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G. Skill 256GB Titan SSD in my MacBook Pro... Thoughts, Benchmarks, Pics, & Ramblings
- Thread starter spaceballl
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I received my new Titan from Newegg. I've decided not to open it and chance having the sleep problem again, so I've put it for sale in the marketplace forum, and will go ebay if no interest in a day or so.
Performance was excellent, and I'll miss it, but personally no sleep was an issue on my particular machine.
If interested, PM me. I think it's a great drive otherwise.
Performance was excellent, and I'll miss it, but personally no sleep was an issue on my particular machine.
If interested, PM me. I think it's a great drive otherwise.
The typical is .2 idle to 1.3 at maximum. Check this article on Tom's Hardware which explains the whole thing. Seems that SSDs only have two states (idle and maximum), so SSDs end up at the maximum state more than traditional hard drives.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-hdd-battery,1955-2.html
I don't know if this has anything to do with The "issue" i'm having right now, but last night when I put my MPB to sleep, the next day all of its power is gone. I unplugged the charger when I went to bed so the MBP was running on battery while it was in sleep mode. Usually it only consumed about 1% to 2% of battery on my MBA when I put in into sleep for a night (without charging). So I don't know if it was the SSD drawing all the power out. I did uncheck the "put HDD to sleep if possible" box tho, and if what ECJ said is true (SSD having only two states) then that means the SSD is running at maximum hence drawing all the power? Can anyone confirm this?
Just finished speaking to G. Skill's RMA/Tech Support. I RMA'd my 256GB Titan SSD drive, and they received my unit last Friday and mailed out a replacement the same day. Should be here today or tomorrow. Anyway, I asked how should someone install the Titan SSD in a MacBook. He stated not to use a USB enclosure, since it causes weird things to happen to the drive. It's best to install directly to the internal SATA connector. I know from many other posters, that the USB enclosure route worked fine. Just passing the info. Also he stated that they went to the Apple Store to have them install the Titan SSD drives in Macs. The Apple store said that it was best to install directly to the internal SATA connector.
I'll update when I receive my new unit, and how it goes. I'll try the SATA way first with OSX 10.5.6 Install disc. I pray it works this time.
I'll update when I receive my new unit, and how it goes. I'll try the SATA way first with OSX 10.5.6 Install disc. I pray it works this time.
And the saga continues. Received my replacement SSD today. Crack open the 17" Unibody, and remove the old HD. Open the Titan 256Gb box, and find out they sent me a 128GB regular SSD. Not even the Titan version. So I call Tech Support, and they are going to send me the correct version. The good news is that i installed the drive in, and it was recognized and it's installing OSX 10.5.6 just fine. I'm just testing it out. 
I've had a 128GB Titan installed in my Unibody Macbook 2.4ghz for about a month now and have been trying lots of things to get it to perform better. I also had the annoying install issues, and I must say it is a bitch to workaround if you don't put the Titan in a external case.
All of these xbench overall disk scores for the Titan are around 70, which is not impressive, and plenty of 2.5in 7200 rpm drives attain 70ish overall scores. Sure, some of the individual disk tests are very good, but they are dragged down by the terrible 4k performance. I'm sure it might have been mentioned before, but the OCZ Vertex series consistently scores around 170 overall.
I've turned on "noatime" on for the Titan, and it may feel a bit snappier (placebo?), but the benchmarks don't reflect any change.
Something does not feel right. Although I have never had any sleep issues, I get hesitations and things just don't feel as fast as I know they should. I installed the iphone SDK yesterday, and while this was before I turned on noatime, my friend using a stock year old MBP with a 7200rpm drive was able to install the sdk in half the time.
Would people check and see if their drive is listed as supporting "Native Command Queuing" in system profiler? Mine is listed as not supported, and while it shouldn't make much of a difference, I find it strange considering all other Sata SSD drives including the OCZ Vertex and Intel X25e/m support NCQ in OSX.
I'm not sure if this is a Titan specific problem or Titan+OSX. There is very little information available specific to the Titan running OSX, and no useful information on their forum. Based on the benchmarks, I feel my Titan performs just as well as any Titan running OSX, but that's my point, it's not very good.
Also, my battery life, as noted by others, has been noticeably worse compared to my stock hard drive.
