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G. Skill 256GB Titan SSD in my MacBook Pro... Thoughts, Benchmarks, Pics, & Ramblings

Y2JDMBFAN said:
This is totally untrue if you have a unibody Macbook Pro...I have my Gskill hooked directly to the SATA connector and it works fine.
Click to expand...

Let's be clear on what I am saying - I plugged a partitioned ssd drive directly into the sata connector and tried a clean install of os x on the drive. It didn't work. The os x install app could not find the ssd drive - it just continuously searched for a location to install os x. The disk utility app could not find the ssd drive - it just found the optical drive.

I installed os x on the ssd drive by plugging the ssd drive into a usb port using an external enclosure. The os x install app cound find the ssd drive when it was hooked up that way. Once os x was installed on the ssd drive, I could connect the ssd drive to the sata connector, and it booted fine.

I'm not saying the ssd drive can't be hooked up to the sata connector. I'm just saying I couldn't do a clean install of os x to the ssd drive when it was hooked up to the sata connector.

This is for my new 15" unibody macbook pro.

pprior said:
!! Can you link that document?
Click to expand...

I'll see if I can find it.

EDIT: Here it is. It was a discussion on the apple support forum.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8898487&

Again, this would appear to affect only people attempting a clean install of os x onto an ssd drive already plugged into the sata connector (and possibly only if the ssd drive has never had os x installed on it before). It would not affect people who install os x onto the ssd drive over usb, or people who clone their current drive onto the ssd drive before installing the ssd drive. Spaceball plugged his ssd into the computer by usb first, so it wouldn't have affected him.
 
Y2JDMBFAN said:
This is totally untrue if you have a unibody Macbook Pro...I have my Gskill hooked directly to the SATA connector and it works fine.
Click to expand...
Totally untrue if you have a pre-unibody mac as well. I deleted any partitions I had on my SSD before putting it inside my mac. Then I used disk utility on the startup disk to format it properly.
 
Thanks Texas - I will attempt to verify this tonight as I will be picking up my new system and will install the SSD and then attempt to install a new OS system without doing anything else first.
 
TexasAg said:
Let's be clear on what I am saying - I plugged a partitioned ssd drive directly into the sata connector and tried a clean install of os x on the drive. It didn't work. The os x install app could not find the ssd drive - it just continuously searched for a location to install os x. The disk utility app could not find the ssd drive - it just found the optical drive.

I installed os x on the ssd drive by plugging the ssd drive into a usb port using an external enclosure. The os x install app cound find the ssd drive when it was hooked up that way. Once os x was installed on the ssd drive, I could connect the ssd drive to the sata connector, and it booted fine.

I'm not saying the ssd drive can't be hooked up to the sata connector. I'm just saying I couldn't do a clean install of os x to the ssd drive when it was hooked up to the sata connector.

This is for my new 15" unibody macbook pro.



I'll see if I can find it.

EDIT: Here it is. It was a discussion on the apple support forum.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8898487&

Again, this would appear to affect only people attempting a clean install of os x onto an ssd drive already plugged into the sata connector (and possibly only if the ssd drive has never had os x installed on it before). It would not affect people who install os x onto the ssd drive over usb, or people who clone their current drive onto the ssd drive before installing the ssd drive. Spaceball plugged his ssd into the computer by usb first, so it wouldn't have affected him.
Click to expand...


I took my blank 256GB Titan fresh out of the box, hooked it to my unibody Macbook Pro, put in the OS Install discs, booted from that and partitioned and installed right to the new drive. You may have a defective Macbook Pro or drive. Make sure you partition the drive with disk utility before you try to install.

Y2J
 
spaceballl said:
What are these disk verification errors you speak of? Why did you not recover from the image using disk utility? You could have had some permissions errors w/ Time Machine restore. I've had that before. May not be related to the SSD, but rather a botched restore process. I mean could be the SSD too, I suppose. Let me know!
Click to expand...

So I'm looking at this again a bit - When I do a verify disk, I've had issues with the "Checking Catalog file" three times and had to repair using the install dvd to boot.

The machine is incredibly fast with the disk - it's just the stability. I'm going to erase the disk, and try a fresh install again. I'll let you all know how it goes. If it's unstable again, I think I'll RMA and try again with a fresh disk.
 
Y2JDMBFAN said:
I took my blank 256GB Titan fresh out of the box, hooked it to my unibody Macbook Pro, put in the OS Install discs, booted from that and partitioned and installed right to the new drive. You may have a defective Macbook Pro or drive. Make sure you partition the drive with disk utility before you try to install.

