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Installing and Configuring new Intel G2 SSD

J

jimmy43

macrumors regular
Original poster
Apr 9, 2008
105
82
Hey guys, I just picked up a new intel g2 160gb and I'd appreciate some help maybe tips on how to get it setup nicely.

(BTW if you live in canada or vancouver, these guys have a good deal:
http://www.anitec.ca/promo/cp9jn3mwee :D)


So first thing, I need to physically install the drive. Is there a good tutorial for a macbook pro 4,1 (old style aluminum) that shows you how to swap the hard drives?

I'd like to just mirror the contents of my internal drive, and I've got an external 2.5 inch enclosure to help me. So, do I take out my current drive and put that in the enclosure and startup and mirror to the SSD (with super duper?)? Or is there a better way..

Also does it need any special drivers or setting up? And finally are there any tips on perfomance tuning and optimizations I can make.

Thanks in advance for the help! :cool:
 
I just did it with mine (got it from newegg). I was hoping to have had it done in a shop, but did it myself since I needed it ready for Monday and they wouldn't do it on the weekend.

Literally took about 20 minutes to swap RAM and SSD. The hardest part was getting the right tools, but I picked up a multitool (multiple ends to swap on) that had all the required bits at Home Depot for about $15. It literally made things a breeze.

Google around - there are videos and such, but it's basically, unscrew the screws (put them down in a pattern so you know which goes where), lift off the back, and you're there.

Good luck!
 
Thanks, I watched the video and it looks like i'm gonna need to get some tools. Do you have a link for that multi-tool you got from homedepot?

Also, I got some external backup drives and I was reading that it's a good idea to zero-out the drive before use. Is this a good idea on an SSD or is it really dumb?
 
Which machine do you have prior to Unibody? If so it's a little challenging because there's a lot of screws you need to undo.

jimmy43 said:
Thanks, I watched the video and it looks like i'm gonna need to get some tools. Do you have a link for that multi-tool you got from homedepot?

Also, I got some external backup drives and I was reading that it's a good idea to zero-out the drive before use. Is this a good idea on an SSD or is it really dumb?
Click to expand...
 
jimmy43 said:
Thanks, I watched the video and it looks like i'm gonna need to get some tools. Do you have a link for that multi-tool you got from homedepot?

Also, I got some external backup drives and I was reading that it's a good idea to zero-out the drive before use. Is this a good idea on an SSD or is it really dumb?
Click to expand...

I wouldn't zero out the drive. Hopefully someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe most SSDs will interpret this as the drive being written to the whole way through which will degrade performance.
 
seepel said:
I wouldn't zero out the drive. Hopefully someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe most SSDs will interpret this as the drive being written to the whole way through which will degrade performance.
Click to expand...

That is generally true. However, for me, after installing my G2 it was running pretty slow. I mean one minute just to boot. So I formatted and zeroed out the drive, then reinstalled. Now I'm getting normal speeds(25sec boot times).

So, I would say, install without doing a zero out, and if you have problems then reinstall and perform a zero out.
 
Ok that's great help. I am planning on using super duper to mirror the contents of the internal drive so I hope that won't degrade performance.

On a side note, is there any way to get your ssd back to 100% performance after some use or is it stuck with 90% performance for life..
 
jimmy43 said:
Ok that's great help. I am planning on using super duper to mirror the contents of the internal drive so I hope that won't degrade performance.

On a side note, is there any way to get your ssd back to 100% performance after some use or is it stuck with 90% performance for life..
Click to expand...

I don't think this will really be necessary it seems a bit scary hearing all this stuff about SSDs degrading with use, but it isn't really all that bad. I forget the numbers off hand but I think the performance hit on the Intel X25-M G1/G2 is going to be less than 10%, which still creams the crap out of any HDD.

But if you absolutely need to... I know OCZ has a tool for their Indilinx drives that will wipe them clean, I would suspect there is a similar tool for the X25-M G2. I would definitely do some extensive google searching before doing it though, something along the lines of "Intel X25-M G2 _____" where the blank is something like wipe, wiper tool, secure erase, restore, etc. If you or anyone else has tried/does try this I'd love to hear how it goes.
 
seepel said:
I don't think this will really be necessary it seems a bit scary hearing all this stuff about SSDs degrading with use, but it isn't really all that bad. I forget the numbers off hand but I think the performance hit on the Intel X25-M G1/G2 is going to be less than 10%, which still creams the crap out of any HDD.

But if you absolutely need to... I know OCZ has a tool for their Indilinx drives that will wipe them clean, I would suspect there is a similar tool for the X25-M G2. I would definitely do some extensive google searching before doing it though, something along the lines of "Intel X25-M G2 _____" where the blank is something like wipe, wiper tool, secure erase, restore, etc. If you or anyone else has tried/does try this I'd love to hear how it goes.
Click to expand...

