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SeaWind12

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 30, 2008
26
0
Which SSD or HDD is faster in macbook pro? I am thinking whether i should order SSD instead of HDD in my macbook pro. But my computer should work faster/better/have definite advantages. Is SSD worth it?
 
Why is that some of you here down the Apple SSD? It's hardly any more expensive than a 3rd party. It's a very fast drive in read and write speeds, believe me, I know. There's also no issue with support in terms of the firmware.
 
Why is that some of you here down the Apple SSD? It's hardly any more expensive than a 3rd party. It's a very fast drive in read and write speeds, believe me, I know. There's also no issue with support in terms of the firmware.



It's exactly. If I was going to pay the same price for a stock drive from Apple or a new drive from Newegg, I would opt for Newegg.

reason. I've taken both paths. I've gotten stock SSDs from Apple in two MacBook Pros. Both times, I ended up selling those drives on eBAy and buying drives online through Newegg because they were so much more faster. Apple's drives are just as expensive as others with very different performance stats.
 
Why is that some of you here down the Apple SSD? It's hardly any more expensive than a 3rd party. It's a very fast drive in read and write speeds, believe me, I know. There's also no issue with support in terms of the firmware.

I second that. It's performed amazingly well for me, plus there is official support from Apple in the case that something goes horribly awry (the sense of security).
 
I second that. It's performed amazingly well for me, plus there is official support from Apple in the case that something goes horribly awry (the sense of security).

Absolutely, that's my biggest concern. Sure the SSD's are more fail proof than than standard HDD's but in case something goes wrong I don't want to have to pull out the drive, send it back to the manufacturer and be without a drive until they swap me for refurb, since Applecare doesn't cover it. With Apple's drive I can take the whole MBP to the local Apple store and let them take care of it since Apple's warranty covers it, plus I can get the Applecare extended warranty and my Apple supplied $300 SSD is covered. The 3rd party $300 SSD is not.
 
Which SSD or HDD is faster in macbook pro? I am thinking whether i should order SSD instead of HDD in my macbook pro. But my computer should work faster/better/have definite advantages. Is SSD worth it?

If you have around $500 and willing to spend it then I recommend an intel X25-M 160GB as they are currently in the $400 - $500 range and nothing else out there can outperform it overall.

As stated before apple will NOT cover 3rd party drives that fail, however the intel drives have a 3 year manufacturer warranty.

I don't recommend going for the Apple SSD for many reasons:
1) It's more expensive than its worth.
2) Compared to what you can get for the same price its a rip-off.
3) Installing/removing a Hard drive is REAL EASY, don't ever let that turn you away from installing on your own, apple even has documentation on how to do it if you need.
 
Why is that some of you here down the Apple SSD? It's hardly any more expensive than a 3rd party. It's a very fast drive in read and write speeds, believe me, I know. There's also no issue with support in terms of the firmware.

Because Apple stock SSDs have huge gap or are missing in read/write performance when compared to a third party SSD.

OCZ and Intel have great SSDs available. The latter being more expensive but great performer and the first being affordable but still a great drive (better than Apple drives)
 
The only SSD to buy now is the Intel x25-m 34nm (G2). It brutally sodomizes every SSD and HDD in everyday usage and random write benchmarks. And it has not trade-offs or hidden/future problems like other SSDs, you can really buy it with confidence. Comes in 80gb and 160gb sizes. And it's at the same time the best and the best value.
 
My whole thing is the price and I use my laptop for my main iTunes and Media library, so I need minimum of 500GB and the cheapest 256SSD is $619.00 at Tiger direct with a Write Speed of 190 and Read Speed of 250.

Yes the read/write speeds are way quicker, but they need to come way down in price and they will bc all MFG's are pushing the envelope for 500GB and 1TB SSD's which are out, just that they are $1,200 to $2,000

Just remember when a 120GB hard drive was expensive and state of the art, not too long ago, now you can get them for pennies. Eventually it all will come down, it has to in order for retail sales to survive, and it always goes in cycles.
 
I got tha apple ssd and i love it, it runs very quiet compared to nomal hdd and it turns my computer in 15 secounds. is it the fastest ssd out there ? nope but if anything goes wrong with it apple care got me covered
 
If you have around $500 and willing to spend it then I recommend an intel X25-M 160GB as they are currently in the $400 - $500 range and nothing else out there can outperform it overall.

As stated before apple will NOT cover 3rd party drives that fail, however the intel drives have a 3 year manufacturer warranty.

I don't recommend going for the Apple SSD for many reasons:
1) It's more expensive than its worth.
2) Compared to what you can get for the same price its a rip-off.
3) Installing/removing a Hard drive is REAL EASY, don't ever let that turn you away from installing on your own, apple even has documentation on how to do it if you need.

(1) and (2) are the same thing. I'm just sayin'...
 
SSD is the number one way to speed up and ensure stable operating while on the go. The drive represents a far larger bottleneck than any other component on your MBP. You want to speed it up, an SSD provides over 10x the speed of a 7200 rpm HDD. So, if a 7200 drive is worth $100 to you, an SSD should definitely merit an upgrade definitely at $500 or even more!