Any information or guidance would be helpful. I am very very close to ebaying it and buying a Vertex or going back to my stock mechanical drive.
FYI my Titan is firmware 0955.
Thanks,
Dustin
All of these xbench overall disk scores for the Titan are around 70, which is not impressive, and plenty of 2.5in 7200 rpm drives attain 70ish overall scores. Sure, some of the individual disk tests are very good, but they are dragged down by the terrible 4k performance. I'm sure it might have been mentioned before, but the OCZ Vertex series consistently scores around 170 overall.
I've turned on "noatime" on for the Titan, and it may feel a bit snappier (placebo?), but the benchmarks don't reflect any change.
Something does not feel right. Although I have never had any sleep issues, I get hesitations and things just don't feel as fast as I know they should. I installed the iphone SDK yesterday, and while this was before I turned on noatime, my friend using a stock year old MBP with a 7200rpm drive was able to install the sdk in half the time.
Would people check and see if their drive is listed as supporting "Native Command Queuing" in system profiler? Mine is listed as not supported, and while it shouldn't make much of a difference, I find it strange considering all other Sata SSD drives including the OCZ Vertex and Intel X25e/m support NCQ in OSX.
I'm not sure if this is a Titan specific problem or Titan+OSX. There is very little information available specific to the Titan running OSX, and no useful information on their forum. Based on the benchmarks, I feel my Titan performs just as well as any Titan running OSX, but that's my point, it's not very good.
Also, my battery life, as noted by others, has been noticeably worse compared to my stock hard drive.
Any information or guidance would be helpful. I am very very close to ebaying it and buying a Vertex or going back to my stock mechanical drive.
FYI my Titan is firmware 0955.
Thanks,
Dustin
Wow, great thread for talking about what I've been obsessing over recently!
I put a 256 GB G.Kill Titan in my Macbook Pro (early 2008) and have liked it a lot so far. Things feel much faster, with certain activities improving a lot, and others only a little. Booting, backing up to Time Machine, loading Photoshop CS3, loading a lot of images in Photoshop and booting Windows in Parallels are all much faster. I've had no issues at all, no sleep problems and no issues installing Boot Camp, which went a lot faster than it did on a normal hard drive.
The only thing I'm not happy about is temperature, since at times the drive seems to be getting hot, causing my fans to blow more. The fans on this machine aren't loud at all, even at their max, but the things that trigger fan noise (obviously increased load from running Parallels, or rebooting, or doing something funny). Sometimes, though, drive activity seems to spike and the fans get louder even though nothing is happening as far as I can see. When things are good they are very good, with the fans blowing at 1100 rpm or so, almost silent. But sometimes the fans decide they want to go at 2500-3000 rpm, and I can't see why this should be unless I'm doing a big copy or something. For reference, I did have a big increase in fan noise from 1100 to 2200 or so when I went to my 7200 rpm 500 GB hard drive, too.
I'd really like someone to make a control panel or other tool that let us see the state of the SDD and could perhaps force it into idle mode. One of the changes in OS X from OS 9 is the inability to set time for drive sleep, and I wonder what kinds of tools could be made (or repurposed) to force the drive to be a bit more efficient if, say, nothing were accessed for 20-30 seconds. Anyone tried any tools to manipulate drive sleep time in OS X? Is there a way to even talk to the SSD, perhaps through terminal?
Judging from what the battery timer reports when I go on battery, I believe battery life will be slightly improved. I have a brand new battery, and it would report 3:20 of time at the start of a work session with the old drive. It's slightly higher with the SSD, 3:40 or so. This is with the screen turned down, wifi off and bluetooth off.
The best thing about the drive is, it's 256 GB. That's enough for anything I need to do, thank you very much, although I am dropping down from a 500 GB hard drive.
Well, anyone have feedback on temperature issues and how to fix them, or how to make the drive go into idle mode, if that's something I should be messing with?
