another SSD vs Hybrid thread

[dsgnr]

Sorry everyone for creating another SSD vs Hybrid thread.

I have a white unibody Macbook, the last version they bought out which I believe is the mid-2010, 2.4gb core 2 duo version. I have already installed a 750gb Seagate Momentus XT drive into it but now that my 1,1 Mac Pro has finally given up and I am in no position at the moment to upgrade computers I thought I'd try and give some more live to my Macbook.

As above, I have a 750gb Momentus XT installed as well as 8gb of RAM.

My question is, would I see a noticeable difference from upgrading the Momentus XT to a fully fledged solid state drive? I am swaying between the Crucial M500 or Kingston V300. I would only really need a max of 240gb which Crucial are currently doing for around £80 including VAT but I don't want to fork out if I'm not going to notice a substantial difference.

Also, I read about people upgrading this Macbook to 16gb of RAM but when I tried it, it didn't work and had to get the RAM refunded unfortunately.

If anyone can help shed some light on both the HD issue and maybe help with upgrading to 16gb RAM that would be great.

Many thanks again

 

[brdeveloper]

Hybrid = Seagate.

My religion doesn't allow me buying Seagate stuff.

 

[dsgnr]

Does this mean the Seagate Momentus is rubbish and should upgrade to a proper SSD or just that Seagate is naff in general?

 

[mojolicious]

I have the same MacBook, with 8GB memory and a Samsung 840 EVO 250GB SSD.

According to Blackmagic I'm enjoying 210MB/s writes and 270MB/s reads (1TB test). Startup from chime to login is ~10 seconds; from login to 'usable' desktop is ~8 seconds. Everything is snappy snappy snappy. I believe the Momentus also does a good job of startup, but don't know how it performs beyond that. Do you have the Blackmagic numbers?

Unless you know you're going to actually utilise more than 8GB of RAM then I'd pass on the memory upgrade (which, as you say, appears to be problematic). An SSD, on the other hand, really could make your MacBook feel like a new laptop.

 

[dsgnr]

Thanks Mojo.

Approximate time for startup from the chime to the dock appearing is currently 30seconds and Blackmagic shows a read and write of around 95MB/s and 100MB/s using a 5GB stress test so I guess there would be a great improvement if you are getting more than double this?

I am a web developer mostly using Coda 2 and Adobe CS6 (Photoshop, Illustrator and occasionally InDesign), many safari tabs, two Parallels Desktop machines with Windows 7 and XP simultaneously. Parallels and Photoshop would most likely give me the best improvement when it comes to RAM. I don't tend to run out of RAM as I have lowered the settings in both Photoshop and Parallels to accommodate 8GB so I guess I could speed things up by allocating more RAM.

Having not experienced the speed of the new generation iMacs or Mac Pro's, even MBP for that matter, I still find my unibody MB quite speedy and never really find myself in the position where I'm pulling my hair out until I start running Parallels and Photoshop together but I guess this could also be a case of an old 2.4ghz processor too!

If I'll notice a big difference by upgrading to a fully fledged SSD I would definitely look at upgrading seeing as I don't realistically see myself saving enough for a maxed out new iMac for at least another 6 months.

Would you go for the Samsung over the Crucial M500? The Samsung benchmark tests on Toms Hardware seems to beat the Crucial in Seq R/W tests but as these tests were with a Sata III not a Sata II I'd be interested to see how these tally up as the Samsung is more expensive.

Thanks for your reply by the way.

 

[jbachandouris]

I tried going the hybrid route and did not notice any noticeable speed difference. What I did notice was the heat and noise of the Seagate drive. The bottom of my MacBook Pro was very hot.

Black Magic told me my MBP was running around 250Mb/s with my new Samsung Evo 250GB (Sata 2 speeds). It is faster, cooler, and totally silent.

 

[r0k]

I had the older Momentus XT in my 2008 white MB. I later upgraded to a MBP and kept the rotating drive in there until a month ago. I now have a Samsung EVO 840 SSD and I'm loving it. Meanwhile the white MB is a "spare" machine running its original HDD and I've passed the Momentus on to my son to use in his 2009 MBP.

My wife has a Samsung SSD in her 2010 Mac mini and my daughter still has the original HDD in her 2013 MBP. I liked the performance I had with the hybrid drive in my 2008 MB but full SSD in my MBP is a LOT nicer. I think it's probably better to do a poor man's fusion drive and put your OS, applications and home folder on a smallish SSD and store larger files on an external or optibay HDD.

