Corsair Force or Vertex 2 OCZ.
These have good garbage collection unlike C300 and apples samsung drives
Thanks for advice. I'd really like to get these Vertex 2 drives. However they are over my budget. New Vertex 2 Sandforce 200GB retails over $600 and I need more than 200 GB in space to furvive. I'll have to wait till price drops.
By the way, is there any concern about speed degradation of Vertex 2 without TRIM over time?
It's by far not serious but I read ultiple posts saying the 16K range sequential / random READS fall down as much as 65% performance in RAID configuration. After updating new Intel RAID driver the issue was fixed. That was in case of Windows. Macbook even doens't seem to support TRIM, even though Macbook recognizes TRIM in system profiler on some drives. Maybe one could get away by allocating 15% unpartitioned space on Vertex to help self-maintenance and garbage collection.
For the time being, till price drops and till Apple adds TRIM support (Steve, c'mon..) I'll settle with Intel X-25-M G2 160GB.
Selected: 2x 160GB Intel X25-M G2 in RAID 0 configuration
What I need it for (YMMV):
General computing, browsing, Office, email, documents, regular files (PDF, MP3, DOC) and running chunky Virtual Machines (30GB +) for presentations, no heavy work, no heavy database processing or coding or writing, mostly random and sequential reading and sequential writing when saving the virtual machines. As for multimedia, I don't do almost any video editing. Video files are stored on external HDD.
Reasons:
1) Although much less writing spead with Intel than Vertex 2, (only up to 80MB write vs Vertex 2 @ 200MB/s) but pretty good read rate (200MB comparable with Vertex 2).
POST EDIT: Intel X-25M has 100MB/s max sequetial writing speed with the new firmware update.
2) I'll put 2 of the Intel G2 drives in RAID 0 configuration so Write speed will be decent 160MB/s, not a huge issue and I'll get double Reading spead.
3) The only real advantage of Intel G2 over Vertex 2 is the 4K random speed. YMMV but in my case that's what I wanted. I need SSD for general use and that's where it shines, like opening documents, application start etc.. In my case I'll need running Chunky Virtual Machines, one at a time. So reading speed will be good, writing speed just OK (I suspect saving state of Virtual Machines will suffer) but I expect I'll be OK for just running Virtual Machines.
4) Event thought both Intel and Vertex seem to be quite resilient, Vertex seems to be loosing more steam under extreme condition. At least in theory and according to Anendtech tests, under light workload the Vertex 2 has advantage over Intel G2. However, that might not hold the truth under conditions without TRIM. Another test shows after heavy random write full drive the sequential read drops by almost 50% on Vertex 2. Trim helps to restore it, but not much use under Mac without Trim support. Under heavy use, the Anandtech showed the performance of Intel G2 and Vertex 2 was equal. Heavy use would include gaming (don't do) and running virtual machines with Windows Server and chunky programs in it (what I do often). Macbook doesn't support Trim yet and running 2 SSDs in RAID 0 won't provide TRIM anyway, so this needs a consideration.
5) For Vertex 2 the price per GB is at least 1.5-times of Intel X25-M G2. With RAID configuration and Intel 160GB I'll get combined over 300GB of space vs 200GB for same price. (That's of course apples and bananas, if I disregard the 50% write speed penalty of a single Intel drive). But not big deal as long as it saves me almost $300 in real terms (100 GB is about $300)
Conclusion
I think there is no clear choice. YMMV. But there is nothing wrong with the Intel G2. It's reliable, resilient, proven and good value /good price. Sandorce looks so much tempting and better in almost all apects (except 4K reads) but is relatively new. Let's see how Sandforce Vertex 2 performs without TRIM / with RAID on Macbook. I'll upgrade sometime later next year or later when price falls. I've been too much of a guinea pig recently, with shelling out over $700 to Samsung only to find their SSD isn't just worth the money it was selling for. Not the worse SDD, but just not worth the money because they didn't have TRIM function and there is no way to update the firmware for any drive purchased more than 10 months ago. Shame on you Sammy.
Useful articles:
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=736
POST EDIT:
Hmm.. I guess I should have read this reiew... higly recommended about OWC. Never hard of them.
http://macperformanceguide.com/SSD-RealWorld.html
Corsair Force or Vertex 2 OCZ.
These have good garbage collection unlike C300 and apples samsung drives
Thanks for advice. I'd really like to get these Vertex 2 drives. However they are over my budget. New Vertex 2 Sandforce 200GB retails over $600 and I need more than 200 GB in space to furvive. I'll have to wait till price drops.
