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anyone bought the Apple-provided SSDs 256 or 500 GB

S

supercaliber

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 9, 2007
181
0
I want to buy a new macbook pro with SSD. I am interested in your impressions, experience, et cetera.

I know i can save money by doing it myself, but if i get a reasonable experience by just going with Apple, i think its worth the hundred bucks I would save.
 
Apple overprices it. If your comfortable with installing the ssd yourself then it's better to get a third party ssd
 
I decided to pick up a 256GB one.

My impressions so far are that it's very fast, but that's about all I can say. To be clear, I'm very pleased, but I'm judging it 'phenotypically', if you will, and I'm sort of having a hard time detecting a great difference between it and a regular hard drive.

One thing that I will add is that I feel much more at ease while carrying it around while it's on - spinning disks at high speeds always kind of used to freak me out to carry because the slightest movement might mess them up.

I did think at the time of adding the SSD that it would really help my battery life, but I have yet to be impressed by the battery life (as so many other users here have said). Perhaps it's because I had a two week fling with an iPad which lasts for a solid 11 hours...

If you're worrying about cost, you may want to think twice before adding it. For me, the Lord has been good enough to make cost not such a big consideration, so I added it on, and I'm glad I did.
 
villager990 said:
I decided to pick up a 256GB one.

I'm sort of having a hard time detecting a great difference between it and a regular hard drive.

For me, the Lord has been good enough to make cost not such a big consideration, so I added it on, and I'm glad I did.
Click to expand...

:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:
 
For the price of the 256GB SSD offered by Apple, I'd consider the OWC Mecury Extreme 200GB SSD instead.
 
Mbp 256 Ssd

My specs are below. I don't have know about my SSD to as far as real world numbers after degradation, etc... but I can tell you that the 256 SSD that came installed in my MBP is screeeeaming fast: from the push of the power button to a completed boot in... wait for it... 20 seconds. I've timed it on multiple occasions now... but, that is a characteristic of ALL SSDs (excellent speed when new). The question is how it will perform after the whole drive has been written to, when the firmware and controller installed in that particular drive have to delegate RE-writing those blocks of memory. The drives that Mac uses inside it's MBPs have historically not gotten great marks for this, but on the whole are still faster than even a 7200 rpm HDD after degradation.

As far as cost vs. time to install the drive (+shipping and +wait time if you're going to order your OEM SSD online), the math is much closer than it seems to be for the 128 and 256 gig drives installed by Apple. I think my cost comparison had Mac charging me about $50 (USD) more for their drive than a smaller one (200 gig) that I could have ordered from OCZ, which is the only other SSD manufacturer that I would have bought one from. And I didn't have to install it myself, an action which doesn't void your warranty but DOES expose the inner workings of your new expensive laptop to slip-ups / damage, etc. Additionally, I didn't have to wait longer to use my computer (waiting for a new drive to arrive in mail / reinstalling OSX, etc.).

Anyway, the moral of the story is that I am happy with my decision to take the plunge on the Mac 256 SSD. I'm trying to be a little judicious about what I save to my internal drive, i.e. using my external a little more often, but so far it's been all good.

Hope this helps.
 
I'll let the numbers speak for themselves. I read too many problems with firmware on the aftermarket SSDs.

Disk Test 313.04
Sequential 218.46
Uncached Write 342.49 210.29 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 325.73 184.30 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 103.88 30.40 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 371.22 186.57 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 552.03
Uncached Write 323.24 34.22 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 465.37 148.98 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 1940.79 13.75 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 671.92 124.68 MB/sec [256K blocks]
 
Xyp said:
the question is how it will perform after the whole drive has been written to, when the firmware and controller installed in that particular drive have to delegate RE-writing those blocks of memory.
Click to expand...


So that implies that if i never fill the drive i don't have to worry, correct???

I have had my current mbp for four years and I haven't filled it up yet
 
supercaliber said:
So that implies that if i never fill the drive i don't have to worry, correct???

I have had my current mbp for four years and I haven't filled it up yet
Click to expand...

Correct, but you have to have a consequent amount of free space (ie 2GB are not going to be enough)
Note that not filling it up will not alleviate the cell wearing issue that's caused by OS X's lack of TRIM support but that is more of a life expectancy issue rather than a speed issue.

--edit: to be totally complete and to offset the lack of TRIM, one can back up, format and reinstall his OS via the backup every now and then to restore the drive's original performance. Another option for Intel SSDs is to use the Windows based utility to safe erase the disk and then reinstall the OSes either from a backup or from scratch.
 
My specs are below. I don't have anything to compare my SSD to as far as real world comparison in degradation, etc... but I can tell you that the 256 SSD that came installed in my MBP is screeeeaming fast (from the push of the power button to a completed boot in... wait for it... 20 seconds. I've timed it on multiple occasions now).
Click to expand...

20 seconds? You've been ripped off.

With Intel SSD I do a full boot in about half that.
 
i must say i had the 500 ssd for like 3 weeks. I am now waiting for a whole new machine because My new one died after 3 weeks. Safari kept kernal paniking and then mail and then the whole machine. tried to restart and nothing. got out disc and did repair. repair fails and then i try to reformat and install, that would not work. i called apple and they are sending another one now. So for the time being i have a really $$$$ paper weight. My thoughts on my 3 weeks of using it. Its ok. but i should have stuck with the 7200 500g. Oh well. technology is just not there yet. its not reliable. I have another mbp abnout 4 yrs old and never had a single problem.
 
