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Another SSD Topic

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RedEyeZ88

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Alright guys, sorry to do this.

So I know there are thousands of SSD topics, questions, and reviews. I've been doing so much SSD reading lately its starting to hurt my head. Im running the i7 2.66ghz macbook pro 15", and Im finally ready to make my decision. I just need your opinions to pull the trigger. So, I've learnt a great deal about garbage collection, trip and other things that need to come into mind when purchasing an SSD. Im still learning new things, but I figure every device will have its ups and downs, so just finally go with one. My choices are:

IntelX25M 160gb

OCZ Vertex 2 200gb (ouch) $

OCZ Vertex 160gb

Kingston SSD Now 128 gb

I just want to know, if you had to decide these 4, which one would it be. And mainly, is it worth getting the Vertex 2 over the Vertex? Thanks so much guys.
 
If I were in the market right now the only two SSDs I'd look at are Intel's G2 and OWC Mercury Extreme.

I had a bad run with a Vertex and I'll never buy one again but I'm sure others will recommend it.

I owned a Vertex for 5 months and since it failed I have owned an Intel G2 for 6 months. Love the intel drive, just wish it was more resistant to write speed degradation along with having higher seq. write speeds out of the box. This is where the OWC drive shines.

http://macperformanceguide.com/Reviews-SSD-OWC-Mercury_Extreme.html
 
Unless you can afford Crucial's C300, the Intel G2 really seem to be rocking the oat at the moment (and ever since they came out 😀)
 
piwi said:
Unless you can afford Crucial's C300, the Intel G2 really seem to be rocking the oat at the moment (and ever since they came out 😀)
Click to expand...

OWC > Crucial from everything I've seen. OWC > pretty much everything at the moment, but SSDs are a very dynamic are of tech.
 
MBHockey said:
OWC > Crucial from everything I've seen. OWC > pretty much everything at the moment, but SSDs are a very dynamic are of tech.
Click to expand...
Performance = Sandforce (OWC, OCZ Vertex2) > all others

Performance / cost per GB = Intel > all others

I have both the Intel 160GB in my MacPro and the OWC 100GB in my MacBook Pro. While the OWC is arguably the better performer it sells for a significant premium over the Intel. If I had to choose between the two I'd give my vote to the Intel G2 based on $/GB
 
I just picked up an IntelX25M SSD 80GB for $215 from Newegg. I am EXTREMELY happy with the performance of the SSD over the 7200RPM drive I was previously using.

Of course I cannot find it now, but a friend sent me a link comparing a bunch of SSD's in write/read benchmarks. It was very clear that the OCZ Vertex and OWC drives were benchmarking above the rest. But for prices starting at $400 for a 60GB OCZ drive, I decided that the IntelX25M was not far behind the competition in performance and had a much better price per GB.

When I find the link I will post it.
 
RedEyeZ88 said:
Alright guys, sorry to do this.

So I know there are thousands of SSD topics, questions, and reviews. I've been doing so much SSD reading lately its starting to hurt my head. Im running the i7 2.66ghz macbook pro 15", and Im finally ready to make my decision. I just need your opinions to pull the trigger. So, I've learnt a great deal about garbage collection, trip and other things that need to come into mind when purchasing an SSD. Im still learning new things, but I figure every device will have its ups and downs, so just finally go with one. My choices are:

IntelX25M 160gb

OCZ Vertex 2 200gb (ouch) $

OCZ Vertex 160gb

Kingston SSD Now 128 gb

I just want to know, if you had to decide these 4, which one would it be. And mainly, is it worth getting the Vertex 2 over the Vertex? Thanks so much guys.
Click to expand...

Just to mess with you I'll throw my 2 cents in for the Crucial C300 128GB SSD. Fast and very low power (with ver 0002 firmware). B&H sells this drive for $370.

