Corsair Force Series 3 versus OCZ Vertex 3

[rimmi2002]

Hi I wanted to buy a new 90gb SSD at a decent price to use with Mac OSX Lion. Both of these are around $90 right now. Reliability is my main concern and then speed given at this cost. I know OCZ as had a lot of problems which supposedly are fixed with the new firmware. Which SSD would you recc'd. Also there is the issue Corsaid is asynchournous and OCZ is synchournous. Please advice.

1. Corsair Force Series 3

2. OCZ Vertex 3

3. Asynchournous vs. synchournous

 

[r0k]

Hi I wanted to buy a new 90gb SSD at a decent price to use with Mac OSX Lion. Both of these are around $90 right now. Reliability is my main concern and then speed given at this cost. I know OCZ as had a lot of problems which supposedly are fixed with the new firmware. Which SSD would you recc'd. Also there is the issue Corsaid is asynchournous and OCZ is synchournous. Please advice.

1. Corsair Force Series 3

2. OCZ Vertex 3

3. Asynchournous vs. synchournous

You didn't mention what computer you are using. If you have an older Mac that doesn't support SATA 2 (6 GB/S) you can get away with a drive that is SATA (3 GB/S) and save some money. Thanks for the link to the synchronous vs asynchronous review. On thing to note is that all their testing was done using Windows 7 and not OS X.

I have Vertex 2 SSD in several of our Mac minis and a Seagate Momentus XT (hybrid 500 GB 7200 RPM/ 4 GB SSD) in my Macbook.

 

[rimmi2002]

You didn't mention what computer you are using. If you have an older Mac that doesn't support SATA 2 (6 GB/S) you can get away with a drive that is SATA (3 GB/S) and save some money. Thanks for the link to the synchronous vs asynchronous review. On thing to note is that all their testing was done using Windows 7 and not OS X.

I have Vertex 2 SSD in several of our Mac minis and a Seagate Momentus XT (hybrid 500 GB 7200 RPM/ 4 GB SSD) in my Macbook.

Thanks. I have a SATA 3 port on the mobo...so I was looking for a SATA 3. Initially ordered a Kingstron V100 from costco for $77 After MIR, but for $13 more I am getting SATA 3 and 30gb and much faster drives so thought I'd take one of these two...just wasn't sure about reliability.

It was tested on Win 7, but I am thinking the principle should hold on Lion as well? No?

 

[LaunchpadBS]

You didn't mention what computer you are using. If you have an older Mac that doesn't support SATA 2 (6 GB/S) you can get away with a drive that is SATA (3 GB/S) and save some money. Thanks for the link to the synchronous vs asynchronous review. On thing to note is that all their testing was done using Windows 7 and not OS X.

I have Vertex 2 SSD in several of our Mac minis and a Seagate Momentus XT (hybrid 500 GB 7200 RPM/ 4 GB SSD) in my Macbook.

What is the real life performance difference between you Vertex 2 SSD's and the Momentus XT?

 

[r0k]

What is the real life performance difference between you Vertex 2 SSD's and the Momentus XT?

I haven't tried them on the same Mac but I'd say the SSD's are a lot faster. But the Momentus XT is a lot faster than the 5400 RPM drives that ship in most Macs. The boot times on our machines with SSD are under 30 seconds and so is the boot time on my Macbook with a Momentus XT. On our SSD Macs, all apps load quickly. On my Macbook, only my most frequently used apps load quickly. That's a lot of bang for relatively little buck so I'm quite happy with my Momentus XT.

Make no mistake, though. If SSD prices drop below my "can't resist" point, I'll be swapping out the Momentus XT for a full SSD. What's my can't resist point? I'll know it when I see it. It partly has to do with the ratio of the price of the drive I'm using to the drive I'm replacing it with and the relative sizes of the drives. Since my 500GB Momentus XT is 40% full, I can't consider one of those low budget 64 or 128 GB SSD's. It also has something to do with how much I can afford to spend on stuff I don't absolutely need right now, which is close to 0 or at least a lot less than today's cost of a 250+ GB SSD.

And there's another factor. My Macbook was voted off the Moutain Lion island so I'll likely be upgrading to a new Mac rather than spending any more on my Macbook. I recently got a refurb Mini and popped in 8 GB of RAM and it's a lot faster than my MB. Maybe I'll get around to putting an SSD in that thing and let it become my main Mac.

 

[LaunchpadBS]

I haven't tried them on the same Mac but I'd say the SSD's are a lot faster. But the Momentus XT is a lot faster than the 5400 RPM drives that ship in most Macs. The boot times on our machines with SSD are under 30 seconds and so is the boot time on my Macbook with a Momentus XT. On our SSD Macs, all apps load quickly. On my Macbook, only my most frequently used apps load quickly. That's a lot of bang for relatively little buck so I'm quite happy with my Momentus XT.

Make no mistake, though. If SSD prices drop below my "can't resist" point, I'll be swapping out the Momentus XT for a full SSD. What's my can't resist point? I'll know it when I see it. It partly has to do with the ratio of the price of the drive I'm using to the drive I'm replacing it with and the relative sizes of the drives. Since my 500GB Momentus XT is 40% full, I can't consider one of those low budget 64 or 128 GB SSD's. It also has something to do with how much I can afford to spend on stuff I don't absolutely need right now, which is close to 0 or at least a lot less than today's cost of a 250+ GB SSD.

And there's another factor. My Macbook was voted off the Moutain Lion island so I'll likely be upgrading to a new Mac rather than spending any more on my Macbook. I recently got a refurb Mini and popped in 8 GB of RAM and it's a lot faster than my MB. Maybe I'll get around to putting an SSD in that thing and let it become my main Mac.

I bought a Corsair Force 3 120GB but it keeps freezing, using it as my primary drive with a fresh lion install. Heard it's to do with the Sata 3 issues with macs an 3rd party SSD's. I was thinking of getting a Vertex 2, I'm assuming they work without any fiddling? They are more expensive than the Vertex 3's

 

[r0k]

I bought a Corsair Force 3 120GB but it keeps freezing, using it as my primary drive with a fresh lion install. Heard it's to do with the Sata 3 issues with macs an 3rd party SSD's. I was thinking of getting a Vertex 2, I'm assuming they work without any fiddling? They are more expensive than the Vertex 3's

As an owner of mostly older Macs (3GB/S SATA and slower), I don't have any idea about any SATA 3 issues. I can say that the Momentus XT would avoid any such issues because it's a 500 GB HDD with a 4 GB SSD "read cache" managed entirely by the drive firmware. All writes go to the HDD.

I've seen discussions about issues with SSD on Macs but I'm not the best person to comment on them because of the relative antiquity of my Mac gear. My newest Mac is a 2010 mini and I'm still using a regular HDD in there. All my other Macs are considerably older. I use SSD drives in the oldest of my core duo Intel boxes to make them seem more peppy despite their age. I even thought about SSD in my old G4 mini and even found an IDE SSD drive but never got around to installing it.