I pulled the trigger on the OCZ Vertex 2, 120 GB SSD!!!! Pretty excited to get rid of my minute plus start up, and 40+ seconds to load AI CS5!! Can't wait! For $189 after rebate, its not so bad. I also got a nice enclosure with firewire 800 for only $40! I will post up some speed tests as soon as I get it installed.
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I finally did it! (Bought SSD)
- Thread starter CW Jones
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Stupid Question
Even as I'm asking it I realise it is a dense question, but does SSD really improve application load times and boot times? Would it greatly improve the speed of my laptop (check signature)? I use iTunes with a 300+GB library, which is the only thing stopping me from upgrading, but i could always stream from Time Capsule if they are really that good lol!
Even as I'm asking it I realise it is a dense question, but does SSD really improve application load times and boot times? Would it greatly improve the speed of my laptop (check signature)? I use iTunes with a 300+GB library, which is the only thing stopping me from upgrading, but i could always stream from Time Capsule if they are really that good lol!
It does, I've owned a few SSD's but always found myself installing so much stuff that I'd need a 500GB drive which would make my bank account kick my @$$. I've just learned to deal with having 7200rpm drives in my notebooks.
Ya from what my friend is telling me.. its like 10X faster load times and start up. I have seen his start up and its very impressive (for the Apple drive lol)
I also got it for portability. I am constantly on the go with my laptop and while I always am aware of having it, sometimes my backpack might slide down or get bumped a bit so this was a no brainer upgrade for me, it was just a matter of when it was going to happen.
I was biting at the bit to get one and managed to hold of for about 3 months due to pricing, but this was just far to good to pass up! I am sure it'll be even less in another month or so haha
I also got it for portability. I am constantly on the go with my laptop and while I always am aware of having it, sometimes my backpack might slide down or get bumped a bit so this was a no brainer upgrade for me, it was just a matter of when it was going to happen.
I was biting at the bit to get one and managed to hold of for about 3 months due to pricing, but this was just far to good to pass up! I am sure it'll be even less in another month or so haha
The rough read/write of a HDD is like 70mb/s... the SSD's are 285/275mb/s (the vertex 2 is anyways). The only issue with SSD's is there is no warning upon death. Just boom, dead. So back up often. Also, the degradation issue seems to be rampent amongst most brands... the read/write speeds drop significantly after use. One of the few brands I've found that doesn't have this issue is the OWC. Another member turned me on to them and been researching 3rd party reviews/benchmarks for hours now.
Also there is no support for OSX for the firmware updates with the vertex 2... so you will need to have access to a windows boot in order to apply the firmware updates. No idea why this is, but they are apparently "working on it".... should have been done ages ago.
The Vertex 2 has TRIM, but OSX does not support it.... maybe that will change with Lion.
I'm currently hovering over the purchase button on the OCZ Vertex 2 or the OWC... both 120GB SSD's. The price diff. is about $40 but the reviews on the OWC are out of this world... and they have full OSX support.
One other thing to note, is that SSD's are limited to a certain amount of read/writes and then they die.
Both the OWC and Vertex 2 drives are SandForce-powered with onboard garbage collection and write amplification (compressing data before writing, meaning that cells don't get cycled as much), so degradation due to lack of TRIM support is quite diminished.
They're essentially the same drive, though with OWC you do tend to get more responsive customer service. As for reliability, there have been reports of issues with both brands but I don't think there's any widespread problems one way or the other.
I just bought a 60GB Vertex 2 for a 2007 MacBook myself, so we'll see how that goes.
Go take a read on the OCZ forums for OSX.... it's really disheartening... it's nothing but horror stories with their SSD's and macs. Even the reps chime in on multiple occasions and all they say is, "We know the issues are there, we apologize but we have no answers right now."..... doesn't thrill me.
THAT BEING SAID... you have to take into account that most people ONLY post the bad stuff... so it's hard to tell all the amazing GOOD stories.
The OCW in benchmarks keeps the better read/write speeds over the OCZ (not by much, but they do)... even over the Crucial.
But they are pretty darn close overall.... so that's why I'm still debating... gonna purchase tonight.
My end setup is a 2007 MBP with 6GB ram, 120GB SSD, 750GB HDD (optibay)... then my current 120GB HDD in a USB enclosure, and my optical drive in a USB enclosure.... about 10TB of externals..... one day I will actually have to upgrade to a new macbook pro, but damn this thing just keeps on ticking!