 

[dsgnr]

Thanks everyone for your advice. I've ordered a Samsung Evo 250gb to arrive tomorrow. If it makes it as snappy as you say I'll be chuffed!

Are there any cheaper alternatives for the Optibay instead of the MCE kit? I'd rather not pay out £100 for that too

 

[brdeveloper]

Does this mean the Seagate Momentus is rubbish and should upgrade to a proper SSD or just that Seagate is naff in general?

I never had a good experience with Seagate HDDs (noisy, slow), so I don't trust on their hybrid drives. Get the worst performer, cheapest 2014 SSD and you'll probably have a better experience than with a HDD. I also have a Samsung EVO in my 2009 Unibody MB and it works fast, quiet and cold.

I recently bought a PNY 120GB SSD for using with an external enclosure and it does a good job for running my Windows 8 VM. I also tested Plextors and Kingstons with good results, but Kingston usually charges their products a lot for what they offer.

 

[mojolicious]

I am a web developer mostly using Coda 2 and Adobe CS6 (Photoshop, Illustrator and occasionally InDesign), many safari tabs, two Parallels Desktop machines with Windows 7 and XP simultaneously. Parallels and Photoshop would most likely give me the best improvement when it comes to RAM. I don't tend to run out of RAM as I have lowered the settings in both Photoshop and Parallels to accommodate 8GB so I guess I could speed things up by allocating more RAM.

Right... I'm on the MacBook at the moment and Photoshop CS5.1 opens in 2-3 seconds; Parallels goes from launch to resumed in around 5 seconds. These aren't first launches and I'm too lazy to restart the computer and see how long those first launches take, but I don't think there's much in it.

EDIT: InDesign CS5.5: <10 secs first, 3 secs subsequent. Illustrator CS5.1: 5-6 secs first, 2 secs subsequent.

Pre-SSD I found Parallels particularly sluggish in use, but this is a thing of the past. I'll cheerfully admit to not having a clue how Parallels works, but I suspect there was a lot of writing going on? Config is XP Pro, two processors, 1.5GB RAM, 30GB disk image.

Photoshop is a delight. Opening and saving files is instantaneous-ish, filter/effect previews likewise... these are 12-14MB RAW files, which come up to around 30MB a layer as PSD. I have 4GB of RAM allocated to Photoshop; I presume you can get away with a lot less if you're knocking up elements for web pages.

Would you go for the Samsung over the Crucial M500? The Samsung benchmark tests on Toms Hardware seems to beat the Crucial in Seq R/W tests but as these tests were with a Sata III not a Sata II I'd be interested to see how these tally up as the Samsung is more expensive.

I'm really not the person to ask. I went with the EVO for my Mini largely because of its glowing write-ups on this forum. I went EVO again for the MacBook because a) I figured the two SSDs might one day be united in an external RAID configuration, and b) it's known to work correctly in SATA II buses; some other current SSDs step down to SATA I / 1.5GBps when installed in SATA II devices.

I think it's probably better to do a poor man's fusion drive and put your OS, applications and home folder on a smallish SSD and store larger files on an external or optibay HDD.

Certainly my gut feeling is to avoid the 'rich man's fusion': my MacBook is SSD only, but my Mini is SSD+HDD and I've kept the two disks distinct from one-another. I don't like the idea of letting the OS decide what to put where, nor the prospect of losing everything in the event of a drive failure. OS / apps / user accounts on the SSD; music / iPhone backups / photo libraries on the HDD. Sorted.

fast, quiet and cold

Oh yes... the 'quiet and cold' are also selling points. Which brings to mind another benefit of manually splitting your data between SSD and HDD: that noisy old disk isn't going to spin up at seemingly random intervals, which seems to be the case with the couple of proper Fusions I've seen (and heard).

 

[mlsimmons]

can you expand on your statement "newer SSD's step down to SATA I speeds" Since I can only see SATA III new drives available, do you know which ones that revert to SATA II (which is what I have on my macbook unibody 2010) versus those that revert to SATA I?

 

[brdeveloper]

can you expand on your statement "newer SSD's step down to SATA I speeds" Since I can only see SATA III new drives available, do you know which ones that revert to SATA II (which is what I have on my macbook unibody 2010) versus those that revert to SATA I?

I have a SATAIII 840 EVO installed on my Late-2009 wMB and it's certainly reaching SATAII speed (~250/280 MB/s). I also have a SATA III PNY SSD installed on an Akasa enclosure (don't know its bus version) and it's running at SATAI speed (~170 MB/s max. speed). The PNY speed is caused by the Akasa enclosure or by a step down to SATAI...