Velociraptor 600GB, worth the money

[hugodrax]

I installed this drive and the first thing I noticed is it is actually quieter and cooler than the 1TB 7200 seagate.

Quieter and it actually runs cooler as well by about 8-10 degrees. Right now it is at 89.6(F)

This is cooler quieter and it is much much faster, especially where it counts which is random accessing of data and multitasking. Drive access sound is much lower and at a more subdued frequency.

Amazing how freaking quiet these Mac Pro systems dead freaking silent.

I suspect the small size and the Icepak with its dampening gasket between the little drive and the outer heatsink is what does a big trick.

[300D]

You wasted your money. Hard drives are dead in performance, SSDs walk all over them in everything but price.

[maghemi]

everything but price.

What is a 600gb SSD worth these days?

[ValSalva]

I installed this drive and the first thing I noticed is it is actually quieter and cooler than the 1TB 7200 seagate.

Quieter and it actually runs cooler as well by about 8-10 degrees. Right now it is at 89.6(F)

This is cooler quieter and it is much much faster, especially where it counts which is random accessing of data and multitasking. Drive access sound is much lower and at a more subdued frequency.

Amazing how freaking quiet these Mac Pro systems dead freaking silent.

I suspect the small size and the Icepak with its dampening gasket between the little drive and the outer heatsink is what does a big trick.

You got a good one. I have a 300 GB Velociraptor that is quiet but by no means silent.

I think there is even more variance with Seagate though with the bad ones running very hot and loud.

You didn't waste your money. If you need 600 GB of fast HDD space the Velociraptor is a good choice. The equivalent in an SSD is astronomically expensive.

[Hellhammer]

VRs are still okay though SSDs have pretty much killed them. If you need 600GB of fast storage, then VR is the best choice as 600GB SSD is like what, 1500$? I would have bought ~100GB SSD + 7200rpm HD instead but that's only 100GB of fast capacity for OS and apps for example so if you need more than that, then VR was a good buy.

You wasted your money. Hard drives are dead in performance, SSDs walk all over them in everything but price.

AFAIK, HDs still win in capacity as there are no 2TB SATA SSDs (couple PCIe ones that cost more than octo Mac Pro) but that's just temporal, won't take that long to see 10TB SSD as few years ago 32GB was massive.

[hugodrax]

You wasted your money. Hard drives are dead in performance, SSDs walk all over them in everything but price.

How is that, I got all of the above in my original post. Big speed boost and 600GB of storage.


SSD is still a bit too experimental for me, I do lots of readwrites, I hear all types of conflicting reports regarding performance slowdown over time and limited lifespan.

Not interested in spending 1500+ to betatest new hardware tech.

When SSD reaches a point that it is well supported by OSX (TRIM etc..) and has all the kinks worked out of it and 600GB can be had for a fair price, then I might move on.

[alph45]

You wasted your money. Hard drives are dead in performance, SSDs walk all over them in everything but price.
kind of like saying a Lamborghini walks over X except for price.

most peeps i know using SSD's use a small one (read actually affordable) for system and scratch off a 7.5k or 10k because they need 1TB+, are running a RAID etc.

[Roman23]

When and if ever will SSD's truly become the standard where one could just walk into a Best Buy or Staples and buy a 500GB for like 100 bucks? Why are they so expensive right now? If they are the best of the best, then why are they going for almost as much as a bank account?

How many years will it be until they get to normal, within-reach consumer pricing like regular hard drives? - It would make sense if these are truly the REPLACEMENTS for standard hard drives.

[Hellhammer]

When and if ever will SSD's truly become the standard where one could just walk into a Best Buy or Staples and buy a 500GB for like 100 bucks? Why are they so expensive right now? If they are the best of the best, then why are they going for almost as much as a bank account?

How many years will it be until they get to normal, within-reach consumer pricing like regular hard drives? - It would make sense if these are truly the REPLACEMENTS for standard hard drives.

New technology always costs a lot money in the beginning. You have to fund the research and new equipment to manufacture etc. 2TB HDs cost like 300$ when they came, now they go for 140$. I recall 32GB SSD costing around 800$ couple years ago, now you can get 32GB for less than 100 bucks.

SSDs are getting cheaper and cheaper all the time. 128GB can be had for 100 bucks in a year I guess

[nanofrog]

You wasted your money. Hard drives are dead in performance, SSD's walk all over them in everything but price.
This is a blanket statement, and it's not correct under all circumstances.

