Ssd Vs Hdd

[slicke101]

Howdy, folks.
Hope I dont get flamed for this post. Did an MrGoogle search and found posts from 2009 that didnt quite answer my question.

According to this article
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/04/08/rumor_suggests_apple_could_release_new_macbook_pros_april_13.html

the new MBP might come with HDD or SDD . If the article is correct the SSD will be a lot smaler. Whats the pro and cons with SSD compared to HDD. From the WIki article i read on this it said that amongst other that the SSD was less prone to crash, that it consumed less power, and has a faster start up, which all sounds sweet. Among the cons were that it had a limited lifetime. This sounds pretty bad.

What will you guys choose and why?

 

[Hellhammer]

SSD

+ FAST
+ Should last longer
+ Silent
+ Uses less power so no heat issues
+ No vibration
- Small capacities
- High price

HD

+ Big capacities
+ Cheap
+ Fast enough for average Joe
- Not as fast as SSD
- Will likely die sooner
- Makes noise
- May vibrate
- Uses more power

For most people HD is enough but SSDs have their pros too. 64GB SSD as boot drive + 500GB HD as storage is pretty ideal setup IMO

 

[slicke101]

Cheers
Sounds like the SSD is the winner with the only con being the size reduction?

 

[jufros]

I think it really depends on what you're doing with your laptop. If you need the drive space and it isn't practical for you to carry around an external drive, then a large 7200RPM HDD makes sense. I use my MBP for digital audio production and live performing and couldn't possibly see myself switching back to an HDD at this point. The boot and application load speeds are crucial and I don't mind schlepping my old 500GB 7200RPM HDD in a tiny bus-powered FW 800 / eSATA (via ExpressCard) enclosure.

 

[Hellhammer]

Cheers
Sounds like the SSD is the winner with the only con being the size reduction?

Size + price

You can get four 500GB 2.5" HDs for the price of 80GB Intel SSD...

 

[Gabriel GR]

SSD

+ FAST
+ Should last longer
+ Silent
+ Uses less power so no heat issues
+ No vibration
- Small capacities
- High price

HD

+ Big capacities
+ Cheap
+ Fast enough for average Joe
- Not as fast as SSD
- Will likely die sooner
- Makes noise
- May vibrate
- Uses more power

For most people HD is enough but SSDs have their pros too. 64GB SSD as boot drive + 500GB HD as storage is pretty ideal setup IMO

You can't really tell. I agree with the rest of your pros/cons.

 

[Hellhammer]

You can't really tell. I agree with the rest of your pros/cons.

That's why I said likely

I know there is no guarantee that HD will die sooner but the fact that SSD has no moving parts, makes it more reliable and e.g. Intel have MTBF of +100 years but we have to wait few years to see the real world failure rates.

 

[irrªtiºnal]

It's incredible! You all clowns are forgetting that for Flash-based SSDs, the re is a real, tangible, all-present write cycle limit for each memory block (number of times it can be written/re-written over).

I doubt Apple uses RAM-based SSDs, which are still more expensive...

Unbelievable of you guys...

 

[Hellhammer]

It's incredible! You all clowns are forgetting that for Flash-based SSDs, the re is a real, tangible, all-present write cycle limit for each memory block (number of times it can be written/re-written over).

I doubt Apple uses RAM-based SSDs, which are still more expensive...

Unbelievable of you guys...

That applies to hard drives as well.. And I guess it applies to RAM as well but RAM just has so many times that it can be rewritten but by the time, it'll fail as well

Anything physical is mortal

 

[chopper dave]

It's incredible! You all clowns are forgetting that for Flash-based SSDs, the re is a real, tangible, all-present write cycle limit for each memory block (number of times it can be written/re-written over).

I doubt Apple uses RAM-based SSDs, which are still more expensive...

Unbelievable of you guys...

SSDs have complex controllers that manage wear leveling to make sure the write cycle wear is spread over the whole drive. With typical laptop use (i.e. not running a database 24/7) it takes 10+ years to reach that limit. This is why we have pretty much stopped talking about it. Perhaps your comment would have been useful if you were talking about using CF/SD cards or thumbdrives as a boot drive.

 

[Libertine Lush]

There's a very important consideration if you intend to get an SSD: SSD performance deterioration and the absence of TRIM (something that will conveniently, without any effort on the user's behalf, prevent that performance decline) in OSX, which makes the exorbitant price you're already paying for an SSD even higher. TRIM is supported in Windows 7 though. This was my main concern in deciding HDD vs SSD and I think my question was fairly well addressed here if you're interested: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/888129/ Wear leveling, garbage collection, etc are also discussed.

 

[irrªtiºnal]

SSDs have complex controllers that manage wear leveling to make sure the write cycle wear is spread over the whole drive. With typical laptop use (i.e. not running a database 24/7) it takes 10+ years to reach that limit. This is why we have pretty much stopped talking about it. Perhaps your comment would have been useful if you were talking about using CF/SD cards or thumbdrives as a boot drive.

