Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

bwsteg

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 25, 2012
390
27
Queens NY
I originally ordered the riMac with 256gb ssd but returned it because of other issues. Now I'm looking to reorder however im stuck between choosing the 256 or 512gb ssd. I've read that the 512gb ssd is a quicker and newer version from Samsung. Is this 100% correct and what difference would I notice by going with the larger flash drive? Would the iMac start up slightly quicker? Thanks
 

yjchua95

macrumors 604
Apr 23, 2011
6,725
233
GVA, KUL, MEL (current), ZQN
I originally ordered the riMac with 256gb ssd but returned it because of other issues. Now I'm looking to reorder however im stuck between choosing the 256 or 512gb ssd. I've read that the 512gb ssd is a quicker and newer version from Samsung. Is this 100% correct and what difference would I notice by going with the larger flash drive? Would the iMac start up slightly quicker? Thanks

The 256GB is a lottery between Samsung and SanDisk (SM0256F and SD0256F respectively). The 512GB and 1TB are Samsung only (SM0512F and SM1024F respectively).

Differences between the SM0256F and SM0512F are very minimal. Between the SD0256F and SM0512F, differences are quite large in write speeds (by about 150-200 MB/s, because the SD0256F is a slower SSD).

SD0256F writes: 550 MB/s.
SM0256F writes: 670 MB/s.
SM0512F writes: 720 MB/s.

It won't start up any quicker, but if you do write-intensive tasks, the 512GB variant may speed it up a bit quicker.

That said, you should go for the 512GB variant so that you don't have to constantly monitor how much free space you've left.
 

bwsteg

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 25, 2012
390
27
Queens NY
Thanks for the reply. To be honest, 128gb is perfectly fine for my needs so either of the other two are more than enough. The way you described it, I'm content in getting the 256gb again as long as it's a Samsung.

Has anyone with a retina iMac gotten a Sandisk SSD? Perhaps all the new iMacs come equipped with Samsung drives.
 

kepler20b

macrumors 6502
Oct 18, 2014
483
411
unless you are doing database work or constantly moving 40gb files, you'll never actually see the speed difference between those ssds
 

xgman

macrumors 603
Aug 6, 2007
5,672
1,378
But you need to remember that it is a good idea to always leave a pretty good size chunk of free space on any boot drive.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.