Y2J
Click to expand...


I took the ssd drive out of the box, hooked it up to the sata connector of my new macbook pro where the factory hard drive had been, and the macbook pro could not recognize the ssd drive. I realized then I hadn't partitioned it, but I was shocked when the disk utility app couldn't see the ssd drive. So I took the ssd drive out and partitoned the drive on a different mac computer, but the macbook pro still could not recognize the ssd drive. So I tried partitioning it again on the other computer, still nothing. The new macbook pro could not see the ssd drive no matter what, as long as the ssd drive was hooked up to the sata connector.

It wasn't until I hooked up the ssd drive to the usb port that the install software could see the ssd drive.

By the way, when you say you "hooked it to my unibody Macbook Pro", you are saying you connected the ssd drive directly to the sata connector where your old drive was, right? And you didn't do anything else to the drive besides hook it up, right?

The link I provided shows this isn't a unique problem. I'm not sure why it was doing it. All I know is that I had to use the usb to get it working. Now that it is working, I'm a happy camper.
 
On the link to the apple support forum that was referenced above there is a post:

"Extended Hard Drive Preparation

1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder. If you need to reformat your startup volume, then you must boot from your OS X Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger or Leopard.)

2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.

3. Set the number of partitions from the drop down menu (use 1 partition unless you wish to make more.) Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (only required for Intel Macs) then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.

4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.

5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.

6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size."


Are Step 4-6 necessary on a new drive?
 
nippyjun said:
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.

5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.

6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.[/SIZE]"


Are Step 4-6 necessary on a new drive?
Click to expand...


They shouldn't be - but I'm trying it, as I've had some issues with the drive. I'm zeroing out the data (and can then run a perf test so we can compare new to ready-state perf). It looks like those who haven't had any issues with the disk can just partition and go...
 
I am having same problem on my mac pro.

Installed the Titan SSD. Booted from OS DVD, got to disk utility and the SSD would not show up at all.

Booted into hard drive OS install and then ran disk utility and the SSD was then available. I created a partition (journaled, GUID) and now see that partition in the OS and can command-I and get info from finder.

However if I reboot from the OS DVD to try and do a clean install, I still can't pick the SSD from the selector, nor can I see it from the disk utility again.

Argh....

edit: Update - when I boot from CD and run system profiler, the system partition type under SATA shows "unknown" on the SSD, despite having run it as GUID before. Investigating further.....
 
I was unable to get the Titan SSD to appear in disk utility or in the leopard install disk selection. The only way I was able to make it work was to boot to the hard disk install of leopard and then access disk utility.

I eventually cloned my clean install of leopard to hte SSD using super duper and now it boots just fine. I have no idea why it will not work without this workaround but I would not recommend this product unless you have the ability to boot from another hard disk and then clone as I mentioned.

Boot is not a huge speed difference on my mac pro. With a clean install my hard disk boot is about 25 seconds and with this SSD it's about 18 seconds. That's a big percentage boost, but doesn't seem as big as I had thought.

Apps however do seem to open much more "snappy". More impressions with further use.

Running Aja (a disk speed test for high end video editing) I got the following:


File Size Sweep
MB MB/sec
Read Write
128.0 201.7 150.7
256.0 220.4 154.7
512.0 217.2 154.9
1024.0 220.2 155.3
2048.0 182.6 64.2
4096.0 212.5 71.3
 
I have the 2.5 early 08 MBP and had no such issue..

I just dropped it in an ran my 10.5.6 retail dvd image from a firewire drive. Showed up in disk utility, partitioned and formatted, and no issues.
 
FYI - I'm replacing mine as a lemon... Hopefully, it's an isolated occurrence.

I think I might also blame my disc caddy (I've got an OWC Firewire 800). As I look back on this, every time I moved over a big file via Firewire 800 to this drive, something went wrong and the disk became corrupted.

So, I'm not sure if it was the caddy, or the disk.

At any rate, after a copy of a VM over, I had disk errors during "verify disk"... It noted the number of directories was off, tried three times to repair, then failed. OS X then failed to find the drive at all after that. This occurred when hooked up via SATA internally, or via Firewire 400 or 800 externally.

The whole experience seemed way too fragile, so I've sent it back to Newegg for a replacement. Again, I'm hoping this was an isolated occurrence, and the replacement will work just fine...

FYI - for all of you who are working swimmingly, when you do a verify disk, do you have any issues?

