Are there "Any" SDD's that work with Mid 2009 13 inch MBP (Model 5,5)?

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
I bought the mid-2009 13-inch 2.26 MacBook Pro (model 5,5) when it came out. Mine has the "stock" 160GB HDD. My question is very basic: Is there "any" SSD that has been proven/tested to to work with my MacBook pro model?



BTW....I have the EFI 1.7 firmware installed. I've researched this topic ad nauseum......and find so many conflicting stories that it's hard to come to any conclusion.\



I've read so many posts of constant "beach ball's", "system freezes", etc...resulting in the need to rollback the EFI 1.7 update to 1.6 etc, etc, etc....



Would really appreciate specific makes/models of SSD's that have been tested/proven to work with my model MBP with EFI 1.7 update installed.



If there are none, any recommendations on a 7200 HDD that has been tested/proven to work with my model MBP with EFI 1.7 would be greatly appreciated as well!



Thanks in advance!

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 8
    Almost all of them will work. It takes a 2.5" SATA drive. That describes most SSDs.
  • Reply 2 of 8
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by DSTOFEL View Post


    I bought the mid-2009 13-inch 2.26 MacBook Pro (model 5,5) when it came out. Mine has the "stock" 160GB HDD. My question is very basic: Is there "any" SSD that has been proven/tested to to work with my MacBook pro model?



    BTW....I have the EFI 1.7 firmware installed. I've researched this topic ad nauseum......and find so many conflicting stories that it's hard to come to any conclusion.\



    I've read so many posts of constant "beach ball's", "system freezes", etc...resulting in the need to rollback the EFI 1.7 update to 1.6 etc, etc, etc....



    Would really appreciate specific makes/models of SSD's that have been tested/proven to work with my model MBP with EFI 1.7 update installed.



    If there are none, any recommendations on a 7200 HDD that has been tested/proven to work with my model MBP with EFI 1.7 would be greatly appreciated as well!



    Thanks in advance!



    I've not heard of the issue and I am running the same model MBP with an OCZ Vertex 2 (25nm) in the optical bay. Works great, and I've never had a system freeze or beach ball since I installed the SSD. Granted, it's only been two weeks, but that's constant use, since I've been on holiday.
  • Reply 3 of 8
    the stuttering issues you refer to are based on the first-gen SSDs from a couple of years back that used a very poor quality, cacheless memory controller. because they had no cache, they were unable to perform concurrent operations as well as being highly inefficient with multiple small writes, causing these slowdowns. the J-Micron controllers of the day were the ones notorious for this issue.



    current SSDs do not have these issues. to be especially safe, stick to SSDs that use Indilinx, Sandforce, Samsung, Toshiba, or Intel memory controllers. i'm sure J-Micron based SSDs are fine now, but if you're still concerned, just shop for the others.
  • Reply 4 of 8
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by DSTOFEL View Post


    I bought the mid-2009 13-inch 2.26 MacBook Pro (model 5,5) when it came out. Mine has the "stock" 160GB HDD. My question is very basic: Is there "any" SSD that has been proven/tested to to work with my MacBook pro model?



    BTW....I have the EFI 1.7 firmware installed. I've researched this topic ad nauseum......and find so many conflicting stories that it's hard to come to any conclusion.\



    I've read so many posts of constant "beach ball's", "system freezes", etc...resulting in the need to rollback the EFI 1.7 update to 1.6 etc, etc, etc....



    Would really appreciate specific makes/models of SSD's that have been tested/proven to work with my model MBP with EFI 1.7 update installed.



    If there are none, any recommendations on a 7200 HDD that has been tested/proven to work with my model MBP with EFI 1.7 would be greatly appreciated as well!



    Thanks in advance!



    I have the same MacBook Pro and I'm looking into upgrading my drive - I also have EFI 1.7 - but have also seen many posts with people complaining of beachballs, etc. Did you ever update the drive? If not, does anyone else here have SSD recommendations?
  • Reply 5 of 8
    Well, I bought the OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 240GB .. hopefully it works. Crossing my fingers.
  • Reply 6 of 8
    Well, so far so good. I installed the OWC Mercury Extreme Pro today - and wow, I am impressed. The quality of the drive is very good - beaded aluminum - installed OS X on there and put all the patches on. Enabled trim support and disabled sudden motion sensor and disabled the drive power off. Crossing my fingers, so far so good - boot time to usable - 13 seconds. Very pleased- it also wakes from sleep. I'll see how it goes.
  • Reply 7 of 8
    zachb10zachb10 Posts: 59member
    Note - I also changed the sleep hibernate mode to 2, which only writes the hibernate file when the battery level is critical.
  • Reply 8 of 8
    zachb10zachb10 Posts: 59member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ZachB10 View Post


    Note - I also changed the sleep hibernate mode to 2, which only writes the hibernate file when the battery level is critical.



    Seems like all is well so far. I have had no issues returning from sleep, even after the battery drained and the system shut down, it came back up after being plugged in. No beach balls, no lock ups. I used boot camp assistant to partition and install Windows 7 Ultimate, and ran through the entire Win7 install, updates, etc. Drive gets a 7.4 in Win 7. Did the standard SSD tweaks in Windows, and also no issues there.



    Hopefully all remains well after a few weeks of use.



    The OP may be MIA but hopefully this may be of some help to others with the same model MacBook Pro.
Sign In or Register to comment.