I frequent the OCZ forums as well, and you're quite right - people post bad stuff most of the time. It's rare to see someone stop by and go "SWEET MOTHER OF GOD THIS DRIVE IS AMAZING". I've spent enough time with SSD's to not be worried in the slightest for reliability - even home users should back up data which is critical; we have SSD's at work and I have yet to replace even our 3 year old drives due to degradation. I'd love to because technology has evolved, but try getting that budget from the Government.
Hell I have mechanical drives and still have my computers auto-image onto my file server, which is also offsite backed up because if I lost the several hundred GB's of pics my kids the wife took, I'd be on the back of a milk carton. The TRUE reliability of SSD's are a question mark since they're still relatively new to the commercial market, enterprise drives are still way to expensive for users, but their ability to just keep going is rather unquestioned now.
Hell I have mechanical drives and still have my computers auto-image onto my file server, which is also offsite backed up because if I lost the several hundred GB's of pics my kids the wife took, I'd be on the back of a milk carton. The TRUE reliability of SSD's are a question mark since they're still relatively new to the commercial market, enterprise drives are still way to expensive for users, but their ability to just keep going is rather unquestioned now.
Any preference between the OCZ and OWC then? Price aside, as I already know the OWC is about $40 more. Killing me on pulling the trigger on which of the two to get.
I haven't used the OWC personally, however I have heard a great many things about them. OCZ I've had numerous drives from, for various applications- I have no problems recommending them to anyone. That being said I would probably go with OWC to give them a try, since people around here at MacRumors tend to love their reliability.
Yeah, think that's what I'm gonna do then... pick up the SSD and probably the 6GB ram from them... they are offering $18.00 for my old ram (which I have no use for anyways).
I wouldn't send in your old RAM... but thats just me. What happens if something goes wrong on your laptop and you take it in for service and they tell you "the RAM wasn't installed correctly, we aren't gonna warranty this fix." What happens then? I would think the $18 is worth keeping the stock RAM to just put back in if you need to be serviced. Just a thought, that $18 might not be worth it down the road. I haven't really seen this happen too much but still.
Well that's what's great about SSDs... if you're not encoding video all day or wanting to play the latest games, it can keep a system relevant for much longer than was previously possible.
If you can spare the extra $40, I'd say go for OWC. They've got a nice LEED Platinum-certified headquarters so it's usually worth supporting for that reason alone. I got my Mini's RAM from them in September but we're on tight upgrade budget for the moment so we sprung for the black friday OCZ deal. Before this week though I've been impressed at how OWC has been closing the price gap the past few months.
Well if you had read my setup, I'm def. WAY out of warranty
My MBP is 4 years old I never buy the extended warranties. It's from Nov. 2007. I'm not worried about needing the stock ram for anything. When this baby dies (IF SHE EVER DIES! *KNOCKS ON WOOD*)... I'll be buying myself a new MBA.OMG this SSD is AMAZING!!!!!
I knew it would be fast... but had no idea how fricken fast it would actually be!!! Its day 1 and I would never go back to a HDD, no joke. I am glad I went with the OCZ when I did because I got it for $219 with a $30 mail in rebate so it actually cost me $189 for a 120 Vertex 2! A few days ago, it went back up to $239 (I believe).
I also got and would HIGHLY recommend the MACally firewire 800 enclosure for about $40. Its a metal case, small, portable and has firewire 800, 400, and usb! That being said, it helped my migration time go from about an hour down to about 15-20 minutes!
I was a little worried about the 1.5 Gigabit negotiated speed, but when I went to check once the new SSD was installed, it was a full 3 Gigabit. Here is a screen shot of an X Bench I just ran 10 seconds ago.
I knew it would be fast... but had no idea how fricken fast it would actually be!!! Its day 1 and I would never go back to a HDD, no joke. I am glad I went with the OCZ when I did because I got it for $219 with a $30 mail in rebate so it actually cost me $189 for a 120 Vertex 2! A few days ago, it went back up to $239 (I believe).
I also got and would HIGHLY recommend the MACally firewire 800 enclosure for about $40. Its a metal case, small, portable and has firewire 800, 400, and usb! That being said, it helped my migration time go from about an hour down to about 15-20 minutes!
I was a little worried about the 1.5 Gigabit negotiated speed, but when I went to check once the new SSD was installed, it was a full 3 Gigabit. Here is a screen shot of an X Bench I just ran 10 seconds ago.
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Same here, I just purchased the OWC 120GB SSD. After reading about how that's probably better suited for the 13" MBP, I went that route. I was wicked nervous about my kids using the laptop with the hard drive. I can them jostling it just a bit but enough to cause the drive to crash.