Edit: here are my stats:
Disk Test 70.55
Sequential 85.27
Uncached Write 191.34 117.48 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 143.39 81.13 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 34.42 10.07 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 176.77 88.84 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 60.16
Uncached Write 17.53 1.86 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 169.36 54.22 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 1163.29 8.24 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 374.81 69.55 MB/sec [256K blocks]
I put a 256 GB G.Kill Titan in my Macbook Pro (early 2008) and have liked it a lot so far. Things feel much faster, with certain activities improving a lot, and others only a little. Booting, backing up to Time Machine, loading Photoshop CS3, loading a lot of images in Photoshop and booting Windows in Parallels are all much faster. I've had no issues at all, no sleep problems and no issues installing Boot Camp, which went a lot faster than it did on a normal hard drive.
The only thing I'm not happy about is temperature, since at times the drive seems to be getting hot, causing my fans to blow more. The fans on this machine aren't loud at all, even at their max, but the things that trigger fan noise (obviously increased load from running Parallels, or rebooting, or doing something funny). Sometimes, though, drive activity seems to spike and the fans get louder even though nothing is happening as far as I can see. When things are good they are very good, with the fans blowing at 1100 rpm or so, almost silent. But sometimes the fans decide they want to go at 2500-3000 rpm, and I can't see why this should be unless I'm doing a big copy or something. For reference, I did have a big increase in fan noise from 1100 to 2200 or so when I went to my 7200 rpm 500 GB hard drive, too.
I'd really like someone to make a control panel or other tool that let us see the state of the SDD and could perhaps force it into idle mode. One of the changes in OS X from OS 9 is the inability to set time for drive sleep, and I wonder what kinds of tools could be made (or repurposed) to force the drive to be a bit more efficient if, say, nothing were accessed for 20-30 seconds. Anyone tried any tools to manipulate drive sleep time in OS X? Is there a way to even talk to the SSD, perhaps through terminal?
Judging from what the battery timer reports when I go on battery, I believe battery life will be slightly improved. I have a brand new battery, and it would report 3:20 of time at the start of a work session with the old drive. It's slightly higher with the SSD, 3:40 or so. This is with the screen turned down, wifi off and bluetooth off.
The best thing about the drive is, it's 256 GB. That's enough for anything I need to do, thank you very much, although I am dropping down from a 500 GB hard drive.
Well, anyone have feedback on temperature issues and how to fix them, or how to make the drive go into idle mode, if that's something I should be messing with?
Edit: here are my stats:
Disk Test 70.55
Sequential 85.27
Uncached Write 191.34 117.48 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 143.39 81.13 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 34.42 10.07 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 176.77 88.84 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 60.16
Uncached Write 17.53 1.86 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 169.36 54.22 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 1163.29 8.24 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 374.81 69.55 MB/sec [256K blocks]
More cud to chew on...
Did you all see this? AnandTech has a new review of SSDs and perf problems in particular. There's a page focused on JMicron based SSDs:
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3531&p=17
I don't doubt that write latency might not be the greatest, but I rarely feel stuttering. I think I have seen some while running a VM, but VM perf is no worse than on a spinning drive.
I've had this drive for a month (after the first RMA) and just re-ran XBench to get a look at disk speeds, and while small writes aren't great, they're still better than my old spinning drive, and the reads are really impressive. I'm not seeing any drop off in perf yet. We'll see over time.
I like the perf - it's just the heat I feel and the spinning fans that get to me. Anyone else feel the same way?
Did you all see this? AnandTech has a new review of SSDs and perf problems in particular. There's a page focused on JMicron based SSDs:
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3531&p=17
I don't doubt that write latency might not be the greatest, but I rarely feel stuttering. I think I have seen some while running a VM, but VM perf is no worse than on a spinning drive.
I've had this drive for a month (after the first RMA) and just re-ran XBench to get a look at disk speeds, and while small writes aren't great, they're still better than my old spinning drive, and the reads are really impressive. I'm not seeing any drop off in perf yet. We'll see over time.
I like the perf - it's just the heat I feel and the spinning fans that get to me. Anyone else feel the same way?
FYI - I know I've changed my firefox settings to not use the disk for caching. Has anyone else tried that? I think the recommendation was for windows users, but I figured I'd try it on the mac. Seems to have great perf, but I'm wondering if anyone else has done that on on the mac.