I would buy an Intel SSD. Remove the original HDD and set aside to resell it with the MBP. Plan to move your SSD on to your next Mac notebook. It will be a reliable champion for speed and integrity for many years to come. HDDs are deathly slow, snail's pace, compared to an SSD.
 
The only SSD to buy now is the Intel x25-m 34nm (G2). It brutally sodomizes every SSD and HDD in everyday usage and random write benchmarks. And it has not trade-offs or hidden/future problems like other SSDs, you can really buy it with confidence. Comes in 80gb and 160gb sizes. And it's at the same time the best and the best value.
Well, an interesting turn of phrase, but also a wide exaggeration. Intel is still not yet the only SSD-maker on the planet, and their newest SSD's will be excellent, but so are many other SSD's. Most users will notice little difference in real use amongst the recent alternatives, other than those of size and price. What will always be always noticed is the difference between an HDD and a SSD.
 
When talking about SSDs, I always recommend OCZ Vertex.
I'm using one in a white MB since March without any problems.

Just today I ordered another Vertex for my X340. :)
 
hehe.. yeah i just check the SSD comparison thread

hrmmm... seems the OCZ has better write speeds than the new Intel coming out. i'll dig into it more before i pull the trigger
 
Crucial's new SSDs are, without doubt, the best performance/cost option at the minute. Benchmarks have them pretty close to the Intels yet they're considerably cheaper.
 
SSD’s aren’t worth it yet, IMO.

Prices need to come down a lot before I can justify paying 10x more just so my system can boot in half the time (the 20-30 seconds I save isn’t worth it), or have Safari load in 1 second vs. 3 (again, not worth $600).

I think buying a smaller one (32-64GB) for a desktop would be smart, and just use it to boot your OS and some major apps.
 
When comparing the different numbers, keep in mind the following (borrowed from Anandtech.com):

There are four basic pillars to SSD performance that I like to look at: random read, random write, sequential read and sequential write speed. A good SSD must be strong in all four categories, but some are more noticeable than others. Random read and write speed, particularly of small files (e.g. 4KB) are normally what make our desktop hard drives feel so slow. These random operations are everything from file and table updates to search queries and loading applications; they aren't random over the entire space of the disk but they are random enough to bring conventional hard drives to their knees.

Sequential read/write speed is what you encounter when copying large files. How quickly you can move a Blu-ray image around is determined by these values.

Intel SSD are way better than the competition when it comes to random write performance. This is what you´ll notice in everyday use, not the sequential read/write performance:

And the X25-M G2's true strength: random write performance. Once again, we're faster than the X25-E and nearly 40% faster than the X25-M G1. None of the Indilinx or Samsung drives can touch Intel here.

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3607&p=4
 
Crucial's new SSDs are, without doubt, the best performance/cost option at the minute. Benchmarks have them pretty close to the Intels yet they're considerably cheaper.

False.....

The Intel are absolutely the best QUALITY/cost and Real_World_PERFORMANCE/cost.......

People this time it's a NO-BRAINER, buy an Intel and live happy.

Reasons:

- the best performance in random 4k write (the MOST important parameter for REAL usage performance!)

- MINIMAL speed decrease when fully written, while others need things like GarbageCollector and TRIM, Intel SSD don't really need them! They start from the best baseline and have MINIMAL decrease! So, NO HASSLE, NO maintenance and playing with firmwares, NO HOPING FOR "please please apple support TRIM in osx", NO HASSLE

- best latency

- best controller

Anand is right, no SSD of this generation can beat an Intel (especially the new 34nm Postville), people this time the choice is too EASY, buy an Intel and live happy.
 
buy an Intel and live happy.

I went the opposite, purchased a 500GB HDD and am living happy counting the hundreds of dollars I saved over buying a SSD.

I don't think SSD's are worth the cost at all. Unless you are using your computer in a very extreme situation, paying the insanely high prices per GB seems insane to me. But thats just me.
 
I went the opposite, purchased a 500GB HDD and am living happy counting the hundreds of dollars I saved over buying a SSD.

I don't think SSD's are worth the cost at all. Unless you are using your computer in a very extreme situation, paying the insanely high prices per GB seems insane to me. But thats just me.

Try an Intel SSD before saying that it isn't worth......
It's only a matter of personal need of storage and personal budget....in other words, it's only a matter of WHEN you're gonna buy one...
An Intel SSD disintegrate your HDD in every possible way and in every possible activity beside...storage space. But for storage space it is possible to use a fw800 bus-powered hdd. Or an HDD in a MCE Optibay.

Personally, I will wait the Intel x-25m 160gb to get below 300€ (in Europe now it costs 400€) and then get it immediatly....finally we are out of the "experimental and hassle" phase of the SSDs and everyone should approach this wonderful technology as soon as possible....it's the SINGLE best performance upgrade (in everyday usage) of the last 5-10 years....it eliminates a long-hated bottleneck of our machines...
 
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