I'll post back in a week or so. Going back to my old spinning disk drive is no fun. I miss the snappiness.
 
tibi08 said:
I'm surprised how many have gone for the G.Skill 256 rather than the the Intel 160 :eek::D
Click to expand...

$200 more for nearly 40% less space. I'll take the titan.

The titan ssd may not be as blazingly fast as the intel, but I won't fill up the titan, and the incremental increase in speed of the intel over the titan is nothing compared to the increase in speed of the titan over the factory hard drive.
 
My verify disk is fine. It seems like most people are incurring issues when using an external enclosure with this disk.

Seems like the best way to do this is to pull out your old, working drive. Pop in the unformatted drive. Boot up w/ the Leopard DVD and go to the disk utility. Format the new drive. Do a restore from the old drive (hooked up externally) to the new drive internally.

I did this and i have had ZERO problems. This has been nothing but a butter-like experience for me. The only thing i'm not liking is that in limited testing, it does appear that my battery is draining at a faster rate. For a guy who spends a lot of time on airplanes, this isn't something I'm very happy about. Oh well. I guess I'll just be reading more books haha. I'm still amazed at how fast it is when I restart my computer.

TexasAg said:
$200 more for nearly 40% less space. I'll take the titan.
The titan ssd may not be as blazingly fast as the intel, but I won't fill up the titan, and the incremental increase in speed of the intel over the titan is nothing compared to the increase in speed of the titan over the factory hard drive.
Click to expand...
Yup I'm with you. I had a 200 gig hard drive that was nearly full. Moving to the intel drive would have forced me to move files OFF the drive whereas moving to the titan would let me keep everything.
 
spaceballl said:
Seems like the best way to do this is to pull out your old, working drive. Pop in the unformatted drive. Boot up w/ the Leopard DVD and go to the disk utility. Format the new drive. Do a restore from the old drive (hooked up externally) to the new drive internally.
Click to expand...

I'll try it that way with the replacement... If it was the external enclosure, I hope the manufacturers of both products monitor these boards to understand the issue...

Did anyone try using Super Duper? or have any problems with it?

Another question - when you did the new install and restore from the old hard drive, did you apply all the updates to the mac first? Or was that even an option if you installed from an old disk at the end of setup?
 
louden said:
I'll try it that way with the replacement... If it was the external enclosure, I hope the manufacturers of both products monitor these boards to understand the issue...

Did anyone try using Super Duper? or have any problems with it?

Another question - when you did the new install and restore from the old hard drive, did you apply all the updates to the mac first? Or was that even an option if you installed from an old disk at the end of setup?
Click to expand...
I initially tried superduper and it crapped out. I read on some other forum that people had an issue w/ that too. When I did a restore from the old drive, I'm not talking about using the actual Leopard installation, I'm just talking about using the disk utility restore. So it shouldn't matter when you apply any updates.
 
Works Great In My Unibody MBP 15

I bought the SDD with the external enclosure combo. Hooked up SSD to the USB port. Ran Disk Utility (Selected 1 Partition) and then restored from my original HDD (Still in the Unibody MBP). Then I just took the SSD and replaced the HDD and it has been working flawlessly, except, the first time I booted, when I had several applications freeze, including Safari and could not shut down from the Apple menu. Once I restarted, it was blazing fast and had no problems since...
 
If my computer goes to sleep then when it awakens it will hang with spinning beach ball. Requires hard restart. Running fine otherwise at this point.

I wonder if I have a dud, or whether there are still bugs with this product.
 
spaceballl said:
Seems like the best way to do this is to pull out your old, working drive. Pop in the unformatted drive. Boot up w/ the Leopard DVD and go to the disk utility. Format the new drive. Do a restore from the old drive (hooked up externally) to the new drive internally.
Click to expand...

I did a similar process and am seeing no issues (knock on wood) after about a week. I'm coming from a MBA rev A to a MacBook with the Titan SSD. I cloned my MBA drive to an external disk via CCC. I swapped the new MacBook drive with the Titan, ran the Leopard install disk, launched Disk Utility, formatted the Titan, installed Leopard and used the Migration Assistant to transfer data from my MBA drive to the Titan SSD.

Also, just got my 4GB of RAM from MacSales and this thing flies!
 
tibi08 said:
Anyone got any more thoughts on battery life / heat issues with the Titan? Am just about to order....
Click to expand...

Overall I think it is a great drive for the money. I have not noticed any heat issues but since shorter battery life (I would guess 20% less) means higher current draw which means heat it all falls into place.
 
Is the shorter battery life going to be an issue with all ssd's or particular to the current crop of ssd's?
 
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