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G.Skill Titan Series 128GB SSD in a Macbook Pro.

F

Fgozalo

macrumors member
Original poster
Feb 1, 2008
46
0
Brasília, Brazil
Morning all,

I've been searching around for a good SSD drive, but I'm no computer expert. This searh is all related to proceed in buying a new Macbook Pro, the model I haven't decided yet.

Aparently the best SSD available is the Intel one, but it is quite expensive. Last night, surfing in the newegg.com webpage I found this: G.SKILL TITAN Series FM-25S2S-128GBT1 2.5" 128GB SATA II Internal Solid state disk (SSD) - Retail

Have any of you heard of this SSD, or tested it in anyway with a Macbook Pro? Is it any faster then the one available from Apple. After reading the specs it does seen to come "close" to the Intle one.

One more thing, a question for the users toying around with the 2.8 MacbookPro version, was it worth it? I'm really considering to get this model and update it with a SSD drive, I'm just not convinced it's worth the price.

Ps': Sorry about my English proficiency, not my native language, nor second one.

SSD Specs, from the website:

General
Brand G.SKILL
Series TITAN Series
Model FM-25S2S-128GBT1
Device Type Internal Solid state disk (SSD)
Expansion / Connectivity
Form Factor 2.5"
Capacity 128GB
Interface Type SATA II
Performance
Max Shock Resistance 1500G
Max Vibration Resistance 20G
Sequential Access - Read 200MB/sec
Sequential Access - Write 160MB/sec
MTBF 1,500,000 hours
 
the link to the 64 gig ssd in not comparable. this new ssd has dual controllers. I have ordered one of these from newegg (the 128gig version) to put in my macbook. i was on the autonotify list and got the e-mail that they were in stock and ordered it. an hour later i checked and they were out of stock. mine is scheduled to arrive on friday. i'll post here telling what i think.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/storage/2009/01/20/g-skill-titan-256gb-ssd-review/1

this is the best review that i've seen as far as info. they're pretty new and i can't find any reviews with macs.

hope this is helpful

Eric

Edit: i see they're in stock again.
 
air-ick said:
the link to the 64 gig ssd in not comparable. this new ssd has dual controllers. I have ordered one of these from newegg (the 128gig version) to put in my macbook. i was on the autonotify list and got the e-mail that they were in stock and ordered it. an hour later i checked and they were out of stock. mine is scheduled to arrive on friday. i'll post here telling what i think.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/storage/2009/01/20/g-skill-titan-256gb-ssd-review/1

this is the best review that i've seen as far as info. they're pretty new and i can't find any reviews with macs.

hope this is helpful

Eric

Edit: i see they're in stock again.
Click to expand...

Please get back with us with your opinions on the drive.

Also check if Bootcamp will work on it.
 
Yeah I'd like to know if Bootcamp works on the Titan too.

Been reading about people having issues with being able to get bootcamp to run on SSD.
 
Lyshen said:
Yeah I'd like to know if Bootcamp works on the Titan too.

Been reading about people having issues with being able to get bootcamp to run on SSD.
Click to expand...

Apparently, titan works with bootcamp. It was confirmed by a dude named sonicwind at notebookreview forums and OCZ.
 
Lyshen said:
Yeah I'd like to know if Bootcamp works on the Titan too.

Been reading about people having issues with being able to get bootcamp to run on SSD.
Click to expand...

I don't use windows on my macbook, so no bootcamp for me. I'll be doing a fresh install as I've been using the original install since i bought it. I think I can get a leaner install. Sorry about the bootcamp, but i have no use for it.

I'll let you know how it goes Friday night or Saturday morning as I have to work for a living and can't sit at home and wait for UPS like I want to.

Eric
 
I'd love to know what results you get. It seems like a good drive for the specs and price. But there are 3 reviews on newegg now for the 256GB version. One says it's great and two say the performance is terrible. Not sure what to believe.
 
my reasoning for buying this is that the problems that ssd's had were generally windows studdering problems. most recent drives worked well in macs. i think that this is because windows has so many background things going on but that is another topic. with the performance of the dual controllers in this drive and the success of lesser drives in macs, hopefully this should be a winner.

anyway, it should be here sometime tomorrow. i'll post here with my opinion.

Eric
 
ok, so i was kind of pissed when i got home from work and my package from newegg was in my door in a padded envelope. i was thinking that they should have shipped it in a more secure package but the box that the drive comes in is foam padded so there was really nothing to worry about. it took me a while to install because i wasn't prepared with the proper torx driver (it's a T6 for those that are wondering) but got it installed and did an osx install with only canon printer drivers and no extra languages. it installed in about 10 minutes. then i did a timemachine recovery or whatever the technical name for it is and that took about an hour. then i did my updates. when all was said and done i put almost 60 gigs on this drive. i did notice that that corner of the macbook was a little warm but nothing too bad (i did just put 60gigs on it in a little over an hour so it did get some work). so now that everything is installed and back to normal i can definitely tell a difference. everything is faster as far as startup and opening applications. the app that i noticed the most used to be itunes and it would take 7-10 seconds to open. with the new ssd drive it takes about 2 now. openoffice opens in about 5. safari in less than 1. iphoto in about 1. it's definitely faster. i used to think that ram was the best bang for the buck but i would think that this is a much more noticeable upgrade than ram. i didn't do any hard drive tests but it seems a lot faster. i see no studdering problems but i don't really recall that being a mac problem, i think that was more of a windows thing. no bootcamp as i don't use it - sorry. i use my macbook mostly for the apps that i mentioned earlier (no games - unless you count online poker)and it seems to work great. i've only been using it for an hour or two so take it for what it's worth.

i didn't do anything special on the install as far as ahci. i just made sure that i had the proper file format and installed. just like any other drive.