SSD's suck for high write environments, aren't supported by all OS's yet, and are the most expensive in terms of capacity.

They are good for OS/applications drives, but either their limitations or costs factor out to not suitable for the need and/or budget. Mechanical wins by a mile in terms of writes and inexpensive cost/capacity.

All of this has been covered before in multiple threads (and in more detail). :rolleyes:

...I do lots of readwrites...
Sounds like you made the right choice given your usage pattern. BTW, the Velociraptors are enterprise grade disks, so it's more reliable than a consumer grade model.

New technology always costs a lot money in the beginning. You have to fund the research and new equipment to manufacture etc.
Exactly.

[VirtualRain]

There's still a lot of misinformation floating around. :confused:

There's no risk to using SSDs. They've been around for 2 years and are all in the 2nd or 3rd generation or more by now. The issues with performance degradation with use have all been dealt with (the Intel's never suffered from this in the first place).

As for desktop use, if by readwrites, you mean random reads/writes, the SSDs significantly faster... here are the most recent charts for an SSD compared to a VR...

http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/storage/Intel/34nmSSD/Review/used-4kb-write-mbs.png

http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/storage/Intel/34nmSSD/Review/used-4kb-read-mbs.png

You will note that the Intel SSD is faster than the VR by a factor of about 25x on writes, and about 100x on reads. Yes, 25x on writes and 100x on reads! :eek:

On Sequential writes which are arguably less common or coming from a more bottle-necked source in the first place, the VR is almost twice as fast as the Intel but beat handedly by many other SSD drives...

http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/storage/Intel/34nmSSD/Review/used-2mb-write-mbs.png

On Sequential reads, the SSDs once again own the mechanical drives...

http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/storage/Intel/34nmSSD/Review/used-2mb-read-mbs.png

The full article is definitely worth a read... http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/storage/Intel/34nmSSD/Review/used-4kb-read-mbs.png

Is the VR worth the money... that's different for each individual, but for me, no. I would much rather buy an SSD and a 7200RPM 1TB drive for the same $.

[Hellhammer]

*snip*

The lack of TRIM support in OS X is what will make SSD worse in heavy write conditions as the write performance is dependent on the availability of free programmable blocks and previously written blocks can be reclaimed using TRIM. Even with TRIM, SSDs have limited amount of writes so one day you might end up with situation that you can no longer write anything to the SSD, but you can still read it.

So, if you're just using it for OS X and apps, SSD is great as that doesn't need much writing, mainly just reading but in case you are doing heavy writes, VR might be better choice, at least it's cheaper and you don't have to be the guinea pig for massive SSDs :p For most people SSD is just fine but there are people who do heavy writes and SSD is currently not the best option for those.

Correct me if I'm wrong, haven't followed SSDs that much lately :o

[Cabbit]

The lack of TRIM support in OS X is what will make SSD worse in heavy write conditions as the write performance is dependent on the availability of free programmable blocks and previously written blocks can be reclaimed using TRIM. Even with TRIM, SSDs have limited amount of writes so one day you might end up with situation that you can no longer write anything to the SSD, but you can still read it.

So, if you're just using it for OS X and apps, SSD is great as that doesn't need much writing, mainly just reading but in case you are doing heavy writes, VR might be better choice, at least it's cheaper and you don't have to be the guinea pig for massive SSDs :p For most people SSD is just fine but there are people who do heavy writes and SSD is currently not the best option for those.

Correct me if I'm wrong, haven't followed SSDs that much lately :o

OSX appears to have trim support in 10.6.4 though it may not be active yet or may support a limited number of drives.

Of course it could just be a place mark in system profiler.

[brentsg]

There's still a lot of misinformation floating around. :confused:

There's no risk to using SSDs. They've been around for 2 years and are all in the 2nd or 3rd generation or more by now. The issues with performance degradation with use have all been dealt with (the Intel's never suffered from this in the first place).

This isn't true. Intel suffered as much as anyone, as it is related to the technology and not any kind of brand magic.

Methods like TRIM and garbage collection care for this, as does Intel's Windows based cleanup tool. In the OSX realm this is still an issue, particularly for Intel drives that lack garbage collection.

[300D]

kind of like saying a Lamborghini walks over X except for price.

Yep. Gotta pay to play.

[slughead]

You wasted your money. Hard drives are dead in performance, SSDs walk all over them in everything but price.

