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Is the Toshiba 512GB SSD any good?

J

jeromey

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 29, 2012
8
0
Australia and USA
Hi all,

OWC are offering this SSD at what appears to be a great price... Maybe TOO good?

512GB Toshiba THNSNC512GBSJ 2.5-inch SATA 3Gb/s 9.5mm SSD (MLC). 1 year OWC fulfilled warranty - brand new units. (THNSNC512GBSJ)

The link is here: http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Toshiba/HNSNC512GBSJ/?APC=READERSPC&Source=Blast12Sep

I just bought 16Gb to upgrade my Late 2011 15" MacBook Pro (it is still shipping) and then they sent me this offer. How can it be so cheap?

Any input greatly appreciated.
 
jeromey said:
Hi all,

OWC are offering this SSD at what appears to be a great price... Maybe TOO good?

512GB Toshiba THNSNC512GBSJ 2.5-inch SATA 3Gb/s 9.5mm SSD (MLC). 1 year OWC fulfilled warranty - brand new units. (THNSNC512GBSJ)

The link is here: http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Toshiba/HNSNC512GBSJ/?APC=READERSPC&Source=Blast12Sep

I just bought 16Gb to upgrade my Late 2011 15" MacBook Pro (it is still shipping) and then they sent me this offer. How can it be so cheap?

Any input greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...

That's because it has roughly half the read and write speeds of other drives like the Samsung 830, Vertex 4 or the Crucial M4, but it'll still blow the doors off of a 5400 rpm drive. It's a great price at $.54/gb, but you can spend $130-230 more and get the same size in much faster SSD. I see this being good for the following scenarios:

1. You've got an older sata 2 MBP and want the most SSD storage possible without going the optibay route.

2. You've got a newer mbp and are more concerned with storage space and value over maximum performance.

3. You're wanting to put it into a external HD enclosure.

Oddly enough, this is the cheapest price I can find for this drive on a quick online search. This and 8 gb of RAM would breathe new life into a 2008 or 2009 MBP for relatively low cost. I'd put this in my 08 unibody in a heartbeat if my wife wasn't using it as an always on desktop replacement. (She's already happy with the 8 gb RAM upgrade.)
 
jeromey said:
Hi all,

OWC are offering this SSD at what appears to be a great price... Maybe TOO good?

512GB Toshiba THNSNC512GBSJ 2.5-inch SATA 3Gb/s 9.5mm SSD (MLC). 1 year OWC fulfilled warranty - brand new units. (THNSNC512GBSJ)

The link is here: http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Toshiba/HNSNC512GBSJ/?APC=READERSPC&Source=Blast12Sep

I just bought 16Gb to upgrade my Late 2011 15" MacBook Pro (it is still shipping) and then they sent me this offer. How can it be so cheap?

Any input greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...

Is is cheap because is it a SATA II drive, so slower then newer SATA III drives. That said, unless you are doing a lot of data intensive work you are not likely to notice the difference. Going to this relatively slow SATA II drive from a hard drive would still be a huge performance boost in any machine.
 
Very nice pricing but I wouldn't touch Toshiba; however, SSD is a big upgrade compared to conventional HDD. Check out the Crucial M4 or Samsung 830 which is much faster.
 
iAppl3Fan said:
Very nice pricing but I wouldn't touch Toshiba; however, SSD is a big upgrade compared to conventional HDD. Check out the Crucial M4 or Samsung 830 which is much faster.
Click to expand...

And the M4 is only about $60 more - I have seen them for $340 on Slickdeals, even less elsewhere
 
Thought so!

Thanks so much guys. You confirmed my doubts. If I can't justify $400-ish for the Crucial at this point (which is the best I could find). What if I were to get only 256GB? They are going for a lot less - $185 on Amazon. Would this make a huge difference or should I not bother (or get the 240GB OWC mercury)?

To clarify, I am a cinematographer making TV commercials and music videos etc., so I use my MacBook Pro to edit this stuff and I hope to get an external monitor before I become cross-eyed...:eek: I bought the 16GB memory to improve editing/render times and I hope to get an SSD and keep the regular Drive with a data doubler. My understanding is that I should put the operating system and programs on the SSD and keep the optical drive for files o make the whole thing sing?
 
jeromey said:
Thanks so much guys. You confirmed my doubts. If I can't justify $400-ish for the Crucial at this point (which is the best I could find). What if I were to get only 256GB? They are going for a lot less - $185 on Amazon. Would this make a huge difference or should I not bother (or get the 240GB OWC mercury)?
Click to expand...

If you mean will the M4 make a huge difference in performance over the hard drive you have now (?)... yes it certainly would. If you can get by with the 256GB of space, that would be a nice upgrade for you.

Personally, I have never seen anything about OWC SSDs to demand the price premium. I would just go with the M4.
 
need 512GB

Thx so much. It seems to me that if I upgrade to SSD then I should go for 512GB and get the adaptor to keep the standard drive mounted too. Can anyone suggest a way to find the Crucial M4 512gb for cheaper than Amazon at $400 plus shipping. At that price it seems like a big cost? I am in Australia but have a US billing address too. Just can't find cheaper.
 
jeromey said:
Thx so much. It seems to me that if I upgrade to SSD then I should go for 512GB and get the adaptor to keep the standard drive mounted too. Can anyone suggest a way to find the Crucial M4 512gb for cheaper than Amazon at $400 plus shipping. At that price it seems like a big cost? I am in Australia but have a US billing address too. Just can't find cheaper.
Click to expand...

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ..._Technology_CT512M4SSD1_512GB_m4_SSD_2_5.html

Probably the cheapest you can find.

