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Crucial C300 SSD 256GB in 2.53 Unibody MBP

C

covenant

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 28, 2009
5
0
Late Nov 2008 2.53 ghz Unibody, 4GB RAM and a newly installed Crucial 256GB SSD….nice combination. Its like having a new machine.

xbench reports.

Sequential Uncached Write
172.98 MB/s 4K blocks
169.35 MB/s 256k Blocks

Sequential Uncached Reads
31.38 MB/s 4K Blocks
215.47 MB/s 256K blocks

Random Uncached Writes
136.18 MB/s 4K Blocks
173.00 MB/s 256K blocks

Random Uncached Reads
15.83 MB/S 4K blocks
202.41 MB/s 256 blocks.


In short, its fast…damn fast. Im a bit VMware user..and VM performance is unbelievable.

best 500 quid I ever spent!

:)

-Rab
 
really impressive...

This is what i got :
Macbook Pro 2.5gz C2D (early 2008, non-unibody with 8600 GT)
4gb ram, 128gb Intel X-25M G2.

Uncached Write
44.74 MB/sec [4K blocks]
84.46 MB/sec [4K blocks]

Uncached Write
48.06 MB/sec [256K blocks]
68.00 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Uncached Read
35.56 MB/sec [4K blocks]
28.29 MB/sec [4K blocks]

Uncached Read
125.67 MB/sec [256K blocks]
58.74 MB/sec [256K blocks]
 
I'm looking to buy this SSD - it has a 6 GB/sec SATA-III interface. Can the MBP take advantage of that ? Or is it bottlenecked at 3 GB/sec ?
 
I believe its bottlenecked at 3GB/s…

Still..it's amazingly fast…really given the old dog a new lease of life, and hopefully at some point a new MBP will remove that bottleneck!

-Rab
 
Few laptops on the market support SATA III (6gbps), the MBP is not one of them.

Dont let that make you think it will be in any way 'slow' or 'bottlenecked'. the c300 is going to be the best performing MLC drive available.
 
Mactagonist said:
Few laptops on the market support SATA III (6gbps), the MBP is not one of them.

Dont let that make you think it will be in any way 'slow' or 'bottlenecked'. the c300 is going to be the best performing MLC drive available.
Click to expand...

Frankly as users our typical access is sporadic to the drive. This is where the low latency of the SSD really tends to be a tremendous improvement over mechanical spindles.

In the time it takes for a mechanical drive to rotate and seek to the required blocks the SSD has been delivering for a good amount of time. On small reads, the SSD can easily be finished before the SSD arrives at the first data block.
 
John Kotches said:
Frankly as users our typical access is sporadic to the drive. This is where the low latency of the SSD really tends to be a tremendous improvement over mechanical spindles.

In the time it takes for a mechanical drive to rotate and seek to the required blocks the SSD has been delivering for a good amount of time. On small reads, the SSD can easily be finished before the SSD arrives at the first data block.
Click to expand...

Does anyone know why the latency benchmarks for the C300 are consistently slower than for the Intel and Sandforce drives? Yet at the same time the C300 does just fine in benchmarks like PCVantage...
 
If the current MBP doesn't support SATA-III, then is it worth the money buying the C300 ?

The alternative is this one : http://www.crucial.com/store/partspecs.aspx?IMODULE=CT256M225 - the M225. Given the bottleneck, what would be the performance difference in a C300 ?

The price difference between the C300 and the M225 is a whole hundred bucks. Since right now SSDs are expensive, I'm wondering if its worth buying an SSD whose primary advantage (SATA-III) is technically not supported by the MBP.

What would you guys recommend ?
 
Thiol said:
Does anyone know why the latency benchmarks for the C300 are consistently slower than for the Intel and Sandforce drives? Yet at the same time the C300 does just fine in benchmarks like PCVantage...
Click to expand...

Are the benchmarks on identical hardware? You have to make sure all else is equal before you come to that conclusion.

It could be a function of the controller... Is C300 on an Indilinx? Also, it could well be a function of the disk firmware.

Too many variables without some serious studying on my part.
 
John Kotches said:
Are the benchmarks on identical hardware? You have to make sure all else is equal before you come to that conclusion.

It could be a function of the controller... Is C300 on an Indilinx? Also, it could well be a function of the disk firmware.

Too many variables without some serious studying on my part.
Click to expand...

i believe the C300 uses a marvell controller.
 
Am I terribly mistaken, or Intel X-25M series only has 80 and 160GB drives?

assassinm4 said:
really impressive...

This is what i got :
Macbook Pro 2.5gz C2D (early 2008, non-unibody with 8600 GT)
4gb ram, 128gb Intel X-25M G2.

Uncached Write
44.74 MB/sec [4K blocks]
84.46 MB/sec [4K blocks]

Uncached Write
48.06 MB/sec [256K blocks]
68.00 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Uncached Read
35.56 MB/sec [4K blocks]
28.29 MB/sec [4K blocks]

Uncached Read
125.67 MB/sec [256K blocks]
58.74 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Click to expand...
 
Gabriel GR said:
Am I terribly mistaken, or Intel X-25M series only has 80 and 160GB drives?
Click to expand...


