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3.5" SSD for boot drive

R

rossagrant

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 3, 2009
79
0
After some top advice from many here on my new Mac pro that I'm ordering I'm still toying with the idea of an SSD bootdrive.

Any recommendations and should I try and find a 3.5" one or mount a 2.5" one?

I'm in the UK if anyone has any links to any UK sites that sell a decent model?
 
2.5". There is no benefit to spending more for a larger case when a $5 bracket will do the same.
 
Poor reliability, poor mac compatibility and non-existent tech support or warranty support, it took me two weeks just to get a response from them when their junk would intermittently fail to mount, nobody from the company reads posts in their support forum and their "live" help chatroom is never open. After a month I ended up tossing it on eBay for a 75% loss and getting a hell of a deal on a new Samsung SLC SSD that has worked perfect from day 1.
 
300D said:
2.5". There is no benefit to spending more for a larger case when a $5 bracket will do the same.
Click to expand...

and there's no benefit to spending more on a 2.5", and then spending even more for a bracket.
 
300D said:
Poor reliability, poor mac compatibility and non-existent tech support or warranty support, it took me two weeks just to get a response from them when their junk would intermittently fail to mount, nobody from the company reads posts in their support forum and their "live" help chatroom is never open. After a month I ended up tossing it on eBay for a 75% loss and getting a hell of a deal on a new Samsung SLC SSD that has worked perfect from day 1.
Click to expand...

Any links to the samsung drive? Any other decent drives at a decent price?
 
Personally, I prefer the 2.5" models. Generally they are a little cheaper and with an adapter you pay about the same as for the 3.5" versions.

However, 2.5" versions leave you with more options, like putting up to 8 of them in a single optical bay (2 max with 3.5" drives), or putting it in your laptop/Mini once you decide to upgrade the SDD in the Mac Pro.
 
johnnymg said:
3.5" OCZ vertex 2 all the way. :D
Click to expand...

I agree.

Also, at the places I shop, the 3.5" model is generally cheaper than the 2.5" model. AND you don't have to spend even more to buy an adapter. AND you don't have to get just the right adapter to ensure the connections line up in the Mac HDD sled.

With the 3.5" Vertex2, just mount the bare drive to the sled and slide the sled in. Now you've got a bootable SSD.
 
I also chose a 3.5" OCZ Vertex 2 (cheaper than the 2.5", as it should be since it's easier to cram the electronics in the larger box).

I am far from satisfied though: the drive causes a kernel panic when waking up from hibernation (safe sleep) every time. Also, upgrading the firmware is a very painful process, requiring Windows and wiping the drive (to repartition to MBR rather than GUID).
 
I too am using the OCZ Vertex 2 3.5 as a boot drive. It was a super easy install, it's never given me any problems. No kernel panics, read/write time remains great, flawless for some time now

If you have the extra money the 2.5 is nice because you can always put it in a laptop should you upgrade your desktop drive, however I saved a significant amount of money by going with the 3.5, so no regrets.
 
frankly having used
intel x25-e 32gb
intel x25-e 64gb
intel x25-m 80gb
intel x25-m 160gb
intel x18-m 80gb
patriot inferno 200gb
ocz vertex 120gb
corsair ex64gb

in mac mini's mac book pro's and mac pro's

every company had bricks patriot ocz and corsair.

I owned 2 pats and had one replaced. so 33 percent fail in under a year
I owned 3 vertex's and had one replaced. so 25 percent fail in under a year
i owned 2 corsairs and had one replaced. so 33 percent fail in under a year.

now intel is perfect
x25-e 32gb 3 for 3 0 percent fail in more then 18 months
x25-e 64gb 1 for 1 0 percent fail in 15 months
x18-m 80gb 7 for 7 0 percent fail in 18 plus months
x25-m 80gb 6 for 6 0 percent fail in 16 plus months
x25-m 160gb 4 for 4 0 percent failed since christmas 2009.

.Now to be fair the patriot failed to mount as a new drive ,yet the other one did and they replaced my ssd inferno in under 12 days. Both of the ones now have worked since august 2010.

the vertex died along with my mm logic board so who know what killed what. but I modded and sold about 100 mm over 2 plus years and the onlt logic board that ever died was the vertex one. what I am getting at is ssd's have a ways to go in terms of durability and reliability.

My preferred ssd is the 32gb intel x25-e never froze never stalled and monster fast raid0 setups that never failed. In fact a 3 drive 32gb intel x25-e works really well in a mac pro. of course it is too small and costs too much. but it really preforms well. right now I am holding on to one patriot and one intel all the rest are gone. i will wait for next year and the 3rd gen intels
 
rockpilp said:
I am far from satisfied though: the drive causes a kernel panic when waking up from hibernation (safe sleep) every time. Also, upgrading the firmware is a very painful process, requiring Windows and wiping the drive (to repartition to MBR rather than GUID).
Click to expand...

No problems with mine, however I don't hibernate desktops, I use the normal sleep mode.
 
rockpilp said:
I am far from satisfied though: the drive causes a kernel panic when waking up from hibernation (safe sleep) every time. Also, upgrading the firmware is a very painful process, requiring Windows and wiping the drive (to repartition to MBR rather than GUID).
Click to expand...

I don't think it is a great idea to hibernate to a SSD drive. Every time you do you write a multi-gig file to the drive, and this would accelerate the write-fatigue problem.

If you do a search on how to optimize your system for an SSD, most recommend disabling hibernation for this reason. This applies to PC's and macs.
 
Has anyone tried Kingston SSD's?

I'm deciding between Intel and Kingston, and I'm not really sure which one to buy.
 
khollister said:
The current OWC drives are quite good - they have Sandforce 1200 controllers as do the OCZ Vertex 2 series. I am using a 120 GB OWC SSD right now
Click to expand...

good to hear, im planning on getting one for a boot drive. what's the optimum size for a boot drive? I currently have 36 gigs of applications/OS/Library etc.
would the 40gig be a viable option or should I jump to the 60?
 
~Lukasdp said:
good to hear, im planning on getting one for a boot drive. what's the optimum size for a boot drive? I currently have 36 gigs of applications/OS/Library etc.
would the 40gig be a viable option or should I jump to the 60?
Click to expand...

Although your OS + apps are only 36GB, a 40GB won't be big enough.
What people tend to forget are the swap files which also get written to the SSD and those can get big (depends on the amount of RAM).
Application cache files will be stored on the boot drive as well. I'd recommend at least 80GB for OS + apps. You certainly want a little room left because SSDs don't like to be filled a 100% since the internal garbage collection won't work properly any more.
 
Transporteur said:
Although your OS + apps are only 36GB, a 40GB won't be big enough.
What people tend to forget are the swap files which also get written to the SSD and those can get big (depends on the amount of RAM).
Application cache files will be stored on the boot drive as well. I'd recommend at least 80GB for OS + apps. You certainly want a little room left because SSDs don't like to be filled a 100% since the internal garbage collection won't work properly any more.
Click to expand...


ok thanks for the heads up. 80 gig it is then.
 
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