Comments on: SSD Upgrade Deals: 120GB for $80, 240GB for $170 from Amazon

By: Donald Eckhardt

Donald Eckhardt — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 21:22:41 +0000

An excellent compromise is the Seagate Momentus XT 750 GB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 32 MB Cache 2.5 Inch Solid State Hybrid Drive ST750LX003, which Amazon now sells for $150. I bought one from Amazon for $240 in December, and installed it in a MB. It made a big difference over the disk drive it replaced; booting up is very fast. It was a good value for $240, and even a better one for $150.

By: kralnor

kralnor — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 15:09:27 +0000

I still can’t justify spending that much money and losing that much storage even if it is ssd. Performance hasnt ever been an.issue with the 7200 rpm drive I put in, while even with external drives I find myself watching my available storage due to the type of work I do.

By: David

David — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 05:18:03 +0000

They are sold out of the 120GB now at that price, but the 240GB is still available at full discount

By: Kal

Kal — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 23:41:29 +0000

Do you guys think the Firmware can be updated via bootcamp?
Because that would be fantastic

By: Langis Richard

Langis Richard — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 23:05:54 +0000

Unavalaible in canada ??
WTF ???
Sorry but i had to tell

By: Alex

Alex — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 21:38:19 +0000

Very interesting. I wonder why they aren’t shipping these with the newest firmware preinstalled?

By: Phuket

Phuket — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 21:11:09 +0000

I ordered a Crucial m4 directly from crucial.com yesterday. Everybody said it works with the MBP and indeed the website promised it’s compatible.

By: Neo

Neo — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 20:51:51 +0000

If you install any SSD on a mac with Lion or later, you should activate the TRIM support.

By: Donald Eckhardt

Donald Eckhardt — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 20:38:19 +0000

Read the Amazon customer review: Not officially supported on Mac. I bought this drive to run on a MacBook Pro. Assuming that hard drives are standards compliant I figured compatibly would not be an issue. Turns out I was only 1/2 correct. The drive went in easily and was able to get Mac OS installed.

One problem I noticed was that it was really slow. Too slow for an SSD. Turns out there is a firmware update to fix it, but the Kingston updater only runs on Windows. So had to find a Windows system that I could install this disk in to update the firmware. The drive has to be installed internally as the firmware cannot be updated via a USB enclosure. What a pain. Kingston could have made this process a whole lot easier if they would officially support Apple systems.

Anyway, the drive seems to be working fine with the new firmware. Much faster now and Mac OS is running like a champ. Because of the firmware issue and poor Mac support I am only giving it 3 stars. But if you are a Windows user you won’t have any issues so 5 stars for you.

By: Phuket

Phuket — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 20:34:50 +0000

In my experience, Amazon’s liberal return policy means that a lot of products get sent to customers that were pre-owned. For instance I attempted to buy an electronic scale. It arrived with carpet hairs on it.

For an investment as important as an SSD, I would never buy from Amazon.