You are spot on at the moment. However there are "rumors" to be a 256er ready or very close to release. Great to see these hands on reviews I'm pulling the trigger on the 160 x25 for this current 2008 MBP when I hand it "down" to my wife - after I get my hands on the next highest end 15" MBP.
 
itommyboy said:
You are spot on at the moment. However there are "rumors" to be a 256er ready or very close to release. Great to see these hands on reviews I'm pulling the trigger on the 160 x25 for this current 2008 MBP when I hand it "down" to my wife - after I get my hands on the next highest end 15" MBP.
Click to expand...

i read somewhere that there were 160, 320 and 600gb intel ssd's suppose to be coming out by this xmas....

i think i read it on neowin or toms....not sure.
 
rumpus said:
If the current MBP doesn't support SATA-III, then is it worth the money buying the C300 ?

The alternative is this one : http://www.crucial.com/store/partspecs.aspx?IMODULE=CT256M225 - the M225. Given the bottleneck, what would be the performance difference in a C300 ?

The price difference between the C300 and the M225 is a whole hundred bucks. Since right now SSDs are expensive, I'm wondering if its worth buying an SSD whose primary advantage (SATA-III) is technically not supported by the MBP.

What would you guys recommend ?
Click to expand...


The C300's primary advantage is not just its SATA III capabilities. You have the amazing new Marvell 88SS9174-BJP2 controller in there. Right now this is the only drive on the market rocking this controller, and from all the early reviews this controller is really a winner. The M225 just has a run of the mill Barefoot controller from Indilinx.

You really don't have to worry about SATA II being a bottleneck for this drive. You're not going to come close saturating SATA II in any regular use case.
 
CTechKid said:
The C300's primary advantage is not just its SATA III capabilities. You have the amazing new Marvell 88SS9174-BJP2 controller in there. Right now this is the only drive on the market rocking this controller, and from all the early reviews this controller is really a winner. The M225 just has a run of the mill Barefoot controller from Indilinx.

You really don't have to worry about SATA II being a bottleneck for this drive. You're not going to come close saturating SATA II in any regular use case.
Click to expand...

I see, thanks. What advantages does the new Marvell controller have by the way ? Is it better in Read / Write performances ? Any link where I can read about it ? (I saw the benchmarkreviews.com article but being a newbie to SSDs there's less I understand off it).

There's another thing I randomly read about SSDs and that is "firmwares". Is it like I need to update the drive firmware first time I install it ? Is there anything one needs to do after getting an SSD ?

Crucial is offering nice discounts on the C300 on their EU website and I'd love to empty my purse for it.
 
covenant, what kind of changes did you see with your battery life?

I'm primarily interested in extending battery life with an SSD. Checked out the specs for the Crucial C300. Some of the read/write power requirements are higher than the Intel G2, but idle doesn't look so bad.
 
Very Good Thread. . .

If I thought I would have a snowball's chance in hell with only 256GB, I'd be all over this. . .

Here's my numbers with a WDC WD3200BEVT-22ZCT0 (5400RPM)
2.4 GHz Mac

Sequential
Uncached Write 4K Blocks : 41.96 MB/sec
Uncached Write 256K Blocks: 45.89 MB/sec
Uncached Read 4K Blocks : 11.10 MB/sec
Uncached Read 256K Blocks : 45.42 MB/sec

Random
Uncached Write 4K Blocks : 1.15 MB/sec
Uncached Write 256K Blocks: 24.44 MB/sec
Uncached Read 4K Blocks : 0.27 MB/sec
Uncached Read 256K Blocks : 12.50 MB/sec

I've never run XBench before, I knew my performance wasn't stellar, it's looking rather dismal at this point now.
 
rumpus said:
I see, thanks. What advantages does the new Marvell controller have by the way ? Is it better in Read / Write performances ? Any link where I can read about it ? (I saw the benchmarkreviews.com article but being a newbie to SSDs there's less I understand off it).

There's another thing I randomly read about SSDs and that is "firmwares". Is it like I need to update the drive firmware first time I install it ? Is there anything one needs to do after getting an SSD ?

Crucial is offering nice discounts on the C300 on their EU website and I'd love to empty my purse for it.
Click to expand...


Go here to read about the C300:
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/31..._256gb_sata_6gbps_solid_state_disk/index.html
 
covenant said:
Late Nov 2008 2.53 ghz Unibody, 4GB RAM and a newly installed Crucial 256GB SSD….nice combination. Its like having a new machine.

xbench reports.

Sequential Uncached Write
172.98 MB/s 4K blocks
169.35 MB/s 256k Blocks

Sequential Uncached Reads
31.38 MB/s 4K Blocks
215.47 MB/s 256K blocks

Random Uncached Writes
136.18 MB/s 4K Blocks
173.00 MB/s 256K blocks

Random Uncached Reads
15.83 MB/S 4K blocks
202.41 MB/s 256 blocks.


In short, its fast…damn fast. Im a bit VMware user..and VM performance is unbelievable.

best 500 quid I ever spent!

:)

-Rab
Click to expand...

Hi dude,what is your current fireware edition? Do you use MacOS X or Win 7 both systems? I wonder how is the performance on XP system.
 
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