So I'm looking to get my first SSD drive for my MBP (early 2011) and was wanting to get around 1TB of space. What are good solid brands that I should consider. I've bought stuff from Macsales (OWC) before but they don't have any SSD offerings around 1TB. They don't seem to offer other brand SSDs besides their own. Any suggestions?? If there is a thread on this please direct me. Thank you.
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960GB (or 1TB) SSD 2.5". What are good brands?
- Thread starter bigpoppamac31
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Upon some research this seems to be the best bet so far. Does anyone else have this model and can vouch for it?
http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-2-5-I...=1383071683&sr=1-1&keywords=samsung+ssd+960gb
http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-2-5-I...=1383071683&sr=1-1&keywords=samsung+ssd+960gb
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Orlandoech
macrumors 68040
robvas
macrumors 68040
OWC Makes a 960GB drive
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other+World+Computing/SSDEX3G960/
But a Samsung 840 EVO 1TB is only $599 - that's almost half the price
Thanks. Crucial seems to be the best in terms of price per GB and the one I mentioned here seems to have great reviews. One thing I'm curious of though is that SSDs seems to have drivers which I never really heard about with HDDs. What the deal with the drivers and how would I know I have the right ones? Also when I pop in the SSD would I simply migrate over my back up like I would if putting in an HDD?
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Indeed. But is the Samsung comparable to the Crucial I mentioned above?
blake2
macrumors member
I have 2 of them in my 2012 MBP. Flawless, fast, no compatibility issues at all. Although it's probably a bit slower than the Samsung EVO at 490MB/s read and 440ish write by Blackmagic benchmark.
They were on sale at $499 on amazon last week so you might want to watch for that discount again.
And just to make sure, the OWC model is 3G and 2 480gb drives in RAID 0 array so you might see reliability issues on the way even if you like the 3G bottleneck and the SF controller... (which I sort of do, to be truthful- I mean the SF not the bottleneck)
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6038/owc-releases-960gb-mercury-electra-max-3g-ssd
To their credit, it WAS the cheapest TB-class SSD solution at the time of its realease, at least before the m500 came out this spring.
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T-Bob
macrumors 6502a
OCZ? Some of their models may be serviceable but I would not rise to calling them good.
Had two RMAs in a row with them and heard of way more than any other brand. Some might be down to sandforce but other practices like not letting consumers know they were using a smaller, inferior process on vertex 2 doesn't endear them to me.
Had two RMAs in a row with them and heard of way more than any other brand. Some might be down to sandforce but other practices like not letting consumers know they were using a smaller, inferior process on vertex 2 doesn't endear them to me.
Well the Samsung 840 EVO 1TB does not show up on Amazon. At least not in my search. Either way the Crucial or the Samsung would be much faster then my HDD are now. The Samsung is on Newegg though but around $100 more then the Crucial from Amazon. In any event maybe I'll get one of them for Christmas for myself. 😀 If down the road I got a second one and put it in the optical drive bay how would that work for either backup use or using both as one drive?
EDIT: Found the Samsung on Amazon.
T-Bob
macrumors 6502a
Samsung makes good ssds (have two 830s) but buyer beware that the EVOs use TLC method to store data. This means less endurance than MLC and even less than SLC of course but for a huge 1TB drive will be unlikely to make a real difference unless you are writing large amounts daily (Like 50GB+).
blake2
macrumors member
Should work for you as they do for me 🙂
I haven't RAID'd or JBOD'd them in my setup, though, but I see no reason why these particular drives won't support it.
Buy whichever you can grab for less as they are both respectable brands... and enjoy the ride 🙂
The drives have no drivers at this time, however, I just swapped them and they were ready to go. There are firmware updates from time to time and even worse, some brands have no Mac solution for it so you need a Windows comp to update the drive, but there has been no FW updates for the m500 if I remember correctly.
Orlandoech
macrumors 68040
MacModMachine
macrumors 68020
i would stay away from anything OWC....i have hd 2 blade retina ssd's 480gb and both are on there 3rd return. (last 3 months max.)
a complete rip off.
So if I can't update the firmware from my Mac how would I do that with a Windows PC?? Would I have to put the drive into a Windows machine? They can't run Mac OSX. Unless you hack it of course.
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Well I have an OWC external 2.5" HDD enclosure and it works great. Hasn't let me down yet. Plus I'd likely get their Data Doubler bracket when (or if) I get a second SSD for my Mac.
T-Bob
macrumors 6502a
They're still among the least reliable brands, you've been lucky:
http://translate.google.com/transla...ttp://www.hardware.fr/articles/881-7/ssd.html
Orlandoech
macrumors 68040
They still make good products, but would I recommend them over a Samsung or Crucial? No.
blake2
macrumors member
I think this issue was with either OWC brand or Sandisk, probably both; initially you couldn't update the FW via Mac OS and you needed a windows PC running windows(not OS X).
While I had no headaches with this as I have another old windows desktop, I don't think Crucial has ever had this issue, not since its lineup of m4 at least, so you needn't really worry about this. What I wanted to say was that you don't really need to worry about drivers, and there are no issues with the m500 that requires a FW update at this time.
