Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Fastest Real Time SSD?

C

Chiuy

macrumors 6502
Original poster
May 24, 2011
305
0
NorCal, Bay Area
What's the fastest real time SSD? Such as bootup, etc.
I want to get OCZ Solid 3 or Agility 3 but I hear you won't get speeds as near as they say.
Vertex 3 I have considered it, but it's not on sale and it's pricey at $235+tax

Crucial M4, I hear is the most reliable, but the write speed is slow?
What would you get?

Cause I don't like buying a product and not getting the speed they advertised.
Ex. They advertise 550mb/s, but I get 250mb/s, not even as close as 550.
 
The SATA 3 models are notoriously inconsistent and not particularly reliable, so you'll probably never see the advertized speeds with the current lineup. Also, if you want the fastest SSD out there, you'll have to pay more. Personally I'd just get an Intel 320 and call it a day. It's one of the most reliable models out there and isn't too expensive. Once you get into SSD-type speeds, the faster models make less of a difference anyway. Do you really need to spend a ton of extra money to shave two seconds off your boot time?
 
I impulse bought the agility 3 for my macbook pro without doing that much research at all. I spent weeks planing and researching for a momentus xt but last minute bought the agility for a good price.

I have had no problems at all, it has been running flawlessly and the speed of it really surprised me. Boot up time (which i just tested for you) is about 16-18 seconds with lion, im used to about 30ish seconds prior to the upgrade. Photoshop CS5 launches in about 2-3 seconds before it would take about 6. Opening your laptop from sleep is instant which is really impressive!

In real world application its perfect im really glad i upgraded to SSD the gains are far worth the price. I didnt get the vertex because it was $50 more its only 120 GB and i didnt want to spend an offensive amount.

I can't compare it to other SSD's but from what i have read the agility and vertex are pretty good and i have heard that some people aren't receiving "good" speeds or are having problems but for me the agility 3 has been nothing but great.

as i wrote this i also did this speed test not sure if it helps.

22050617.jpg
 
I currently have two SSDs. A OCZ Agility 3 and Intel X25-M G2. 120 and 160 GB respectively. The Agility 3 is essentially one generation newer than the Intel.

There isn't much of a real difference in speed between the two. Apps open instantly, boot is extremely fast etc. The Agility 3 is at least in tests faster in sequential writes (copying big files) but at least to me that's pretty irrelevant since it's not a time critical task.

There is a massive difference in compatibility though. When I got the Agility 3, I couldn't even install Windows on it without it stalling. Two firmware updates later and my desktop PC still wouldn't sleep properly (blue screen or wouldn't turn off). OCZ claimed my hardware was too old yet when I put in the Intel drive it worked flawlessly right from the start, just like it had done for about 2 years in my Macbook Pro. The Agility 3 does work properly in my MBP though. The point is however that OCZ's firmware is far from perfect and based on my experience their support is quick to blame other things. Lots of people have had far more severe problems with the new Vertex3/Agility 3/Solid 3 drives.

Also note that the stated speeds have been achieved with specific test programs. The ones used use heavily compressible data, which is fast with any SandForce controller drive (OCZ, Crucial). In tests that don't use highly compressible data they don't get the same results.

So don't go hunting for fastest since it won't be that visible in real world use. Get a reliable drive instead. At this point the Intel 320 seems to be your best bet since it's based on the same controller as the X25-M but is faster. If you're coming from a HDD pretty much any SSD is going to be a significant improvement.
 
For the 64GB mode and 120GB model, anybody wanna tell me an estimation of storage that can actually be used?
I also assume OSx use up 5GB?
 
I got approximately 260 / 220 with Samsung 470 128GB and the average around 220 / 190
 
Sequential read/writes are pointless statistics unless all you do is move files.

Real world performance is usually determined by 4k-8k random read/writes, more writes than reads. That and access time/latency.

You do want real world gains don't you?
 
This is what I get with a OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6g SSD (SATA III).:cool:
 

Attachments

  • 2011-07-24_16-12-39.png
    2011-07-24_16-12-39.png
    117.7 KB · Views: 150
No clue. My OCZ Vertex 2 is so fast that I can't keep up with it! I was opening programs after logging out and in today and it was so fast that I couldn't use Quicksilver to launch programs fast enough to swamp it, even when my hands stayed on the 'board.
 
Chiuy said:
What do you guys think is more beneficial to a gamer?
SSD or Ram?
Click to expand...

Ram is better and really cheap for an 8gb upgrade.

Buying an higher end 120gb SSD is going to cost you 3-4 times as much but you will noticed the performance increase far more than the RAM.

Start of with ram and come back to a SSD as prices are starting to drop and faster models are coming out everyday.
 
Are these SandForce write speeds the peak speeds or average?

I've basically settled on a Crucial M4 that I can bet for $200. Hard time justifying $80 more for OWC writing speeds if they are just bursts and not noticeable.
 
Sandforce drives ARE faster, not noticeable for every day use though. At the cost of reliability and higher power consumption.

One thing to keep in mind is that random writes (especially 4-8k) is by far the most common operation by the disk. Sequential read/writes almost rarely occur (only when the user instantiates it).

Anyway, speaking of RAM, if you do have extra RAM, you can use a part of it as a "temporary" physical drive using "RAMdisk". This is roughly 10x the speeds of the fastest SATA III drives. No, that wasn't a typo.

Ramdisk.png
 
2hvy4grvty said:
Anyway, speaking of RAM, if you do have extra RAM, you can use a part of it as a "temporary" physical drive using "RAMdisk". This is roughly 10x the speeds of the fastest SATA III drives. No, that wasn't a typo.

Image
Click to expand...

In windows... cool story bro.
you can do anything in windows...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back