[...]
I have redacted all the insults from my post. Clearly your house must be built of solid gold and you were born on money island. The price difference here is INSANE. Quit trying to troll this guy, not everyone can afford to double the price of their computer just to get an HD performance boost with unproven technology.

You say it's a "waste of money"... well what if you like 1) space 2) money, as buying a SSD will leave you with little of both. Just because you can make do with 48GB doesn't mean everyone can.

http://att.macrumors.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=238426&stc=1&d=1278946608

http://att.macrumors.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=238427&stc=1&d=1278946608

[AppleRules]

[...]
I have redacted all the insults from my post. Clearly your house must be built of solid gold and you were born on money island. The price difference here is INSANE. Quit trying to troll this guy, not everyone can afford to double the price of their computer just to get an HD performance boost with unproven technology.

You say it's a "waste of money"... well what if you like 1) space 2) money, as buying a SSD will leave you with little of both. Just because you can make do with 48GB doesn't mean everyone can.

http://att.macrumors.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=238426&stc=1&d=1278946608

http://att.macrumors.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=238427&stc=1&d=1278946608

WTF do you mean unproven technology? The provided charts clearly show SSD's are immensly faster than mechanical HDD's. Your Velociraptor unfortunaly wont give you a perceivable performance improvement over a 7200 RPM HDD unlike an SSD. As for prices here's a list of SSD's under $200, one or more of these SSD's complementing a traditional high capacity HDD is the way to go.

http://www.microcenter.com/search/search_results.phtml?Ntx=&Ntt=&Ntk=&N=4294966954+39&Ns=&Nso=&sht=Any&prt=NewProduct&web_group=

Then there's the new hybrid HDD's like the Momentus 5400 PSD.

[gglockner]

A nice compromise between price and performance are the new hybrid hard drives - the Seagate Momentus XT. These combine a 7200 RPM hard drive with a flash cache.

[slughead]

WTF do you mean unproven technology? [big rant about how fast they are]

I'm not saying they're not immensely faster, I'm saying they may not be safe to store data on (I'm also saying they're ridiculously expensive).

How are you supposed to know until it's been out for a while--especially when it's been full of fail in the past?

It's totally new tech and it hasn't exactly been reliable out of the gate.

Let me untroll myself and say: I have no doubt that SSDs will eventually become comparably priced and just as reliable (if not more reliable) as platters. My comment was merely addressing the troll that said that current 10k RPM hard drives are a "rip off" in comparison.

Edit: and btw: hybrids are a scam (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/seagate-momentus-xt-hybrid-hard-drive-ssd,2638-6.html)

Edit2: Oh, speaking of "unproven", see nanofrog's post below (http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=10510922&postcount=20) for how they manipulated their reliability data.

[nanofrog]

There's no risk to using SSDs. They've been around for 2 years and are all in the 2nd or 3rd generation or more by now. The issues with performance degradation with use have all been dealt with (the Intel's never suffered from this in the first place).
For most, this is true, as they're consumers (i.e. OS/applications disk), where the usage patter are by far reads, not writes.

But in the case of a high write environment, SSD's fall short, especially the MLC based units, which is the type of Flash used in the consumer SSD's.

Yes, SLC based SSD's do exist, such as the Intel X25-E, but it's noticeably more expensive than MLC, and is reflected in the prices. SLC also more commonly found on Flash cards, and aimed at the enterprise market (much higher throughputs this way given the increased bandwidth available on bonded PCIe lanes).

Correct me if I'm wrong...
It still holds true right now. It's not really going to improve in terms of write cycles until newer Flash technology is used (FeRAM for example), or in the interim, if the capacity is extended considerably (i.e. adequate "free space" beyond what the user will fill for wear leveling). But we'd be talking a 1TB minimum here IMO (and it has to be as affordable; say what a 1TB Caviar Black went for during the initial release), and larger wouldn't be out of the realm of reason for some either (i.e. single drive only = SSD).

OSX appears to have trim support in 10.6.4 though it may not be active yet or may support a limited number of drives.

Of course it could just be a place mark in system profiler.
This is what I expect is the case ATM, though it will come at some point.

WTF do you mean unproven technology?
In terms of reliability, not performance. SSD hasn't been out long enough in it's current form to have long term real world data (what's been simulated in the lab for specifications is NOT equivalent to real world, as the lab disks were empty).

Where users are concerned, most have information stored on the disk, which means there's less free space for wear leveling. In primarily read usage, this won't matter, so long as there were sufficient good cells when the data was written (meaning it wasn't corrupted during the write process).

