Buying an SSD - go with Apple's or third party?

[Xgm541]

3. The Apple SSDs aren't the best out there. A lot of people are actually returning their MacBook Airs because Apple is installing either Toshiba or Samsung drives and people say the Toshiba drives are very slow.

Toshiba drives are marginally slower than their samsung alternatives when copying small files.

Samsung drives are marginally slower when copying large files.

edit: this is for the MBA blade SSD's. Not in general.

 

[Vook]

Try this one........hahahaha small joke.

http://www.dealextreme.com/p/kingfast-kf1801mcs-1-8-sata-ii-mlc-ssd-solid-state-drive-8gb-82567

 

[awer25]

Toshiba drives are marginally slower than their samsung alternatives when copying small files.

Samsung drives are marginally slower when copying large files.

^^This. Before anyone realized that there were two versions of the drives, no one cared or complained. As soon as people found out that there were two and one was marginally slower, all of a sudden it's a huge deal making people return their brand new Airs.

 

[ablahblah]

I'm a PC gamer crossing over to Mac forums for some advice regarding friend's macs, but I've just have to say with no bias toward any OS, that most of the long-time members at other gaming forums that I've had experience with prefer Intel SSD drives. Intel's 320 series SSDs just came out (Physically identical to X-25Ms), and have better write speeds to match the SATA II competition, and the pricing is decent as well. The 320 series also come with the solid reputation for reliability that the X-25Ms have (According to Intel, the only difference between the two models is the firmware).

Personally, I favor the 320 series over other sandforce drives from Corsair, Samsung, Mushkin, etc, and am planning to install it as a replacement for the Apple standard Toshiba drive in my friend's MBP.

 

[dutch57]

sata 3/ lion/ snow leopard issues

well im like most who tried to install my sata 3 ssd in the main hdd port and have had nothing but problems from both snow leopard and lion. so i took my sata 2 drive, stuck it in the main bay and put my vertex 3 inside the optibay case.





2011 i7 17inch mbp/i7/12gb owc ram/ ocz vertex 3 ssd/corsair 256 ssd

 

[Doju]

Ok, I think you are getting some bad advice.

1. There are issues with SATA III in the 15" and 17" MacBook Pros. You'll be safer with a SATA II drive.

2. There are issues with SLC based drives. You'll be safer with MLC.

3. The Apple SSDs aren't the best out there. A lot of people are actually returning their MacBook Airs because Apple is installing either Toshiba or Samsung drives and people say the Toshiba drives are very slow.

4. Drives with TRIM support can work fine with the TRIM Support Enabler. Drives with Garbage Collection (OWC, Intel drives) could have problems with TRIM enabled. You should let those drives do their own thing. Still, it's a topic of experimentation.

5. TRIM is not the end of the world! You can use Disk Utility to "Erase Free Space" periodically and it will have the same result as TRIM, which is writing zeroes over free sectors.

7. There is a handful of things to optimize when picking an SSD: Write times, Read times, Power usage, Weight. You can't pick your pleasure by getting an Apple SSD. The most significant improvement you can make over an Apple SSD is speed.

8. Apple's offerings are expensive. You can do much better replacing the drive yourself.

9. If you want full Apple support, buy their SSD. If you want better specs, do your comparison shopping. There are reliable and better non-Apple SSDs and this community knows which they are.

Thanks for the reply, but with the high-end MacBook Pro 15" the SSD is only $90 extra (education deal) which means the price is terrific.

I'm just worried with how Apple seems to be against third party SSDs. No Lion install disks, no TRIM support, etc. Performance-wise the third party SSDs win no question, but as far as reliability goes, it seems Apple wins.

Argh, must think.

 

[JronMasteR]

well im like most who tried to install my sata 3 ssd in the main hdd port and have had nothing but problems from both snow leopard and lion. so i took my sata 2 drive, stuck it in the main bay and put my vertex 3 inside the optibay case.





2011 i7 17inch mbp/i7/12gb owc ram/ ocz vertex 3 ssd/corsair 256 ssd

Seems TRIM works with the Vertex 3 when connected to a SATA 3G port. Tried it once in the HDD main bay connected to SATA 6G and I got beachballs.
Without TRIM, I've no issues with my SATA 6G, which seems to be quite unique on a 17" MBP.

 

[adnoh]

IMHO you cant beat intel