Upgraded my 2011 MBP with Samsung 840 EVO 500GB SSD

Amazon recently has the Samsung 840 EVO 500GB SSD (MZ-7TE500BW) on sale. I decided to pick one up andupgrade the Samsung 830 256GB SSD on my 2011 MBP (MC721LL/A). The 256GB is still running great, but I just needed a larger drive. I wanted to run Windows on bootcamp. I only had 20GB useable space even after I cleaned up and removed unused items.

Fortunately, my MBP is one of the models that you can still upgrade the HDD and ram. Newer models are soldered and cannot be upgraded. You just remove the screws that hold the bottom panel and you’ll have access to the ram and HDD area. Here’s a pic.

I used Blackmagic Disk Speed Test to get the speeds of both SSDs. Here’s the benchmark for the Samsung 830.

Here’s the benchmark for the Samsung 840 EVO 500GB.

Based on the benchmark, there’s over a 30% improvement. I’m very happy with the upgrade. Not only did I get a speed improvement, I also got more space for using bootcamp.