Results 341.96
System Info
Xbench Version 1.3
System Version 10.6.3 (10D573)
Physical RAM 4096 MB
Model MacBookPro5,1
Drive Type C300-CTFDDAC128MAG
Disk Test 341.96
Sequential 214.95
Uncached Write 235.99 144.90 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 223.49 126.45 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 129.82 37.99 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 455.67 229.02 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 835.94
Uncached Write 864.44 91.51 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 441.04 141.19 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 2360.22 16.73 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 1067.08 198.00 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Edit: To be 'fair' this was the best result of 3-4 test sequences. The low overall test result was ~305. This drive has 28GB in use and 100GB free: OSX 10.6, Office 2008, FCS (without the libraries), and few other smallish apps.

As a comparison here's the Hitachi Travelstar 500GB 7200 RPM HD running in the optical bay position:

Results 54.32
System Info
Xbench Version 1.3
System Version 10.6.3 (10D573)
Physical RAM 4096 MB
Model MacBookPro5,1
Drive Type Hitachi HTS725050A9A364
Disk Test 54.32
Sequential 121.26
Uncached Write 137.19 84.23 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 178.13 100.78 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 65.67 19.22 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 205.97 103.52 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 35.00
Uncached Write 11.62 1.23 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 108.33 34.68 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 81.68 0.58 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 147.74 27.41 MB/sec [256K blocks]
 
sn0warmy said:
I just picked up an IntelX25M SSD 80GB for $215 from Newegg. I am EXTREMELY happy with the performance of the SSD over the 7200RPM drive I was previously using.

Of course I cannot find it now, but a friend sent me a link comparing a bunch of SSD's in write/read benchmarks. It was very clear that the OCZ Vertex and OWC drives were benchmarking above the rest. But for prices starting at $400 for a 60GB OCZ drive, I decided that the IntelX25M was not far behind the competition in performance and had a much better price per GB.

When I find the link I will post it.
Click to expand...

Hmm, another thing to consider versus the Apple stock SSD 128gb that would come out to $180...Is it that much faster or worth the extra price + less storage?
 
Don Nguyen said:
Hmm, another thing to consider versus the Apple stock SSD 128gb that would come out to $180...Is it that much faster or worth the extra price + less storage?
Click to expand...

I have the same question. Anyone knows what kind of SSD is Apple using in the MBPs?
 
Don Nguyen said:
Hmm, another thing to consider versus the Apple stock SSD 128gb that would come out to $180...Is it that much faster or worth the extra price + less storage?
Click to expand...

If you are asking if the SSD is much fast than the 7200RPM Hitachi, then the answer is most definitely YES.

Some observations:
- Computer boots in 12 seconds (40 seconds w/7200rpm)
- Photoshop CS5 opens in 3 seconds (15 seconds w/7200rpm)
- Computer seems to run around 5C cooler on average
- 30 - 40 minutes more battery life on average

The decrease in storage capacity did not affect me. On my 320GB drive I only used 50GB of space after 6 months of use.

Right now I have 35GB full on my SSD and this includes everything I need (music, movies, documents, pictures, software).

If I end up filling this drive up somehow, I will just get one of those Optibay enclosures so I can throw my 320GB drive in as a second hard drive. It's better for performance to allow Adobe to write scratch files to a secondary drive anyway.
 
sn0warmy said:
If you are asking if the SSD is much fast than the 7200RPM Hitachi, then the answer is most definitely YES.

Some observations:
- Computer boots in 12 seconds (40 seconds w/7200rpm)
- Photoshop CS5 opens in 3 seconds (15 seconds w/7200rpm)
- Computer seems to run around 5C cooler on average
- 30 - 40 minutes more battery life on average

The decrease in storage capacity did not affect me. On my 320GB drive I only used 50GB of space after 6 months of use.

Right now I have 35GB full on my SSD and this includes everything I need (music, movies, documents, pictures, software).

If I end up filling this drive up somehow, I will just get one of those Optibay enclosures so I can throw my 320GB drive in as a second hard drive. It's better for performance to allow Adobe to write scratch files to a secondary drive anyway.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the post, but re-read my original post. I actually was trying to compare the Apple 128GB SSD to the Intel 80GB SSD. From looking at some speed tests, it almost seems like the Apple 128GB reads just as fast, if not faster in more than one occurrences over the Intel 80GB SSD?

I think the new current Apples run a Toshiba HD2 or H2D SSD.
 