MacModMachine
macrumors 68020
a 25$ enclosure i could live with failing but a 600$ (750$ by the time i got it into canada) failing on me and paying return 3 times on such a crucial element of my laptop is unacceptable.
So firmware updates only come out when issues arise?? Also once I get my SSD can I use something like Carbon Copy Cloner to transfer my Mac over or is there included software with the SSD??
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Fair enough. I've also bought ram from OWC and haven't had issues with it either. Overall I've had a good experience with OWC but there's always exceptions.
blake2
macrumors member
Yes and yes.
Firmware only gets updated when it is needed, and Crucial has the mac bootable for m4 ready.
http://www.crucial.com/support/firmware.aspx
If you have a 2011 MBP, I suppose it's Lion? I think you can use ccc for free as their soft is free before ML, or
http://forums.crucial.com/t5/Solid-...ur-old-hard-drive-to-your-SSD-Mac/ta-p/112072
This. I think I used super duper when I did, but any of the three should work.
Firmware only gets updated when it is needed, and Crucial has the mac bootable for m4 ready.
http://www.crucial.com/support/firmware.aspx
If you have a 2011 MBP, I suppose it's Lion? I think you can use ccc for free as their soft is free before ML, or
http://forums.crucial.com/t5/Solid-...ur-old-hard-drive-to-your-SSD-Mac/ta-p/112072
This. I think I used super duper when I did, but any of the three should work.
It looked like there was one for the M500 also. I'm running Mountain Lion. When I run CCC it asks me to upgrade cause the version I have is technically not supported to run on ML. But I'd now have to pay I think $40 or so to upgrade cause CCC is not "donationware" any longer. I can still use the copy I have and backups seem to go successfully. But I should probably upgrade CCC soon. Especially if I upgrade to Mavericks. In any event I'll probably go with the Crucial m500 as it seems to be getting great reviews overall.
blake2
macrumors member
You're right; there is one released just September. Haven't checked in a while... time to go update... :X
I'm just wondering how often CCC would want me to pay for updates. Hopefully not too often. It's $45 Canadian.
I've also noticed while looking around online that there's very little 3.5" SSDs. 3.5" drives are mostly still HDDs. I was curious while looking into this --> http://www.amazon.com/Book-Thunderb...43&sr=8-1&keywords=wd+my+book+thunderbolt+duo I could use it for my backups and it would last me a long time cause it's Thunderbolt and user serviceable meaning I can upgrade the hard drives inside.
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There are 3 drives in this space :
Samsung Evo 1tb
OWC 960GB Mercury Electra
Crucial M500 960GB
The Samsung is the fastest of the 3, Samsung also have the lowest failure rates of the three. The Samsung Evo is also the cheapest.
Anandtech said :
"With the EVO, Samsung puts forth a formidable competitor to the M500. It's faster, uses less power at idle and carries lower MSRPs"
At the moment the Samsung Evo is king for 1tb drives. I follow SSD development very closely and for this Anandtech is the bible. Anand Lal Shimpi is taken so seriously as a reviewer of SSDs that manufacturers have modified their drives and firmware based on his recommendations.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7173/...iew-120gb-250gb-500gb-750gb-1tb-models-tested
Also as a side note as someone else mentioned TLC nand as used in the Samsung Evo was thought to be less reliable. However Samsung have really made this a non issue. When Anandtech tested the Evo they showed a 1TB Evo would last at least 63 years at 50GB a day (every single day) of writes, (which is 31 years at 100GB per day ). Anandtech note that this is very conservative and real lifespan is likely double these figures.
"Keep in mind that all of this is based on 1129 p/e cycles, which is likely less than half of what the practical p/e cycle limit on Samsung's 19nm TLC NAND. To go ahead and double those numbers and then you're probably looking at reality. Endurance isn't a concern for client systems using the 840 EVO." Anandtech
Samsung Evo 1tb
OWC 960GB Mercury Electra
Crucial M500 960GB
The Samsung is the fastest of the 3, Samsung also have the lowest failure rates of the three. The Samsung Evo is also the cheapest.
Anandtech said :
"With the EVO, Samsung puts forth a formidable competitor to the M500. It's faster, uses less power at idle and carries lower MSRPs"
At the moment the Samsung Evo is king for 1tb drives. I follow SSD development very closely and for this Anandtech is the bible. Anand Lal Shimpi is taken so seriously as a reviewer of SSDs that manufacturers have modified their drives and firmware based on his recommendations.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7173/...iew-120gb-250gb-500gb-750gb-1tb-models-tested
Also as a side note as someone else mentioned TLC nand as used in the Samsung Evo was thought to be less reliable. However Samsung have really made this a non issue. When Anandtech tested the Evo they showed a 1TB Evo would last at least 63 years at 50GB a day (every single day) of writes, (which is 31 years at 100GB per day ). Anandtech note that this is very conservative and real lifespan is likely double these figures.
"Keep in mind that all of this is based on 1129 p/e cycles, which is likely less than half of what the practical p/e cycle limit on Samsung's 19nm TLC NAND. To go ahead and double those numbers and then you're probably looking at reality. Endurance isn't a concern for client systems using the 840 EVO." Anandtech
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Actually the Samsung is $60 more expensive then the Crucial m500 on Amazon.