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Apple/Toshiba SSD vs Intel 320

G

g-boac

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 7, 2007
291
1
Hello! Quick question - I have a 2010 MPB with an OWC Mercury 240GB (sandforce) SSD. Running out of room, so preparing to upgrade. While I have a 600GB Intel 320 on order for ~$1100, I've been seeing new Apple-branded 512GB Toshiba SSDs selling for about $850. I saw their specs for read/write lined up reasonably close, with the intel having about a 50ms advantage and roughly 15% (90GB) more storage space.

Given that an Apple/Toshiba SSD offers native TRIM support, and sells for about $300 less than the Intel 320 with comparable capacity, I'm actually inclined to cancel my Intel 320 order and go with the Apple-branded SSD.

Warranty length aside, is there any substantial reason (genuinely noticeable slower performance; access time degradation despite TRIM support, etc) that I wouldn't want to pursue an Apple SSD? And for folks with experience with any/all of these drives - can you offer any subjective comments on how well either an Apple/Toshiba SSD or an Intel 320 SSD keep up with an OWC Mercury, which is the only SSD I have experience with to date?

Many thanks for any insight anyone is able to offer!

cheers,
Mark
 
I've had the Intel 320 and Kingston V+ 100 both in my MBP.

OWC Mercury, Intel 320 and Kingston V+ 100 (same as Toshiba/apple) are all fast SATA II drives. No human being will notice a difference in speed, unless he can use benchmark software.

I would definitely cancel the Intel 320 order because of the current firmware problems:
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Inte...rmware-Bug-that-Causes-Data-Loss-210809.shtml

Ps. I'm very happy with my Seagate Hybrid drive now. 500GB for $100. Here's how it performs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMldqf5oUZw
 
That bug FWIW seems to be only on a power failure to which a laptop should almost never incur, i.e., battery and a/c power.
 
maflynn said:
That bug FWIW seems to be only on a power failure to which a laptop should almost never incur, i.e., battery and a/c power.
Click to expand...

I've had two failed Intel 320 SSDs and as far as I can tell there was no screwy power stuff going on. They were fine and then they died. Disk Utility showed an unformatted 8MB.
 
Intel has acknowledged the firmware issue and is working on it. Overall, just because a few people have experienced the error doesn't make it a widespread issue.

TRIM hack is also available for all 3rd party SSD's, so native TRIM support is not really a huge bonus.

If you want a $800 512GB SSD, The Micron C400 / Crucial m4 is also an option. Apparently Firmware 002 has made the drive usable for a lot of people again.
 
maflynn said:
That bug FWIW seems to be only on a power failure to which a laptop should almost never incur, i.e., battery and a/c power.
Click to expand...
True. . .but while this should never or almost never happen inadvertently on a laptop, there are certainly a handful of times over the course of a year where my MPB would get stuck (e.g., hang up on shutdown, hang up on wake from sleep, kernel panic) where I'd have to press and hold the power button to shut the machine down. These instances are rare - but do happen.

I'd hate to have to wonder if the simple act of pressing a power button would mean the loss of all my data!!!!!

And while I do back up via TM and CCC, it's still a little bit of a pain in the tail (plus a half days' worth of lost productivity) to have to restore.

Mark
 
Last edited:
Agreed and I never intended to imply that it was impossible but just if the powerloss was the only cause. Then for laptops its pretty difficult to incur that specific circumstance.

Clearly given the threads and information coming out of the net is showing that its a larger problem then I was aware of
 
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