i'm using this on a stock aluminum macbook 2.0ghz with 2 gig ram.

i ordered a memory upgrade from newegg but it hasn't arrived yet(makes for a better comparison).

i can't compare this to the intel or any other ssd because it's the first and only ssd i have owned or used.

i understand that this is the macbook pro forum but this is where i found the titan posting.

i'll be sure to post if i have any problems.

i'm sure you guy's have questions - so fire away.

eric
 
I purchased the G.SKILL TITAN Series FM-25S2S-256GBT1 2.5" 256GB SATA II from Newegg several days ago. Received it yesterday and proceeded to hook it up via a universal USB 2 drive adapter to my Macbook Pro running OS X 10.5.6. The drive was not formatted so I ran Disk Utility. Proceeded to format the drive with Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and that was it. After that the drive would mount but could not be read or written to. Disk Utility would hang trying to read the drive.
After an hour or so I gave up!
Hooked the drive up to a Windows XP machine and to remove the GPT Protective Partition I went into DOS and ran DISKPART, selected the disk and used the CLEAN function to remove all data etc. I then tried formatting the drive using Disk Management but without success.
G.Skill tech support in CA was no help as they have no experience with Macs. Their thought was that the RAID 0 controller got corrupted somehow by the Disk Utility. Anyway I returned the drive for a replacement (no refund from Newegg). When the new drive arrives I will run under Windows first.
I am also still awaiting some response from Taiwan (once the New Year celebrations are over).
The fun never stops....:)
 
ShortArc said:
I purchased the G.SKILL TITAN Series FM-25S2S-256GBT1 2.5" 256GB SATA II from Newegg several days ago. Received it yesterday and proceeded to hook it up via a universal USB 2 drive adapter to my Macbook Pro running OS X 10.5.6. The drive was not formatted so I ran Disk Utility. Proceeded to format the drive with Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and that was it. After that the drive would mount but could not be read or written to. Disk Utility would hang trying to read the drive.
After an hour or so I gave up!
Hooked the drive up to a Windows XP machine and to remove the GPT Protective Partition I went into DOS and ran DISKPART, selected the disk and used the CLEAN function to remove all data etc. I then tried formatting the drive using Disk Management but without success.
G.Skill tech support in CA was no help as they have no experience with Macs. Their thought was that the RAID 0 controller got corrupted somehow by the Disk Utility. Anyway I returned the drive for a replacement (no refund from Newegg). When the new drive arrives I will run under Windows first.
I am also still awaiting some response from Taiwan (once the New Year celebrations are over).
The fun never stops....:)
Click to expand...

Make sure you select GUID Partition Table in options when formatting the drive.
 
MikhailT said:
Make sure you select GUID Partition Table in options when formatting the drive.
Click to expand...

Thanks. Disk Utility did that by default. I checked using Info.
Right now I can only speculate that either the drive was faulty or Disk Utility broke the RAID 0 pack?!
 
louden said:
Can someone post their XBench scores for the SSD? I'd like to see what kinds of numbers you're getting.
Click to expand...

i ran this one time - just the disk part. i'm not real familiar with this program but there you go. i had firefox going while this was running if that makes a difference.

this is on a macbook - not a macbook pro

eric
 

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I don't know about you but I always clone my original drive with CCC or SuperDuper first. Using a USB universal drive adapter makes that first step easy and relatively fast. Then I install the new drive.

louden said:
Hooked it up via USB? Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose?
Click to expand...
 
@ShortArc, what model MBP do you have ?. The earlier ones does SATA 1.5G only on the Intel ICH8 controller. The Unibody has the true SATA 2 that supports real AHCI at 3.0Gb/s.

This might explain why the titan works on the Unibody MB 2.0Ghz. Also, if you got an eSata ExpressCard, you might try to mount the volume on the eSata and check if it mounts and sees your data.

The Xbench numbers looks good enough @140MB/s read and @100MB/s sequential writes.
 
fteoath64 said:
@ShortArc, what model MBP do you have ?. The earlier ones does SATA 1.5G only on the Intel ICH8 controller. The Unibody has the true SATA 2 that supports real AHCI at 3.0Gb/s.

This might explain why the titan works on the Unibody MB 2.0Ghz. Also, if you got an eSata ExpressCard, you might try to mount the volume on the eSata and check if it mounts and sees your data.

The Xbench numbers looks good enough @140MB/s read and @100MB/s sequential writes.
Click to expand...

fteoath64,
Thanks for the info!

However, I have the new Unibody MBP 2.8GHz.

Do you have the 256MB G.Skill working in yours?
Again the only thing I can think of are the dual controllers for RAID 0....
 
Hmm -

So, can someone correct me/comment on this? -

If you have a non-unibody MBP or MB, you're probably looking at SATA 1.5Gb/s so getting something like the Intel X25-M will be bottlenecked (on reads) by your system.

That makes this G.Skill Titan more attractive, as it's reads are pretty close to the max you're going to see - and it writes a little faster.

Therefore, all around, if you're wanting to buy now for a non-unibody, it looks like one of the G.Skill Titans might be the way to go.

If you've got a unibody MB or MBP, you've got SATA 3.0Gb/S - and can better take advantage of the X25-M and beyond...

Is that right? If that is correct, you'd think G.Skill would be touting that...
 
ShortArc said:
fteoath64,
Do you have the 256MB G.Skill working in yours?
Again the only thing I can think of are the dual controllers for RAID 0....
Click to expand...

I'll be watching this thread - as it would be interesting to know how you all do, and if you can get Bootcamp to work with the 256 GB drive...

Although I don't get warm fuzzies if the manufacturer throws their hands in the air with respect to Mac OSX and I'd be happier with better reviews on Newegg.

Thanks for testing this for the rest of us...
 
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