Where have you read that Apple SSDs are bad? I've seen some Benchmarks which indicated that Apple SSDs aren't the fastest drives, rather mediocre, but if they are reliable i'd have no problem with that. Im just curious.
They're not bad as in crap. As you said, they're simply not the fastest drives.
Apple currently uses the Toshiba and Samsung controllers. They're not fast relative to the Marvell and Sandforce controllers. But they're fast relative to hard drives by far.
Despite people complaining in the forums about the speed differences in certain benchmarks, the reality is that the majority of users will not notice the difference. In many cases, sometimes the poster's justification that one is better than the other actually shows deficiencies in the poster's understandings of SSD performance in relation to system performance.
I'd expect reliability to be there since I expect Apple to have tested them well. In fact, because of their relative simplicity, I'd expect Apple's SSDs to be more reliable than the higher tier aftermarket SSDs.
At any rate, Apple's SSDs are a worth it to the common user. Yes, they're more expensive than the equivalent retail version. But consider that the price of having it installed and researched for you.
But if you have the skills to do your own installs, you get better value going aftermarket. As rebates and coupons appear more often for SSDs, you're getting better value by getting a Toshiba or Samsung-based drive from say Kingston for cheaper, or going for speed by getting the more expensive Marvell or Sandforce-based drives.
And yes, despite saying that I'd expect Apple's SSD picks to be more reliable than the higher performance SSDs, I still use higher performance ones (I have a Crucial C300) because I care more about the speed. Backups for the win.