Battery life
I played with the battery today, testing speed, and things do seem improved over the 500 gb hard drive I had before. It displayed anywhere from 3:40 to 3:00 which is slightly better, although i didn't stay long enough to test it. The secret to battery life seems to be, don't run a browser with a bunch of open pages, since they just sit there and use up tons of processor time. Which means that this is a big huge hole for browsers IMHO -- the should have an option to "freeze" all page content or something, to block all active Flash elements when on battery or something. Seriously need to manage processor activity better when on battery and not loading anything.
(I am using Camino, usually among the best browsers at processor related stuff.)
I played with the battery today, testing speed, and things do seem improved over the 500 gb hard drive I had before. It displayed anywhere from 3:40 to 3:00 which is slightly better, although i didn't stay long enough to test it. The secret to battery life seems to be, don't run a browser with a bunch of open pages, since they just sit there and use up tons of processor time. Which means that this is a big huge hole for browsers IMHO -- the should have an option to "freeze" all page content or something, to block all active Flash elements when on battery or something. Seriously need to manage processor activity better when on battery and not loading anything.
(I am using Camino, usually among the best browsers at processor related stuff.)
I still don't understand how people say their machines are running hot with a SSD in them Mine right now is running between 36-42 Deg. C I have a Macbook Pro 15" with 2.53 CPU in it. My Vertex SSD has been cool so far.
Mine right now is running between 36-42 Deg. C I have a Macbook Pro 15" with 2.53 CPU in it. My Vertex SSD has been cool so far.
Very rarely have I heard people complaining about stuttering on OSX even with the first JMicron drives. OSX just handles the small writes much better than Windows. Maybe OSX buffers random writes into bigger blocks? I dunno. The only stuttering I've ever heard about was in relation to using bootcamp or a Windows virtual machine. Anandtech does all it's tests on Windows so that's probably why they measured stuttering. If they tested on OSX maybe they wouldn't have seen any.
I still don't understand how people say their machines are running hot with a SSD in them
The Vertex uses just 1 controller. That's why it runs a lot cooler. Vertex and Titan are based on two very different technologies.
Well, with the third G. Skill 256GB drive, I finally got it installed. It wasn't very easy, but I think I figured it out.
I have a month old Unibody 17" MacBook Pro with the 2.93Ghz CPU. My previous issue was that, when the drive was installed in the MBP, it would not be recognized. It would see the drive, if it was connected via USB enclosure. I read on the OCZ forums that one issue is that the drive is Windows formated, and the Mac has some issue reading the MBR on the drive.
They recommend using Disk Utility to erase the drive, by writing zeros to the drive. If the MBP doesn't recognize it then, use MBRWizard a windows program to completely wipe the drive. I didn't have to get that far to use MBRWizard. The Zeroing out the drive in Disk Utility worked.
My final process to get OSX 10.5.6 installed was very weird. I had to install the SSD drive into the MBP, then turn it on in Target Disk mode. I then connected the MBP to my iMac, and ran the install disc from the iMac. It installed, and I rebooted the MBP, and it worked fine.
Previous to getting it working, I had been through two other 256GB Titans, used various USB and firewire enclosures, and my iMac or Vista laptop. The zeroing out the drive during the erase worked like a charm.
So, anyway, it's installed with no sleep issues or other issues. I do notice that my battery is draining faster than before.
I have a month old Unibody 17" MacBook Pro with the 2.93Ghz CPU. My previous issue was that, when the drive was installed in the MBP, it would not be recognized. It would see the drive, if it was connected via USB enclosure. I read on the OCZ forums that one issue is that the drive is Windows formated, and the Mac has some issue reading the MBR on the drive.
They recommend using Disk Utility to erase the drive, by writing zeros to the drive. If the MBP doesn't recognize it then, use MBRWizard a windows program to completely wipe the drive. I didn't have to get that far to use MBRWizard. The Zeroing out the drive in Disk Utility worked.
My final process to get OSX 10.5.6 installed was very weird. I had to install the SSD drive into the MBP, then turn it on in Target Disk mode. I then connected the MBP to my iMac, and ran the install disc from the iMac. It installed, and I rebooted the MBP, and it worked fine.
Previous to getting it working, I had been through two other 256GB Titans, used various USB and firewire enclosures, and my iMac or Vista laptop. The zeroing out the drive during the erase worked like a charm.
So, anyway, it's installed with no sleep issues or other issues. I do notice that my battery is draining faster than before.
