I'm thinking of getting an SSD to replace the optical drive in my MacBook Pro (I know, it's a mac. I happen to like macs, but this shouldn't affect what you recommend. Contrary to popular belief, not all mac users have infinite money).
Right now, my three choices are (all 256 gb):
Crucial m4, $190
Samsung 840 Pro, $230
Amazon Warehouse Deals "Like New" used 840 Pro, $195 (Includes 30 day return policy)
So here are my questions:
Will the used 840 pro still get samsung's warranty (obvously since when the original purchaser bought it, which will still leave me with at least 4.5 years on it)? I know apple does warranty coverage by serial number, which requires no receipts and would not matter if I bought the item used or not. So what about samsung?
Would a used 840 Pro still be reliable? (I don't see why not)
Is the extra speed on the 840 Pro worth the extra $40 in your opinion? (I mean in visible performance, not just bragging rights. My current hdd is 65 MB/s read and write, so anything will seem fast, so is the 840 pro actually worth it?)
I don't do anything super intensive, so the main places where I would see faster times would be boot, application launch, and paging (right?), which is a big problem because I only have 4 gb (waiting for ram prices to come back down at least a little before upgrading.)
I'd also welcome any suggestions of other SSDs. I'd prefer amazon prices, but if newegg has some super-sale or something, I could see if I can convince my mom that it's a website that can be trusted with her credit card info. I don't have a credit card, so I'm stuck buying things through her. (She's also very good at making me think twice (or 10 times) before buying anything fairly expensive on the internet. Example: Me: Mom, I was thinking about buying this used SSD on amazon... Her: Are you sure? What if it breaks? Will it be under warranty? Etc... Me: Ummm maybe I'll think about it. And here I am now, posting this.)
Dont buy a used ssd if you what to save some $$$ buy the Samsung 840 its about $150 for 250gb
Chances are your mac book is sata 2 so you whont see 1/2 the benefit of the pro vershon
The differnce between the 840 and the 840pro is just the write speeds (840 is around 500MB/s read and 250MB/s write the pro is around 500MB/s read and 500MB/s write)
Now if the mac has sata 2 instead sata 3 you can cut that down to around 240MB/s read and write regardless of how fast the ssd you buy is.
Its worth checking out what speed sata connection you have before spending such a large amount on a ssd upgrade
Also, for the 840 non-pro, I've heard that the fact that it uses TLC rather than MLC memory, it won't last as long. Do you know how bad that is (especially since the SSD will be used for swap a lot until I get more ram)?
I have the 2012 15" low end (for the 15" model) non-retina macbook pro, which I bought refurbished from Apple. It has a core i7 3615QM and an NVIDIA 650m 512mb. It also has 4 gb of ram (which I plan to upgrade when the price goes back under $100 for 16gb).
Here's what System Profiler says about my optical drive's sata interface (where I plan to put the SSD):
Link Speed: 6 Gigabit; Negotiated Link Speed: 1.5 Gigabit (Obvously because DVD drives don't need anything more than that)
So yes you have sata 3 what are you going to buy? i'd still buy the 840 for less your not going to need the faster write speeds or use the write speeds.
But thats up to you +just dont buy a second hand one!!
Not shure what draging out the dvd drive and slaping in a ssd in to it on a macbook is going to look like but hey.
the 830 is on for 160$ in the states for the 256Gb version, and its still damn fast, faster than the M4 i think, just behind the 840 Pro, so if you can get one, do it because for the money that SSD beats everything else.
You could also use an owc data doubler, but I don't see a good reason why I should pay $40 more for a fancy brand on my piece of metal with a sata port.