Is a 60gb OCZ Sandforce SSD enough for A Boot Drive?

[dissolve]

I'm running off the same drive and it's working perfectly. They give you 60GB because they save some (~4GB) for over-provisioning so I believe you can actually get it pretty full and still see the same performance. With all of my apps, I've only used 20GB. Just move you Home folder to a traditional large drive and install libraries (Soundtrack, etc.) on it. I also installed my larger games on the Home Applications folder as I don't really need them on the SSD. From reviews, these drives seem to work well in raid so you can always add another as prices drop.

 

[hugodrax]

Hi guys would like some opinions on getting a 60gb OCZ sandforce ssd as a boot drive for a 2010 mac pro.

Is it enough? I have done some research and found that this is good value and has what seems to be the best performance. 60gb is really the maximum I can afford at this time. I have read that OWC ssd drive are rated highly in the US but as I am in the uk the OCZ seems comparable.

This is my first post so I appreciate any feedback

Pointless, your day to day work is on your data (Where 90% of the I/O happens). Once you booted up your machine on that SSD most of the I/O will happen on your slow drive. Kind of throwing away money.

You are better off investing the money in more RAM (Which has a big impact) and if your gonna do SSD, go big and put everything including the home files and data, where 90% of the I/O occurs.

Buying a 60GB SSD just for the boot drive is like buying a Ferrari engine and trying to stick it in a Toyota Corolla and somehow mate it to the 4 speed automatic transmission.


Why dont you wait and get your computer first.

 

[DesignFusion]

Pointless, your day to day work is on your data (Where 90% of the I/O happens). Once you booted up your machine on that SSD most of the I/O will happen on your slow drive. Kind of throwing away money.

You are better off investing the money in more RAM (Which has a big impact) and if your gonna do SSD, go big and put everything including the home files and data, where 90% of the I/O occurs.

Buying a 60GB SSD just for the boot drive is like buying a Ferrari engine and trying to stick it in a Toyota Corolla and somehow mate it to the 4 speed automatic transmission.


Why dont you wait and get your computer first.

That kinda makes sense I guess. Im just exited for once being able to upgrade components. So maybe in the future I will get one, for now maybe I should enter the real world and get a screen first.

 

[deconstruct60]

hmm thanks for your thoughts however I to was under the impression you needed to keep space free for performance on spinning harddrives, i did not realise the same rule applied to SSD's.

It isn't performance as much as durability. If you have 75-99% of your drive full of static data it wears out faster. What you are effectively doing is disabling the wear leveling mechanism on the drive.

Most folks around here get fixated on the I/O speed numbers, there is more to a drive than just one dimension.

Unless you have moved your home directory there is a decent amount of writing going on. That's not an above normal amount, but it pragmatically is as fill the drive up to low free space percentages.

The over-provision buffers will mean the performance doesn't go completely into the crapper right away, but you are cranking up the number of writes to a smaller set of cells. That is going to make the write amplication go up over what the vendor planned on.

As much as I would like to "man-up" unfortunatly Im not in a situation that I can afford it.

If the SSD drive isn't going to make you more money by using it, then don't buy it. If buying just so that Photoshop opens fast when you double click it .... that isn't important if don't have core basis of the system in place. If a student not going to do 10 more commercial assignments in a couple of months in saved time. If don't have a quality monitor that would be a higher priority.