That's what I thought, but I had two different USB enclosures, one firewire enclosure, and one Thermaltake Black X dock, which all didn't work on a 2008 iMac, the unibody 17" and a Dell laptop. It shouldn't have to be that hard to install a drive. With the OCZ line of SSD's, they have similar problems on mac products. Where the newer SSD's aren't recognized, where the older models are without issue.
Hey everyone,
First off I want to thank you guys for all the information so far. I have a question about the G.Skill Titan though -- is the freezing/sleep issue with the Titan present on ALL unibody MacBooks and MacBook Pros?
I have a Unibody MacBook that I just purchased (2.4GHz) and I am interested in an SSD, and the Titan looks great, except that lots of reviews on Newegg posts here indicate a problem with this drive and Unibody Mac notebooks.
Has G.Skill elucidated the problem at all in terms of which computers it will actually well with?
First off I want to thank you guys for all the information so far. I have a question about the G.Skill Titan though -- is the freezing/sleep issue with the Titan present on ALL unibody MacBooks and MacBook Pros?
I have a Unibody MacBook that I just purchased (2.4GHz) and I am interested in an SSD, and the Titan looks great, except that lots of reviews on Newegg posts here indicate a problem with this drive and Unibody Mac notebooks.
Has G.Skill elucidated the problem at all in terms of which computers it will actually well with?
I have the G. Skill 256GB Titan, in my MBP 17" Uni. I don't have any freezing, stuttering, or sleep issues. After my ordeal with the Titan, I can't recommend it. It is cheap, but it sucks the battery. I used to get at least 6 hrs with the 320GB 5400rpm HD. I get 4 1/2 hrs now. The speed is great, but at a cost, even though it has the best bang for buck. I'll be selling this one, and upgrading to a better quality SSD when prices drop.
My experience with Titan and Unibody
My first post on Macrumors
So here the thing, I saw the SSD on newegg and bought it right away it speeds and price seduced me !
(I've had the drive for 2 full weeks now) and wrote my thoughts on Macbidouille (French) and GSKILL support forums (English) they are basically the same thing.
I get the drive and install it into my Unibody:
System profiler see it...
Disk Util does NOT !
let's try the external USB case, it is seen by Disk Util install and data migration went fast and smooth, I then moved my user folder to another disk. And I realized I did not need 256Gb !
NO SLEEP, hangs at boot for 8-10 sec then boots fast, the drive under Vista is FASTER than OSX according to my tests.
Sometimes the computer is superfast and reliable (besides Sleep) and sometimes it is crashing and making my tech life a little bit more complex.
I got an answer from Gskill:
Dear customer
try to format your SSD with small block size like 4k or 8k block. that will help to increase the performance. we will check with apple and see there is any way to fix this sleep problem
Thank you
GSKILL SUPPORT
How do I reformat under OSX to get block size of 4k or 8k ?? Is that even an "explanation"?
Hope my contribution help, i'm available for questions but also considering another brand of SSD. Maybe it's too bleeding edge tech to use less known brands...
My first post on Macrumors
So here the thing, I saw the SSD on newegg and bought it right away it speeds and price seduced me !
(I've had the drive for 2 full weeks now) and wrote my thoughts on Macbidouille (French) and GSKILL support forums (English) they are basically the same thing.
I get the drive and install it into my Unibody:
System profiler see it...
Disk Util does NOT !
let's try the external USB case, it is seen by Disk Util install and data migration went fast and smooth, I then moved my user folder to another disk. And I realized I did not need 256Gb !
NO SLEEP, hangs at boot for 8-10 sec then boots fast, the drive under Vista is FASTER than OSX according to my tests.
Sometimes the computer is superfast and reliable (besides Sleep) and sometimes it is crashing and making my tech life a little bit more complex.
I got an answer from Gskill:
Dear customer
try to format your SSD with small block size like 4k or 8k block. that will help to increase the performance. we will check with apple and see there is any way to fix this sleep problem
Thank you
GSKILL SUPPORT
How do I reformat under OSX to get block size of 4k or 8k ?? Is that even an "explanation"?
Hope my contribution help, i'm available for questions but also considering another brand of SSD. Maybe it's too bleeding edge tech to use less known brands...