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which SSD for 2010 mpb

S

satirev

macrumors 6502
Original poster
May 23, 2010
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I am looking to buy an SSD. I care most about reliability as I plan on using this drive for a good 2/3 years. Speed is also important.

should I go for a sata 3 drive over a sata 2? Would that make sense economically given that I will be using this for 2/3 years?
 
SATA 3Gb/s is fine as your Mac has only SATA 3Gb/s. It would be easier to help if you told us your budget or the capacity you are looking for.
 
Thanks. i need a 240/256 gb drive. my budget is around 550-600

i think i will go for a sata II drive. can anyone comment on which stata II drive has the best reliability? im more concerned with this drive not dying on me than being speedy. whats the point of having a fast drive if it is going to die on you in a few months.
 
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well in terms of upgrade-ability, speed and potential for use in future upgrades, i would recommend the ocz vertex 3. This is sata 3, it will still outperform all current sata 2 ssds on the sata 2 interface - check the benchmarks here

i would recommend an ssd with the sandforce controllers
as ocz has made a transition from 32nm to 25nm - it's a little hit an miss in which drive you get, as you may get the 64gb die size, that uses half the channels available =slower performance

owc drives, have also made a transition to 25nm.. i have not seen ay reviews on these newer drives, but having owned a 120 ssd - its blazingly fast

however, as soon as vertex 3 is released and confirmed to be working on 2011 sandybridge MBP - i will upgrade in a heart beat

finally, if you wait and buy a vertex 3, it will retain it's value a hell of a lot more than a sata-2 ssd
 
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satirev said:
i think i will go for a sata II drive. can anyone comment on which stata II drive has the best reliability? im more concerned with this drive not dying on me than being speedy. whats the point of having a fast drive if it is going to die on you in a few months.
Click to expand...

Intel.
 
isnt that intel drive a sata iii? I thought we just determined that a sata ii makes the most economical sense seeing as how I wont be getting a new mpb until 2013/2014.
 
I have both an SSD and 7200rpm WD Scorpio Black in my 2010 MBP, and in all honesty, I think people are still better off with the 7200rpm drives until costs per GB come down on the SSD's.

If you really need to save the 10 seconds on bootup and 1-2 seconds per app, then get an SSD. Otherwise save $300 and get a 750GB-1TB 7200rpm HDD. If I could go back in time, that's what I would do.
 
johnnyturbouk said:
well in terms of upgrade-ability, speed and potential for use in future upgrades, i would recommend the ocz vertex 3. This is sata 3, it will still outperform all current sata 2 ssds on the sata 2 interface - check the benchmarks here

i would recommend an ssd with the sandforce controllers
as ocz has made a transition from 32nm to 25nm - it's a little hit an miss in which drive you get, as you may get the 64gb die size, that uses half the channels available =slower performance

owc drives, have also made a transition to 25nm.. i have not seen ay reviews on these newer drives, but having owned a 120 ssd - its blazingly fast

however, as soon as vertex 3 is released and confirmed to be working on 2011 sandybridge MBP - i will upgrade in a heart beat

finally, if you wait and buy a vertex 3, it will retain it's value a hell of a lot more than a sata-2 ssd
Click to expand...

dont think ocz is an good idea. just read ocz using bad chips on their ssd.

here is the link:
http://blog.macsales.com/9438-not-al...tory-continues

since u only need sata2 not sata3, intel will be my choice. stability of the HD is very important.
 
How about getting one of Seagates hybrid drives? Not exactly as fast as an ssd, but still a very good choice.
 
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What do you guys think about owc?

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No one? I'm not interested in a hybrid drive...
 
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Veg said:
How about getting one of Seagates hybrid drives? Not exactly as fast as an ssd, but still a very good choice.
Click to expand...

There was a benchmark out there that showed that the hybrid drives were a little bit faster than Scorpio Black drive.

Get an OWC SSD. A Vertex 3 without SATA 6Gbps is kind of useless.
 
ALL SF-1200 based SSDs may still experience issues under OS X. Yes, this includes OWC's SSDs as well. Although the issues aren't that bad anymore, there is still no OS X firmware updater, thus you would need Windows just to update the firmware.

I would wait till tomorrow as it is rumored that Intel will release the 3rd generation of X25-M SSDs. 569$ would get you a 300GB drive.
 
satirev said:
isnt that intel drive a sata iii? I thought we just determined that a sata ii makes the most economical sense seeing as how I wont be getting a new mpb until 2013/2014.
Click to expand...

The point of my post was reliability of brand names of SSD, and the Intel brand (at least in this study) was more reliable by a significant amount.

johnnyturbouk said:
"failure rates of various PC components according to a French etailer"

very limited study - how big is the French e- ssd market?

if it was pan-European and USA, these numbers would hold more credibility

also brands like owc are missing (probably as they are sold direct from manufacture to consumer)
Click to expand...

All valid points that make the study imperfect but not invalid. I have not seen any better data on SSD reliability.
 
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satirev said:
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No one? I'm not interested in a hybrid drive...
Click to expand...

You should definitely at least consider the hybrid drives. I bought one for my 2009 macbook pro last week after much consideration against an SSD. The machine certainly seems snappier so for me at least, it seems like the best solution until SSDs come down in price and get larger capacity.
 
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