Solandri

Solandri

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Jan 4, 2012
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I don't know about this model in particular, but...

1) TRIM was very important in the early days of SSDs (just 5 years ago - hard to believe it was that recent). The garbage collection algorithms on modern SSDs have gotten much better and are much smarter about recognizing the common filesystems, so TRIM is not as important today with a modern SSD. It's still preferable to have TRIM, but I would say it's no longer essential.

2) Any program which can do a sector-by-sector clone of your HDD to the SSD will work. Since it's a bit-for-bit copy, it doesn't matter if it's a Windows or Mac or Linux program. All that's required is the formatted space of the source HDD be smaller than the space on the SSD (you can enlarge the partitions after the cloning is done). That said, these things usually work better with a clean install when you switch to a SSD.

3) 2010-2012 was right around when we were switching from SATA 2 to SATA 3. Consequently, a lot of computers from that era have both SATA 2 and SATA 3 ports. Frequently in laptops, the HDD connector was SATA 3, while the optical drive connector was SATA 2. So yes it's possible that putting the SSD in the optical bay will limit it to SATA 2 speeds. Not that it makes much of a difference outside of benchmarks. But if you're going to go with a SSD + HDD configuration, you should put the SSD in the HDD bay, and the HDD in the optical bay.

Also, I don't think this affects your model, but Apple used a proprietary temperature sensor on some of its laptop and iMac HDDs (instead of getting the temp from the drive itself over the SATA port like you're supposed to). This sensor feeds to a fan and controls the fan speed. If you do not transfer this sensor over to the new drive, or you leave it disconnected, the fan will run at full throttle (rather noisy) all the time.
 
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averagejoe27

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Jun 8, 2015
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Hey everyone!

As I get closer to finishing this process...one more question came to mind:

Do I have to install the SSD where the original HDD was to make it the main drive (main drive as in the one with the OS on it and such)?

Or can I put the SSD where the optical bay is and still make it the main, bootable drive? (and leave the original HDD in it's place as extra storage)?

Thanks!
 
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