Well, you effectively made 1 point against yourself:

That I must somehow conform to your "typical laptop use," even though I am looking at a MacBook Pro, and refrain myself from doing any robust usage of the filesystem, or as you so-eloquently tried to put it, running a database 24/7, or dedicating a small partition for a scratch disk, or designing encryption algorithms that write, write, write and write, etc.

One doesn't need to be a professional or, as you guys love to simplify it, a "pro", to shrink those 10+ years of seemingly infinite "durability" down to dust.

And so that you don't get my point negatively, I am a big proponent of SSDs, even flashed based, but there was this major trait that was missing from all the discussion...

Cheers!

 

[Gabriel GR]

That's why I said likely

I know there is no guarantee that HD will die sooner but the fact that SSD has no moving parts, makes it more reliable and e.g. Intel have MTBF of +100 years but we have to wait few years to see the real world failure rates.

It has more electronic parts though that might die. Honestly, I'd love to see SSD's proving their reliability over HDD's but it's simply too early to come to long term conclusions.

It's incredible! You all clowns are forgetting that for Flash-based SSDs, the re is a real, tangible, all-present write cycle limit for each memory block (number of times it can be written/re-written over).

I doubt Apple uses RAM-based SSDs, which are still more expensive...

Unbelievable of you guys...

Irrational much?

 

[kasakka]

There's a very important consideration if you intend to get an SSD: SSD performance deterioration and the absence of TRIM (something that will conveniently, without any effort on the user's behalf, prevent that performance decline) in OSX, which makes the exorbitant price you're already paying for an SSD even higher. TRIM is supported in Windows 7 though. This was my main concern in deciding HDD vs SSD and I think my question was fairly well addressed here if you're interested: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/888129/ Wear leveling, garbage collection, etc are also discussed.

IMO the whole TRIM thing is a bit overrated. Yes, it helps, but modern SSD drives do a good job with their internal garbage collection. 6 months later my Intel X25-M is still booting just as quickly and programs open instantly. Even with wear the SSD is going to be faster for most things than a HDD.

 

[Libertine Lush]

6 months later my Intel X25-M is still booting just as quickly and programs open instantly. Even with wear the SSD is going to be faster for most things than a HDD.

6 months isn't a good benchmark though. Most of us will use a computer for several years, and Mac users seem, due to reliability or preference, to use a Mac for even longer. Without TRIM and without a more recent (latter half of 2009) SSD with quality OS-independent features like garbage collection, performance degradation is a crucial time and value consideration.

And even though as you say a degraded SSD will likely be faster than even a 7200rpm HDD in many regards, it's just such a hard and steep compromise to accept considering the massive price premium you're paying for an SSD; even more so when coupled with the knowledge that the other OS already supports TRIM.

 

[Thiol]

And even though as you say a degraded SSD will likely be faster than even a 7200rpm HDD in many regards, it's just such a hard and steep compromise to accept considering the massive price premium you're paying for an SSD; even more so when coupled with the knowledge that the other OS already supports TRIM.

Check the benchmarks online. Many good SSDs will not suffer much of a reduction in performance. And that "degradation" is usually not even noticeable to the average user.

 

[Libertine Lush]

Check the benchmarks online. Many good SSDs will not suffer much of a reduction in performance. And that "degradation" is usually not even noticeable to the average user.

Could you link us? I haven't come across benchmarks of SSD degradation after long term use (at least a year). I've only seen ones where reviewers artificially simulate long use by writing a lot to the drive (sometimes only to drive capacity), and resulting in noticeable performance slowdown.

 

[m85476585]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2738/13

The first chart looks really bad, but that's for 4K random writes, which is the absolute worst case. Further down, the benchmark scores indicate a smaller change. Read speed is not affected much. Also note that this article is a year old, and drives have improved a lot since then. By the time your SSD dies, however long that might take, you will probably want a newer one that will likely be bigger, cheaper, and/or faster.

 

[Gabriel GR]

6 months isn't a good benchmark though. Most of us will use a computer for several years, and Mac users seem, due to reliability or preference, to use a Mac for even longer. Without TRIM and without a more recent (latter half of 2009) SSD with quality OS-independent features like garbage collection, performance degradation is a crucial time and value consideration.

And even though as you say a degraded SSD will likely be faster than even a 7200rpm HDD in many regards, it's just such a hard and steep compromise to accept considering the massive price premium you're paying for an SSD; even more so when coupled with the knowledge that the other OS already supports TRIM.

Not trying to argue your point as I also keep my computers a long time. But those that have already got an SSD will most likely upgrade again in a year or so when more capacity and speed will be available for less.

IMO SSD's are more suited to usage scenarios involving a lot of random data reading (eg. databases, booting many VM's). I have an X-25M and if it hadn't been for local databases and having to boot 3-4 different operating systems several time during my workday, I'd much rather have a 500/640/750GB drive.

Concerning the degradation, I use my mac to replicate databases so I write 40-50gb to it daily. After 3 months of such use, my queries and sequences run in 1/2 the time of an IBM DS4300 array with 6 15.000RPM SCSI drives in RAID 5. I think that's impressive.