But in high write scenarios, the lower capacity is "rotated" through faster, increasing the wear pattern on those cells. Some companies like Intel, hide some unused capacity (~10%) on the disk (i.e. 80GB has an unusable/unseen 8GB of additional capacity). Most however, do not do this. And even 10% is low, with existing information showing 20% is more realistic (and this is for consumer use BTW).

Why this is a problem, is that MLC only has a rating of 1E4 writes (minimum) before it's dead. SLC is a bit better, as it's rated at 1E5 writes. Wear leveling is how this is increased.

But another trick they used to get the specifications, is they just tossed out the lowest 10% of all the cells to improve the statistics. Then combine this with the fact the disk/s used were empty, the numbers are higher than what you'll see in the real world. In simple terms, they perverted the acceptable practice of tossing outliers from the results, as 10% of all the initial data set is more than outliers.

This has become more of a common practice lately, and not just in a single industry. You might recall some of the prescription medications that have been pulled by the FDA in recent years.

Hopefully, you're starting to get the picture. :)

[VirtualRain]

To suggest SSDs have shorter longevity than HDs in extreme write heavy environments might be accurate but to suggest they have reliability issues is fear mongering and even outright false.

First of all, any modern SSD will most certainly outlast the useful life of any typical desktop or workstation. Secondly as cells become unwritable they still maintain the last data written so they fail with data in tact.

There is no legitimate issue with using SSDs in a desktop or workstation environment. Especially if you are backing up regularly which you should be doing regardless of your primary storage media. Good grief.

[slughead]

First of all, any modern SSD will most certainly outlast the useful life of any typical desktop or workstation.

Who says? the people selling it?

I'll wait a couple years for them to come down in price and some REAL data to come out before I decide.... which is what everyone should be doing, probably. They're certainly cool toys, but they're expensive and unproven.

[Hellhammer]

To suggest SSDs have shorter longevity than HDs in extreme write heavy environments might be accurate but to suggest they have reliability issues is fear mongering and even outright false.

First of all, any modern SSD will most certainly outlast the useful life of any typical desktop or workstation. Secondly as cells become unwritable they still maintain the last data written so they fail with data in tact.

There is no legitimate issue with using SSDs in a desktop or workstation environment. Especially if you are backing up regularly which you should be doing regardless of your primary storage media. Good grief.

If you do a lot writes, you don't want to spend thousands on stuff that will become useless fairly soon. Also, has the secure erase issue been fixed? I think it's quite important for some people, especially for companies that they can securely erase the data in case they have to dump the SSD. SSDs are still so new that there is no real world data on their reliability, wait couple of years and we will know more.

SSDs do have their disadvantages, they are not perfect. Sooner than later this little things will likely be fixed but currently, normal HDs are still good. When the prices get down to the level of HDs and these issues are fixed, we can declare HDs to be dead.

[nanofrog]

To suggest SSDs have shorter longevity than HDs in extreme write heavy environments might be accurate but to suggest they have reliability issues is fear mongering and even outright false.

First of all, any modern SSD will most certainly outlast the useful life of any typical desktop or workstation. Secondly as cells become unwritable they still maintain the last data written so they fail with data in tact.

There is no legitimate issue with using SSDs in a desktop or workstation environment. Especially if you are backing up regularly which you should be doing regardless of your primary storage media. Good grief.
My posts haven't been written to perpetrate fear mongering, but demonstrate there are limitations with the technology as they currently exist.

Though there's a few generations out, they're not exactly the same (i.e. features have been added, controllers improved,...). The newer features in particular, are specifically to address their issues. What this ultimately means, is we don't have any long term data on the technology under real world conditions (multiple usages' effects on lifespan). Particularly with the current drives. Older generations are already failing from what I'm seeing, and defies the manufacturer data which has lent to a false sense of security in terms of reliability (usable lifespan).

From a technical POV, they don't have moving parts, and this would indicate that they'd be more reliable. But that doesn't take into account the fact that MLC based flash is only rated for 1E4 write cycles by the manufacturer (wear leveling just rotates the writes around as many cells as possible, but can't address the actual write cycle limit of an individual cell).

What I see the issue as, are users need to take a serious look at what they need to do, and make solid decisions based on that. Given they're fine for OS/applications disks (what most are actually using them for), they're fine.

