Stock Apple SSD vs. 3rd party SSD's

[evaporateddwarf]

I see a lot of people going for these third party drives instead of the apple upgrade. What is the difference in performance? The 128GB upgrade is $90 for me (student discount). SSD's from anyone else are $200+. What causes the difference, and is it worth it?

I'm planning on getting the 2.2Ghz 15" MBP. Most of the time right now, I'm a light to medium user, so I really could go with a MBA or basic MBP, but once I graduate in the spring, I'm going to get back into music production, so I think a solid MBP is my best option. I don't know anything about the differences in hdd performance (well, beyond the very basics), so any help would be appreciated. If the third party stuff is a lot better, I may get a 7200RPM drive, and when I start doing audio stuff, I'll pop in a SSD and use the old one as an external.

 

[Erasmus]

It sounds like most people think the 128GB for 100 bucks is a great deal. It's not the fastest SSD in the world, abut it's OK, and it's reasonably priced.

If you want more space, you would do better to get a 3rd party SSD. But the 128 is apparently a great deal. Although you don't get the original HDD with it as well, which you would if you went 3rd party.

If you think 128GB is enough for you, go Apple 128GB SSD.

 

[Tyrion]

One thing to keep in mind is that the new MBPs support SATA-III. This means that you could put one of the forthcoming SATA-III SSDs in there (OCZ Vertex 3, for example) and get absolutely mindblowing speeds.

 

[ghostbuster]

I know this has been said before but the price difference is not that big. Keep in mind that the $90 US upgrade has to be added to the cost of the 5400 rpm HDD stock drive. So together the real cost of the SSD is maybe around 140-150 $US.
I hear they are using Kingston drives and depending on the controller chip, these are not the best.
In my mind the best option is to get the 5400 HDD and wait for the OCZ Vertex 3. Swap the HDD out and put it in a portable 2.5" case.

 

[fil3333]

I see a lot of people going for these third party drives instead of the apple upgrade. What is the difference in performance? The 128GB upgrade is $90 for me (student discount). SSD's from anyone else are $200+. What causes the difference, and is it worth it?

I'm planning on getting the 2.2Ghz 15" MBP. Most of the time right now, I'm a light to medium user, so I really could go with a MBA or basic MBP, but once I graduate in the spring, I'm going to get back into music production, so I think a solid MBP is my best option. I don't know anything about the differences in hdd performance (well, beyond the very basics), so any help would be appreciated. If the third party stuff is a lot better, I may get a 7200RPM drive, and when I start doing audio stuff, I'll pop in a SSD and use the old one as an external.

however we still dont know what ssd are inside the new macbook pros or do we?

 

[macduke]

For the love of Steve, will somebody please post a stock 128GB SSD benchmark or other sort of speed test?

I heard that the old models were still up over 200MB/s. Surely they would use newer SSD models in these new systems, right? From what I recall, the last upgrade was an improvement on the SSD side of things from Apple's original offerings, which weren't that great. So the new models would be at least that fast, if not faster, which is way better than getting the stock spinny drives.

I did this anyway, and then maybe next year I can upgrade it with a faster, larger, and hopefully more cost-effective SSD. Probably 256GB in the 400MB/s range for less than $300. If I'm lucky.

 

[fil3333]

thats the decision i have to make. order stock drive or 3rd party. it would help so much to know whats currently inside... maybe they put in the samsung 470 series, i would choose the stock drive then. however if they put in the same as last generation i would go with smth else...

 

[Tyrion]

thats the decision i have to make. order stock drive or 3rd party. it would help so much to know whats currently inside... maybe they put in the samsung 470 series, i would choose the stock drive then. however if they put in the same as last generation i would go with smth else...

Even the 470 doesn't take advantage of the MBP's SATA-III speeds.

 

[fil3333]

Even the 470 doesn't take advantage of the MBP's SATA-III speeds.

yeah i now, but at least it has a revised controller and respectable read and writing speeds...

 

[ptruong31]

Thank you for this thread! It has really saved me from posting a new thread :X

I think I will go with the 7200rpm drive and wait until next year to upgrade to an SSD. Hopefully they will be cheaper and faster

 

[dta]

One thing to keep in mind is that the new MBPs support SATA-III. This means that you could put one of the forthcoming SATA-III SSDs in there (OCZ Vertex 3, for example) and get absolutely mindblowing speeds.

This might be a silly question but if the SSD's read/write rate is around 2xx or 5xx MB/s as in the case of Samsung 470 and OCZ Vertex 3, then what is the use of the SSD having a SATA III port at 6GB/s? Shouldn't the SATA 3GB/s suffice for the even lower read/write speeds?

 

[evaporateddwarf]

I know this has been said before but the price difference is not that big. Keep in mind that the $90 US upgrade has to be added to the cost of the 5400 rpm HDD stock drive. So together the real cost of the SSD is maybe around 140-150 $US.
I hear they are using Kingston drives and depending on the controller chip, these are not the best.
In my mind the best option is to get the 5400 HDD and wait for the OCZ Vertex 3. Swap the HDD out and put it in a portable 2.5" case.

I already have a 1TB 7200RPM external, so I'm not too worried about that. The real cost to me is $90. If I buy 3rd party, sure, I'll hold on to the stock one, but it's not really a factor. If I don't go ssd, then I'll just go for the 7200 500GB. It's more than enough space for my mobile needs. Any place I need more space, which is rare, it wouldn't be inconvenient to haul an external.

 

[keithano]

This might be a silly question but if the SSD's read/write rate is around 2xx or 5xx MB/s as in the case of Samsung 470 and OCZ Vertex 3, then what is the use of the SSD having a SATA III port at 6GB/s? Shouldn't the SATA 3GB/s suffice for the even lower read/write speeds?

Practically, SATA 3GB/s can only allow up to 285mb/s read/write.. and that is pretty much maxed out by Vertex 2. For the new gen SSD like the vertex 3 which can read/write up to 550mb/s, you will need SATA 6gb/s to fully utilize it. The practical bandwidth speed of SATA 6gb/s is about 585mb/s.

 

[Erasmus]

This might be a silly question but if the SSD's read/write rate is around 2xx or 5xx MB/s as in the case of Samsung 470 and OCZ Vertex 3, then what is the use of the SSD having a SATA III port at 6GB/s? Shouldn't the SATA 3GB/s suffice for the even lower read/write speeds?

GB/s means Giga Byte per second. Gb/s means Giga Bit per second (Really people should write Gbit/s to avoid confusion). When you add protocol overheads and stuff like that, you end up with the maximum transfer speed of a 3Gb/s connection becoming real world maximum speeds of around 300MB/s (ie, 8 bits to a byte, then minus 20% or so for overheads).

 

[DaffyDuck]

Thank you for this thread! It has really saved me from posting a new thread :X

I think I will go with the 7200rpm drive and wait until next year to upgrade to an SSD. Hopefully they will be cheaper and faster

If your goal is faster, you can get one in the next weeks and months. The Vertex 3 already gets close to saturating the SATA III interface so they won't get much faster until the replacement for SATA III appears. As for price, that'll take some waiting.