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do you regret not going for 1TB SSD?
- Thread starter ventuss
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Still not as fast as a native PCIe SSD.
I have a 512GB Samsung 840 Pro in a Buffalo HD-PATU3 Thunderbolt case (swapped out the spinner in it), and I get around 350MB/s in writes and 450MB/s reads (on my cMBP, it gets 460MB/s writes and 510MB/s reads).
Meanwhile a native PCIe SSD in an iMac will perform at 700MB/s in both reads and writes.
At time of purchase, the large SSD wasn't an option so I went for the 3TB Fusion drive.
Shortly afterwards, Apple introduced the 750 SSD option, but to be honest, even that isn't really large enough for me.
My current iMac specs:
Imac 27"
3.4GHZ CPU
2GB 680M GPU
32GB RAM
3TB FD
If I was buying now, I think I'd stick with the 3TB....If larger reliable SSD units over 2TB become available at reasonable money ( which they will) then I'd be inclined to go SSD.
I have a lot of fast Thunderbolt and USB 3 off Mac storage so the internal is simply storage space and applications....The FD does a pretty decent job of "Learning" how you work and put's the required app files on the SSD to increase speed when opening applications.
The 4GB GPU would be a must have though.
Shortly afterwards, Apple introduced the 750 SSD option, but to be honest, even that isn't really large enough for me.
My current iMac specs:
Imac 27"
3.4GHZ CPU
2GB 680M GPU
32GB RAM
3TB FD
If I was buying now, I think I'd stick with the 3TB....If larger reliable SSD units over 2TB become available at reasonable money ( which they will) then I'd be inclined to go SSD.
I have a lot of fast Thunderbolt and USB 3 off Mac storage so the internal is simply storage space and applications....The FD does a pretty decent job of "Learning" how you work and put's the required app files on the SSD to increase speed when opening applications.
The 4GB GPU would be a must have though.
+1. This is what I am doing. I have a 500GB Samsung 840 Evo in a Delock Thunderbolt enclosure.
Which will be of absolutely zero noticeable difference to the user in terms of system responsiveness and is a non-factor unless you're a professional video editor or something similar (in which case you'd probably wouldn't be using an iMac anyway).
IMHO, people get way too hung up on benchmarks, and in particular the BlackMagic Speed Test.
Another advantage of the external SSD is it's a quick swap in the event of failures/upgrades.
Once the AppleCare on my iMac expires I will probably upgrade the internal SSD myself.
Not a question that it's easy to answer as it's so dependent on your usage profile. There's a 4Gb 'write buffer' (my term), which means that new files that are created or copied are written to SSD initially. Then, if it needs more space than 124Gb, there's some form of tidying process that ages out old blocks that are not being read or written as frequently as other blocks. But, it's all dependent on disk activity - in other words, how much you're doing.
Pricy yes, but not as expensive as Apple's internal SSD options in equivalent sizes.
If you go with a UASP USB3 enclosure like the $18 Inateck FEU3NS-1E, you can actually get slightly faster performance at a fraction of the price if you don't mind losing TRIM or firmware flashability.
I've got 256GB SSD. I don't really need 1TB of flash since I can install all the applications I personally need including Parallels VM and then have more than 100GB free space. Documents and media files do not need to sit in SSDs. 1TB is too small to hold all my media files anyway.
In terms of performance, my 256GB SSD gives me similar speed to 512GB or 1TB SSD in terms of sequential access, maybe few less IOPS when it comes to random access which is arguably most important when it comes to system responsiveness. But I think 256GB gets the job done just fine and system is very responsive. If I had the money to splurge, sure I would go for 1TB for that last bit of performance but I certainly don't need it therefore do not regret my purchase.
In terms of performance, my 256GB SSD gives me similar speed to 512GB or 1TB SSD in terms of sequential access, maybe few less IOPS when it comes to random access which is arguably most important when it comes to system responsiveness. But I think 256GB gets the job done just fine and system is very responsive. If I had the money to splurge, sure I would go for 1TB for that last bit of performance but I certainly don't need it therefore do not regret my purchase.
I wonder how much decrease in performance would be without TRIM support by using USB enclosure overtime. Most SSDs now days should support Garbage Collection on hardware level, though I'm not sure how effective against TRIM. It'd be interesting to know if anyone has experienced noticeable drop in performance over time.
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It's coming down now, as more manufactures come to the market. When I bought my R4, Promise were effectively the only company producing consumer T'Bolt units, so I paid a lot ( £839.00) equally, they seem to be the only outfit who have kept their prices high...If I was buying now, I'd look at other options...A lot of new products at slightly more sensible prices are now available.
One thing I would say in defence of Promise is that they do give you what you pay for...No corners are cut on quality, no cheap plastic, a solid alloy all metal enclosure, the ability to configure the unit any way you wish with a full featured utility, and above all....reliability.