But there are usages they're not that well suited, particularly due to the cost. It's not low enough yet for them to be as "disposable" as consumer grade HDD's. In time, Yes, and that's when they'll replace HDD's. But we're not there just yet.

Who says? the people selling it?
This is part of it IMO, as buyers are accepting manufacturer data without question (assuming they're no different than HDD's).

But HDD tech took a number of years to get where it is today. Past tech was fraught with issues (pre IDE), and weren't cheap either.

I'll wait a couple years for them to come down in price and some REAL data to come out before I decide.... which is what everyone should be doing, probably. They're certainly cool toys, but they're expensive and unproven.
For now, this is good advice in terms of thinking they're acceptable for any and all usage patterns. But there are conditions they're very acceptable for already (high read usage, which is what most users want them for).

[alphaod]

When it came out, I ordered 4 to upgrade my RAID 5 (from the older 300GB VRs).

Then I realized that any sequential speeds would be just as good with some 2TB drives and it didn't do very well in terms of random performance.

Anyways, I went back to my old drives and I couldn't really tell the difference. The SSD upgrade was so much faster.

[VirtualRain]

There's no debating the 1E4 spec on write cycles. I think what's up for debate is what the real-world impact of this is... a few points...

The whole argument that this is unproven tech seems uninformed to me. Nothing about NAND flash is new or rocket science. NAND flash storage has been around since 1995. What's recent is that it's gotten affordable enough to assemble in parallel arrays for mass storage devices. The controller tech to manage the parallel NAND channels is what's new and where some of the initial issues were discovered... which were primarily the result of vendors attempting to rush products to market by using off-the-shelf controllers that weren't specifically designed for the task. However, all current drives run controllers that have been specifically designed or redesigned for managing parallel NAND flash arrays. So I fail to see what is unproven. NAND is well proven technology, and the controllers have been proven to address former issues, so there's really nothing left to prove.

Getting back to facts... a major factor in SSD longevity is write amplification. Intel went to great lengths to reduce write amplification to 1.1, even with it's first gen drives, which is remarkable and with wear leveling, means that the drive will last for 5 years with 100GB of writes per day. (source (http://www.anandtech.com/show/2614/4)).

That's extreme write conditions by any measure, and probably 10 to 100 times the average writes done by a typical desktop user. Hence for a typical desktop user, an SSD could easily last decades.

In addition, Anand says this about the Intel/Micron NAND flash...

Intel and Micron have four joint fabs manufactured under the IMFT partnership, and these are the fabs that produce the flash going into Intel's SSDs. The 50nm flash used in the launch drives are rated at 10,000 erase/programming but like many of Intel's products there's a lot of built in margin. Apparently it shouldn't be unexpected to see 2, 3 or 4x the rated lifespan out of these things, depending on temperature and usage model obviously.

People should stick to facts and accurate real-world interpretation of them.

[slughead]

NAND is well proven technology, and the controllers have been proven to address former issues, so there's really nothing left to prove.

The previous devices this type of storage were in experienced no where near the level of reading/writing in standard day-to-day computing tasks, let alone professional work. It may have been fine for an iPod or digital still camera, but people use personal computers data storage in far different ways. Speaking of which, I have a SD card I bought 2 years ago, rarely used, that will occasionally lose a picture, this isn't unheard of with NAND devices (anecdotes ≠ data, but still: devices are not perfect).

In addition, something is not "proven" based on the fact that known issues theoretical or otherwise have been ironed out. With complicated microscopic technology, you don't necessarily know until you build and stress test it over time. Theory gets you only so far--and "proof" is certainly not something you get out of theory.

Even platter hard drives--which have been around much longer--still have major reliability issues with the newest and largest capacities. Are we supposed to believe SSD is magically immune to error?

Yes, theoretically SSD should last much longer. It has no moving parts, of COURSE it'll someday be better--it's common sense.

People should stick to facts and accurate real-world interpretation of them.

Fact: SSD has not been around long enough in real-world capacity to judge its longevity. Most of the reliability information comes from the manufacturers themselves.

Fact: SSD has had serious issues in the past.

Fact: Regardless of what measures have been taken in the manufacturing process, real world data does not yet exist to prove exactly how reliable this technology is. This is especially logical to demand not only because of the history of defective SSDs but also because they're expensive as hell (people with money to burn can experiment all they want).

You're saying things like "real world" and "accurate". Well you're twisting that around to dodge the fact that there's nothing "real world" about SSD reliability data right now. You're taking it on faith from the same companies that sold customers defective hardware in the past. At the time, I'm sure they were saying the same things about theoretical longevity etc etc.