By the way, is there any concern about speed degradation of Vertex 2 without TRIM over time?
It's by far not serious but I read ultiple posts saying the 16K range sequential / random READS fall down as much as 65% performance in RAID configuration. After updating new Intel RAID driver the issue was fixed. That was in case of Windows. Macbook even doens't seem to support TRIM, even though Macbook recognizes TRIM in system profiler on some drives. Maybe one could get away by allocating 15% unpartitioned space on Vertex to help self-maintenance and garbage collection.
For the time being, till price drops and till Apple adds TRIM support (Steve, c'mon..) I'll settle with Intel X-25-M G2 160GB.
Selected: 2x 160GB Intel X25-M G2 in RAID 0 configuration
What I need it for (YMMV):
General computing, browsing, Office, email, documents, regular files (PDF, MP3, DOC) and running chunky Virtual Machines (30GB +) for presentations, no heavy work, no heavy database processing or coding or writing, mostly random and sequential reading and sequential writing when saving the virtual machines. As for multimedia, I don't do almost any video editing. Video files are stored on external HDD.
Reasons:
1) Although much less writing spead with Intel than Vertex 2, (only up to 80MB write vs Vertex 2 @ 200MB/s) but pretty good read rate (200MB comparable with Vertex 2).
POST EDIT: Intel X-25M has 100MB/s max sequetial writing speed with the new firmware update.
2) I'll put 2 of the Intel G2 drives in RAID 0 configuration so Write speed will be decent 160MB/s, not a huge issue and I'll get double Reading spead.
3) The only real advantage of Intel G2 over Vertex 2 is the 4K random speed. YMMV but in my case that's what I wanted. I need SSD for general use and that's where it shines, like opening documents, application start etc.. In my case I'll need running Chunky Virtual Machines, one at a time. So reading speed will be good, writing speed just OK (I suspect saving state of Virtual Machines will suffer) but I expect I'll be OK for just running Virtual Machines.
4) Event thought both Intel and Vertex seem to be quite resilient, Vertex seems to be loosing more steam under extreme condition. At least in theory and according to Anendtech tests, under light workload the Vertex 2 has advantage over Intel G2. However, that might not hold the truth under conditions without TRIM. Another test shows after heavy random write full drive the sequential read drops by almost 50% on Vertex 2. Trim helps to restore it, but not much use under Mac without Trim support. Under heavy use, the Anandtech showed the performance of Intel G2 and Vertex 2 was equal. Heavy use would include gaming (don't do) and running virtual machines with Windows Server and chunky programs in it (what I do often). Macbook doesn't support Trim yet and running 2 SSDs in RAID 0 won't provide TRIM anyway, so this needs a consideration.
5) For Vertex 2 the price per GB is at least 1.5-times of Intel X25-M G2. With RAID configuration and Intel 160GB I'll get combined over 300GB of space vs 200GB for same price. (That's of course apples and bananas, if I disregard the 50% write speed penalty of a single Intel drive). But not big deal as long as it saves me almost $300 in real terms (100 GB is about $300)
Conclusion
I think there is no clear choice. YMMV. But there is nothing wrong with the Intel G2. It's reliable, resilient, proven and good value /good price. Sandorce looks so much tempting and better in almost all apects (except 4K reads) but is relatively new. Let's see how Sandforce Vertex 2 performs without TRIM / with RAID on Macbook. I'll upgrade sometime later next year or later when price falls. I've been too much of a guinea pig recently, with shelling out over $700 to Samsung only to find their SSD isn't just worth the money it was selling for. Not the worse SDD, but just not worth the money because they didn't have TRIM function and there is no way to update the firmware for any drive purchased more than 10 months ago. Shame on you Sammy.
Useful articles:
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=736
POST EDIT:
Hmm.. I guess I should have read this reiew... higly recommended about OWC. Never hard of them.
http://macperformanceguide.com/SSD-RealWorld.html
POST EDIT 2:
I decided to ditch the Intel drive and go with OWC drive. There is nothing wrong with the Intel drive. However there is OWC SSD specifically for RAID configurations on Mac. I finally found what I was looking for including piece of mind the drives will perform under RAID as expected. The price is pretty decent actually.
RAID version:
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/internal_storage/Mercury_Extreme_SSD_Sandforce/Solid_State_Raid_Edition
Standard version:
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/internal_storage/Mercury_Extreme_SSD_Sandforce/Solid_State_Raid_Edition
Good luck !!