I've mentioned this in other SSD threads, but it's worth repeating. The average user will likely not notice the slowdown observed with the Intel drives. It is statistically observable in benchmarks, but I'd be really surprised if you noticed it in everyday use:

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3531&p=1
 
Thiol said:
I've mentioned this in other SSD threads, but it's worth repeating. The average user will likely not notice the slowdown observed with the Intel drives. It is statistically observable in benchmarks, but I'd be really surprised if you noticed it in everyday use:

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3531&p=1
Click to expand...

Thanks, for sure I understand that it won't be noticable. I'm really not picky about getting 1001% performance out of my comps, but I figure if I'm going to format in a few months I might as well clean the ssd and get it back to 100%. If anything I'm sure it wouldnt hurt to do it every year or so, considering I will always have a 100% mirror on an external drive. So it would be a trivial 2 hour or less procedure, assuming there is such a tool..
 
I was looking into a swap from hdd to ssd as-well when I found a great review and comparison with the Intel x25 2g against an samsung 7200 rpm hdd

Unfortunately this review is in Dutch, so i guess most of you can't read it, but you can look at the benchmarks.

http://tweakers.net/productreview/13763/intel-ssdsa2mh080g2c1-80gb.html

To get back to the question, intel offers a so called trim and uses updates to restore most of the ssd's power and speed. This doesn't fully restore but the difference is to small to notice.
The big problem on this point is, that as far as I know, this trim is only offered on windows 7, so you will have to look if there's an option for osx as-well (can't imagine not to be).

Owh and seepel, I see you have an unibody macbookpro with the x25 ssd from intel. I was thinking about getting the same one.
The review seems verry optimistic but how is your experience with this compared to an hdd?
 
I don't think there is official support for TRIM on SL...

Install was a success btw, so thanks for the help! Definitely enjoying those 15 second boot times :D:D:D
 
I installed a 80gb G2 yesterday in my 15" mbp, here are my xbench results (I have the model with the 9400m only). Are those fine for a new ssd? I have nothing to compare.

Results 186.70
System Info
Xbench Version 1.3
System Version 10.6.2 (10C540)
Physical RAM 4096 MB
Model MacBookPro5,4
Drive Type INTEL SSDSA2M080G2GC
CPU Test 180.69
GCD Loop 295.94 15.60 Mops/sec
Floating Point Basic 145.23 3.45 Gflop/sec
vecLib FFT 119.73 3.95 Gflop/sec
Floating Point Library 284.03 49.46 Mops/sec
Thread Test 261.87
Computation 328.93 6.66 Mops/sec, 4 threads
Lock Contention 217.52 9.36 Mlocks/sec, 4 threads
Memory Test 189.25
System 234.27
Allocate 364.96 1.34 Malloc/sec
Fill 186.03 9045.26 MB/sec
Copy 213.22 4403.92 MB/sec
Stream 158.74
Copy 150.93 3117.36 MB/sec
Scale 151.05 3120.69 MB/sec
Add 167.48 3567.72 MB/sec
Triad 167.16 3575.96 MB/sec
Quartz Graphics Test 199.54
Line 174.47 11.62 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
Rectangle 227.89 68.04 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
Circle 194.21 15.83 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
Bezier 204.63 5.16 Kbeziers/sec [50% alpha]
Text 203.99 12.76 Kchars/sec
OpenGL Graphics Test 93.50
Spinning Squares 93.50 118.61 frames/sec
User Interface Test 305.97
Elements 305.97 1.40 Krefresh/sec
Disk Test 257.67
Sequential 166.79
Uncached Write 145.25 89.18 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 139.65 79.01 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 133.79 39.16 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 406.06 204.08 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 566.14
Uncached Write 694.73 73.55 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 256.74 82.19 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 1430.91 10.14 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 968.89 179.79 MB/sec [256K blocks]
 
seepel said:
I don't think this will really be necessary it seems a bit scary hearing all this stuff about SSDs degrading with use, but it isn't really all that bad. I forget the numbers off hand but I think the performance hit on the Intel X25-M G1/G2 is going to be less than 10%, which still creams the crap out of any HDD.

But if you absolutely need to... I know OCZ has a tool for their Indilinx drives that will wipe them clean, I would suspect there is a similar tool for the X25-M G2. I would definitely do some extensive google searching before doing it though, something along the lines of "Intel X25-M G2 _____" where the blank is something like wipe, wiper tool, secure erase, restore, etc. If you or anyone else has tried/does try this I'd love to hear how it goes.
Click to expand...

How long have you had your SSD's running for? Any serious problems? I'd love to wait on the Vertex 2, after reading the Preview on it..
 
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