[VirtualRain]

Some links to sources that support your view that current gen SSDs are unproven and unworthy of use in desktop systems with testing to back it up would be appreciated.

As far as I can tell, no one has spent more time testing and analyzing SSDs than AnandTech and they are perhaps the biggest advocates of SSDs.

[slughead]

Some links to sources that support your view that current gen SSDs are unproven

Well I don't have to tell you what you already know: they haven't been around long enough, and the only valid test is time and the number of units on the market being used by consumers.

Please, show me a few thousand SSD drives that have been used in desktops regularly over the past 4 years. An insanely high failure rate of 10% over 4 years would be extremely difficult to discover given the marketshare and the length of time these devices have been available.

Are you denying any of this? Do I need to supply links that say this is new technology that is currently unpopular? Maybe a few links on statistics? Are none of these things obvious?

This is turning into a religious argument.

[TheStrudel]

Anandtech regularly posts that they can't make claims about the long term reliability of these drives for the reasons you've been discussing.

One of the things I like about outfits like Anandtech and Ars Technica (the only really reliable larger computer tech review sites at this point) is that they tell you exactly what they did, qualify every bit of uncertainty, and explain everything.

If it hasn't already been made obvious, Nanofrog's viewpoint is comprehensive, backed up by articles found all over the place, and can be taken at face value.

There is room for debate about the long term reliability of SSDs, and Anandtech have published that as well. More to the point, new SSD technologies are continually being debuted in the marketplace (controllers, firmware), such as the newer Sandforce-based drives, so it's not as simple as saying that SSDs are now proven, because today's SSDs are actually pretty different from what was shipping a few years ago. And they will continue to differentiate themselves.

Unlike hard drives, they are more complicated in every way except mechanical operation and offer far more different approaches and form factors.

Even hard drives are starting to differentiate themselves, slowly, such as recent developments with increasing sector size.

[VirtualRain]

Yes. AnandTech is very good in my opinion and they believe Intels claims that an SSD is good for 5+ years at 100GB per day of write activity. This seems consistent with Nanofrog and the vendors rating of 1E4 write cycles since that means a cell can be written to 10000 times before it becomes a read only memory cell. So even if you wiped and filled your drive every day, it would take 28 years to wear it out.

Now As I said, I'm not aware of any source (although I'm open to enlightening myself) that believes this kind of lifespan is unacceptable for desktop use. In fact, it's just the opposite as I said before that credible sources such as Anand who have thouroughly analyzed SSDs seem to recommend them enthusiastically.

[JesterJJZ]

Edit: and btw: hybrids are a scam (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/seagate-momentus-xt-hybrid-hard-drive-ssd,2638-6.html)


How? I have a Seagate XT in my Win 7 laptop and it's really snappy now. Big improvement over my old drive.

[nanofrog]

Yes. AnandTech is very good in my opinion and they believe Intels claims that an SSD is good for 5+ years at 100GB per day of write activity.
That's manufacturer data though, and not based on real world scenarios (i.e. most of the disk is full with OS and applications). Intel's data was determined on an empty drive. This is where I have a problem, as that's not anything near real world conditions for most usages.

Write amplification occurs at a much higher rate on the remaining capacity (cells not used for OS or application data).

As a result of the increased write amplification on MLC based disks, 3yrs seems more realistic to me based on 60GB filled (past that in terms of writes is possible on remaining capacity not used for applications or OS, but will depend on the specific usage).

Consumer systems won't be used for high writes in most cases (how I think of most consumers' usage patterns), but in an enterprise environment, it wouldn't last that long, and why SLC is needed in such cases (still expected to only last 3yrs under such conditions, and happens to correlate with the typical MTBR implemented for such equipment). Actually, the correlation isn't happenstance IMO, but what the designers were aiming for, as they're well aware that is the usual lenght of time for MTBR.

Without real long-term data on existing generation SSD's, all that's possible are projections. :(

Now As I said, I'm not aware of any source (although I'm open to enlightening myself) that believes this kind of lifespan is unacceptable for desktop use. In fact, it's just the opposite as I said before that credible sources such as Anand who have thoroughly analyzed SSDs seem to recommend them enthusiastically.
3 - 5yrs is fine for consumer use. But this is also based on certain assumptions (not high write environments on the remaining capacity not consumed by the OS and applications).