Apple vs 3rd party SSD performance

[johnnydanger]

I'm buying a new MBP and thinking about getting SSD as a boot/applications drive. Trying to decide if I should get it from Apple or to get the standard spinning disk and then adding a third SSD to the superdrive slot.

Getting the 128GB Apple SSD works out to be about $300 ($200 upgrade + $100 storage drive), where as getting a third party 128Gb SSD is about $200.

Can anyone compare the speed of the drives apple supplies vs what's available on the third party market?

I know only Apple supplied drives natively support TRIM. How big an issue is this? Are Apple's drives 6GB/s or 3GB/s? How much does the SATA speed affect performance in this situation?

 

[Prodo123]

I'm buying a new MBP and thinking about getting SSD as a boot/applications drive. Trying to decide if I should get it from Apple or to get the standard spinning disk and then adding a third SSD to the superdrive slot.

Getting the 128GB Apple SSD works out to be about $300 ($200 upgrade + $100 storage drive), where as getting a third party 128Gb SSD is about $200.

Can anyone compare the speed of the drives apple supplies vs what's available on the third party market?

I know only Apple supplied drives natively support TRIM. How big an issue is this? Are Apple's drives 6Gbps or 3Gbps? How much does the SATA speed affect performance in this situation?

Apple's has around 300MB/s I think.
Maximum speed you can get with 3rd party is up to 550MB/s, almost double Apple's. With TRIM Enabler, native TRIM won't be a big issue.

Apple's is 3Gbps (SATA-II) AFAIK. Which translates to 384MB/s max. 6Gbps (SATA-III) is 768MB/s max.

Most 3rd party performance SSDs come in SATA-III to avoid the bottleneck that SATA-II imposes.

 

[DWBurke811]

Apple drives are "slow," but reliable. They're SATA2, and slow SATA2 drives at that. Aftermarket SSDs with SandForce controllers handle their own garbage collection, so TRIM isn't that big of a deal.


I just(UPS tracking says it will be at my house Monday) ordered a Vertex 3, I wanted performance, and think it's worth getting a much faster drive even though there's a very, very small chance I may have problems with my drive. And if I do, I'll just RMA it and get a new one.

 

[greygray]

Apple drives are "slow," but reliable. They're SATA2, and slow SATA2 drives at that. Aftermarket SSDs with SandForce controllers handle their own garbage collection, so TRIM isn't that big of a deal.

Agreed. OP, if you want SSDs from Apple, expect slower performance but be assured that they'll last you longer without problems compared to SSDs from external parties. They've much better performances, but reliability and quality might be an issue. So it depends on your preference of either side of the scale- reliability or performance. A tradeoff is inevitable I guess..

 

[Weaselboy]

Are Apple's drives 6GB/s or 3GB/s? How much does the SATA speed affect performance in this situation?

Here is one test comparing the Apple SSD to some aftermarket drives.

Keep in mind these big performance numbers being tossed around are peak speeds for sequential transfer of large files. Unless you are doing work that regularly moves this type of file, say editing large video files, you will see little or no difference between the a SATA II drive like the OEM and a SATA III drive.

Apple is not advertising SATA III support for these machines and you are giving up some compatibility by going with a SATA III drive. Read over the forums and almost everybody having trouble with a SSD is using a SATA III drive. Unless you really need the extra bit of speed the SATA III offers, you can save some money and get better reliability with a SATA II drive.

 

[dusk007]

That is a quite poor test for SSD performance that doesn't cover half of it. What the hell is small random reads. Definitely not 4k because the numbers are way too high.
Here is a thorough Anandtech test of the Kingston V+100 which is effectively the same SSD.

Here in compressed form compared to a Vertex 3 on Sata 3.

 

[Weaselboy]

That is a quite poor test for SSD performance that doesn't cover half of it. What the hell is small random reads. Definitely not 4k because the numbers are way too high.
Here is a thorough Anandtech test of the Kingston V+100 which is effectively the same SSD.

Here in compressed form compared to a Vertex 3 on Sata 3.

Were your Cheerios soggy this morning or something?

 

[johnnydanger]

Other than looking at benchmarks, is there a perceivable difference between the higher speed third party SSDs and the apple supplied versions? Are the differences only going to be noticed only in specific instances like writing single large files, etc?

In other words: Does it make sense to figure out exactly which drive suits my needs best, or will I pretty much not notice a performance difference between getting the apple SSD vs getting a third party one?

 

[2hvy4grvty]

Were your Cheerios soggy this morning or something?

He has a point. Those are VERY vague "tests". A pretty unreliable source as well. That is a null in terms of credibility.

Apple SSDs use Toshiba controllers, which are similar to the Kingston V+100. Those are some "slow" drives, but are enough to give you a "taste" of the SSD life. If at all possible, I'd get my own.

The Apple drives are probably a good 5-10x faster than HDDs in random writes and access times. That's to say, it's going to feel a lot faster. 20ms -> 2ms is quite the jump. On the other hand, C300/M4/X-25/whatevers are more than 100x faster than HDDs. We're talking 20ms -> 0.1ms. Apple drives are simply not in the same league.

As for reliability, I'm willing to bet C300/M4/X-25/320/510/470 are all MORE reliable than Apple's.

 

[Weaselboy]

He has a point. Those are VERY vague "tests". A pretty unreliable source as well. That is a null in terms of credibility.

I agree this is not an exhaustive test like an Anand review, but beyond that what is the problem? You can DL the Quickbench tool they use and repeat/verify the test yourself. I see no reason to doubt the results.

As for reliability, I'm willing to bet C300/M4/X-25/320/510/470 are all MORE reliable than Apple's.

I find it interesting you think the Barefeats test is vague and and has no credibility, yet you throw this out there with absolutely no evidence at all. How many posts have you ever seen on this forum about an Apple OEM SSD dying?

I don't think there is anything wrong with the drives you mentioned, but I have not seen any evidence they are more reliable.

 

[2hvy4grvty]

Then what is "small random read"???

Marvell controllers are superior to Toshiba controllers, fact.

Hardware manufacturing process makes it pretty obvious, especially the 34nm drives.

Most of the errors are a result of human stupidity when speaking these drives imo.