Look out for deals! Probably around end of November. In the states we have "Thanksgiving" which is pretty much the beginning of the holiday season and the prices will dip low if you can order from the U.S.

Amazon does great Thanksgiving sales, so look out for them.

----------
jeromey said:
To clarify, I am a cinematographer making TV commercials and music videos etc., so I use my MacBook Pro to edit this stuff and I hope to get an external monitor before I become cross-eyed...:eek: I bought the 16GB memory to improve editing/render times and I hope to get an SSD and keep the regular Drive with a data doubler. My understanding is that I should put the operating system and programs on the SSD and keep the optical drive for files o make the whole thing sing?
Click to expand...

Editing off the main drive is fine if you have an SSD. I have a 256GB Samsung 830 and I only have 23GB left. A 512GB SSD would be great, but couldn't justify the premium. I have an external FW800 drive (1TB) and it's fine for what I do.

If you edit uncompressed, I would highly recommend a 512GB (at least). In the future hopefully TB enclosures become available so we can put in 2x 512GB SSD's.
 
One last ques...

Thanks guys for your advice.

Yep. It looks like the M4 512B is the go for me. The OWC comes in a data-doubler kit so you can mount the Optical Drive too. I understand the idea (for filmmakers at least) is to run the programs on the SSD and the files on the Optical drive. The link is here: http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/DDMBSSD480/

Can I do the same thing with the M4?
 
jeromey said:
Thanks guys for your advice.

Yep. It looks like the M4 512B is the go for me. The OWC comes in a data-doubler kit so you can mount the Optical Drive too. I understand the idea (for filmmakers at least) is to run the programs on the SSD and the files on the Optical drive. The link is here: http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/DDMBSSD480/

Can I do the same thing with the M4?
Click to expand...

Yes you can.
 
I just put this Toshiba 512 GB SSD in my MacBook Pro 13" Mid 2010, 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo to replace my 256 GB OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD ( from 2010 - 3.0 Gb/s) . It works great! I can't tell the difference in speed, if there is any...

I would say this is a perfect upgrade for any mac laptop 2010 or older, because your computer won't outperform the drive...and it's a great value!

I put the other drive in an external case from OWC with FW800 and USB 3.0.

I recommend it -- using it right now to write this email.
 
I like this drive so much I bought a second one to put inside a OWC Mercury On-The-Go Pro empty case with USB 3.0 AND FW 800.
 
I have a 2012 MBP 13" and was also thinking about buying this. Not sure if I want to wait though to see if the M4 or the 830 come down a little bit.
 
jeromey said:
Thanks guys for your advice.

Yep. It looks like the M4 512B is the go for me. The OWC comes in a data-doubler kit so you can mount the Optical Drive too. I understand the idea (for filmmakers at least) is to run the programs on the SSD and the files on the Optical drive. The link is here: http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/DDMBSSD480/

Can I do the same thing with the M4?
Click to expand...

Be careful with 6Gbps SSDs in the optical bay. OWC warns that certain MBPs cannot handle those speeds in the optical bay.
 
Bluedog54 said:
Be careful with 6Gbps SSDs in the optical bay. OWC warns that certain MBPs cannot handle those speeds in the optical bay.
Click to expand...

Generally speaking, Late 2011 models or newer can handle 6Gbps speeds.

Some Early 2011 machines came with speed limited to 3Gbps in the optical bay and other didn't.

One of my previous machines, Early 2011 15" Antiglare, had normal 6Gbps speeds but was limited to 3Gbps in the optical bay.

The OP should not have any issues with his Late 2011 machine.
 
I like Toshiba ext HDD because it is almost sock proof many time falling to the floor but still working properly :D

t.gif

index.jpg
 
jeromey said:
Thanks so much guys. You confirmed my doubts. If I can't justify $400-ish for the Crucial at this point (which is the best I could find). What if I were to get only 256GB? They are going for a lot less - $185 on Amazon. Would this make a huge difference or should I not bother (or get the 240GB OWC mercury)?

To clarify, I am a cinematographer making TV commercials and music videos etc., so I use my MacBook Pro to edit this stuff and I hope to get an external monitor before I become cross-eyed...:eek: I bought the 16GB memory to improve editing/render times and I hope to get an SSD and keep the regular Drive with a data doubler. My understanding is that I should put the operating system and programs on the SSD and keep the optical drive for files o make the whole thing sing?
Click to expand...

Just so you know, you can not put a modern, SATA III 6G SSD in the optical slot, only a SATA II 3G or a normal HD. Put a modern, SATA III 6G SSD in the main slot for the best performance for your system drive/applications. You don't need 500 gigs here, just get a 250 gig SSD. Forget this Toshiba other than as a second drive.

http://blog.macsales.com/10433-macbook-pro-2011-models-and-sata-3-0-6-0gbs-update-5272011

I'm an Avid editor running an early 2011 thunderbolt MBP 17" with 16g ram.

I just put a 256g Samsung 830 (great deals around for this proven disk) in my main slot, and my original 500g HDD in the optibay for my extra data.

However, working with HD video, I aways use external storage and not the internal, and that is where the thunderbolt pays off. I don't know what you are shooting on, but besides that second monitor you should explore Thunderbolt RAIDs for i/o speed.

RAM is always important, but your render times are more affected by CPU cores than RAM.

For me, I've been tempted by this Toshiba offer for my second drive because I can only put a SATA II drive in the optical slot. This would allow me to be completely SSD. However, If I had a 2012 MBP, I wouldn't consider this drive at all, and I woudn't consider it in the main slot of your laptop, as it won't take advantage of the speed improvements there.

Because Samsung have moved to the 840, there are lots of deals on the Samsung 830s, a proven Mac OSX drive

I can talk you through the upgrade process, which is fun
 
Last edited:
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