Another thing to throw into the discussion. You need to weigh in what your usage will be for your SSD. Are you going to be tasking the drive with jobs that will make use of the "Bleeding Edge" numbers? Or are you using it mainly for everyday user tasks?

For me, I just wanted something really fast for everyday user tasks and I got a great deal on the Vertex (Firmware 1.5). If you're going in with that same mentality, I think the Intel is actually the safest / best bang for your buck bet. A bunch of deals popped on this week from what I saw and its proven itself to be "SSD OMG FAST" and the least problematic of the bunch.
 
Don Nguyen said:
Thanks for the post, but re-read my original post. I actually was trying to compare the Apple 128GB SSD to the Intel 80GB SSD. From looking at some speed tests, it almost seems like the Apple 128GB reads just as fast, if not faster in more than one occurrences over the Intel 80GB SSD?

I think the new current Apples run a Toshiba HD2 or H2D SSD.
Click to expand...

I REALLY wish I could find the link to the comparison chart I saw. You are correct. Apple is using a Toshiba SSD of some sort. And in the bench mark results, the Apple SSD was actually beating the Intel SSD in sequential read/write.

I will find the link if it kills me.
 
sn0warmy said:
I REALLY wish I could find the link to the comparison chart I saw. You are correct. Apple is using a Toshiba SSD of some sort. And in the bench mark results, the Apple SSD was actually beating the Intel SSD in sequential read/write.

I will find the link if it kills me.
Click to expand...

Pretty much everything is faster than the Intel in sequential read/write. Even some traditional hard drives. But the main reason SSDs are so fast is because of their random read/write performance. I'd be shocked if the toshiba drives even come close to the intel there.
 
MBHockey said:
Pretty much everything is faster than the Intel in sequential read/write. Even some traditional hard drives. But the main reason SSDs are so fast is because of their random read/write performance. I'd be shocked if the toshiba drives even come close to the intel there.
Click to expand...

Tomshardware.com lists the Toshiba HG2 drive right below the Intel G2 regarding read speeds. Seems as if Toshiba is stepping it up a bit.
 
ssd partitions

dear all,
i will receive my new 15 " MBP next week. i have chosen the 250 SSD.

is there still any reason to partition it? and if so what is the min amount for mac os?
also, i there a need to create a rescue partition?

thanks for your comments.
 
From here: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/700032/

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Thanks so much for the help guys. So I'm gonna think about the crucial versus the intel. I do understand that Intel's do get slower bc of the garbage collection or what not. So I was wondering, if this were to happen to a significant value, would a reformat simply fix this issue?
 
MBHockey said:
Pretty much everything is faster than the Intel in sequential read/write. Even some traditional hard drives. But the main reason SSDs are so fast is because of their random read/write performance. I'd be shocked if the toshiba drives even come close to the intel there.
Click to expand...

Yeah i remember the benchmark results proving exactly what you are saying. When it came to random read/write the intel was right up there with the Vertex and OWC drives and Apple's Toshiba SSD was lacking big time.

RedEyeZ88 said:
Thanks so much for the help guys. So I'm gonna think about the crucial versus the intel. I do understand that Intel's do get slower bc of the garbage collection or what not. So I was wondering, if this were to happen to a significant value, would a reformat simply fix this issue?
Click to expand...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that the downside of all SSDs, no matter what the brand is?

In fact, I think the reason why Intel rises above the rest is because they have the TRIM software that prevents the drive from beginning to lag from data collection while SSDs from other manufacturers do not have this feature.

Keep in mind that this is kind of a moot point since OSX doesn't support TRIM yet.
 
Thunder82 said:
Tomshardware.com lists the Toshiba HG2 drive right below the Intel G2 regarding read speeds. Seems as if Toshiba is stepping it up a bit.
Click to expand...

That's pretty bad considering the intel G2 drives have been out for almost a year now and Toshiba hasn't even caught up yet.
 
well im not too knowledgable on SSDs to answer this, but from what I have gathered is that OCZ actually does garbage collection? So im not too sure if thats the downside of all ssds. But if it is, doesnt formatting just clean that off and make it back for normal?
 
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