Ryanhdd said:
i must say i had the 500 ssd for like 3 weeks. I am now waiting for a whole new machine because My new one died after 3 weeks. Safari kept kernal paniking and then mail and then the whole machine. tried to restart and nothing. got out disc and did repair. repair fails and then i try to reformat and install, that would not work. i called apple and they are sending another one now. So for the time being i have a really $$$$ paper weight. My thoughts on my 3 weeks of using it. Its ok. but i should have stuck with the 7200 500g. Oh well. technology is just not there yet. its not reliable. I have another mbp abnout 4 yrs old and never had a single problem.
Click to expand...

Uggh,

I so want the 500 GB SSD. I need 500 GB and I need the performance.

Your story is disheartening.

Anyone with a good experience with a 500 GB SSD?
 
20 seconds? bah! I did a boot the other day on my MBP (sig) and did it in under 30 I think... and I spent $45 to add it on

Still want to add an SSD at some point though...
 
Bosmonster said:
20 seconds? You've been ripped off.

With Intel SSD I do a full boot in about half that.
Click to expand...

You do a boot in 10 seconds? Seriously?

I have an Intel X25 M 80 Gb and I booted at 30 s when freshly installed, and at 33s now.

Are you starting timing when you push the power button?
 
piwi said:
Correct, but you have to have a consequent amount of free space (ie 2GB are not going to be enough)
Note that not filling it up will not alleviate the cell wearing issue that's caused by OS X's lack of TRIM support but that is more of a life expectancy issue rather than a speed issue.

--edit: to be totally complete and to offset the lack of TRIM, one can back up, format and reinstall his OS via the backup every now and then to restore the drive's original performance. Another option for Intel SSDs is to use the Windows based utility to safe erase the disk and then reinstall the OSes either from a backup or from scratch.
Click to expand...

Actually you are incorrect. Just because you haven't filled up the SSD with saved data doesn't mean the SSD isn't full. You see the wear leveling algorithms use that free space to do their thing.

Lets say you have a 128 GB SSD. After formatting it that leaves you with 119 GB of space to use roughly. Now you fill it with 50 GB of stuff. As you use your computer there are reads and writes happening all the time. So the free 69 GB is being used with the wear leveling algorithm to do that. That is the whole point of wear leveling, to use every cell in the flash so the drive doesn't wear out fast. So EVERYONE will have a filled up SSD at some point. Depending on how heavy of a user you are and how full of your data it is will determine how fast you fill up your drive.
 
supercaliber said:
Uggh,

I so want the 500 GB SSD. I need 500 GB and I need the performance.

Your story is disheartening.

Anyone with a good experience with a 500 GB SSD?
Click to expand...

Raises hand...

I have had my new 17" i7 MBP (8 GB memory and Apple 512 GB SSD) for almost two months now and I keep crossing my fingers because I have not had one problem - and the performance is nothing short of amazing compared to prior PC systems. My boot-up time from finger to real work is 22 seconds with the SSD.

I have partitioned the drive with Bootcamp so that I can run a full Windows 7 system - because I own a license to Photoshop CS5 for PC only and because I wanted Sony Vegas available on this machine. I have also put my full massive iTunes library on the OSX side - so now I have about 100 GB availalable on each of the two partitions (over 400 GB used). I have Aperture on the OS X side and Lightroom 3 on both sides.

I have not been moderating my writing and erasing activities at all (have written and erased well over 100 or more GB on the OS X side if not a lot more) and the performance still seems blazingly faster than any hard drive in my experience. Frankly I am not that concerned with degradation so long as the speed stays well above any hard drive. The real advantage for me is the lack of "crashability" (that I have experienced too many times) in addition to the speed.

I feel a little sheepish here because I have no blown pixels, no yellow screen, no SSD problems - really nothing to complain about at all... Just a very nice MBP that has surpassed my expectations, even given what I spent for the unit. Incidentally, I used a corporate discount - which got the SSD incremental cost down to somewhere between $1000 and $1100, which I don't think is THAT far beyond comparative option prices I have seen out there (claimed performance differences aside) for a 500 GB unit.

JB
 
Bradan said:
phenotype and lord in the same sentence:p

o jeez.
Click to expand...

^ Hah. I noticed that too. Sounds philosophically at odds assuming the OP was using the biological use of phenotype as the outward expression of genotype. However, I guess this doesn't have to imply natural selection as the driver of change.
 
:apple:
supercaliber said:
anyone have any timing specs on starting VMWare Windows in OSX
Click to expand...

I have the 13 in. MBP w/ Apple Toshiba 256 SSD, timing it from powering on to boot up is about 15 seconds.

I do not have VMWare but I do have Parallels, running Win7. The app itself opens within seconds, and the actual Win7 OS boots up in less than 30 seconds.

Also opening Office 2008 opens in about 3-4 seconds, while the other apps open in 1-2 seconds.

I have no complaints with the battery life, I can easily get over 9 hours browsing, word processing, etc. I absolutely love the SSD drive, and though it isnt the fastest one on the market, there was a review done on it, in which it proved to be a very durable drive. :apple:
 
JerseyBill said:
Raises hand...
Incidentally, I used a corporate discount - which got the SSD incremental cost down to somewhere between $1000 and $1100, which I don't think is THAT far beyond comparative option prices I have seen out there (claimed performance differences aside) for a 500 GB unit.

JB
Click to expand...

Considering that just a few years ago any reasonable laptop cost north of 3k , and I easily justified that expense, 1k for a major productivity improvement sounds like a bargain.
 
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