New SSD in MBP

[dazed]

Hi,

I have a MBP (5,5) which has an OWC Mercury Extreme Pro ssd drive.

Im going to install lion so I want to buy a new drive for that, and keep my existing drive as a backup until I know all is well, and then put that in the wifes MB

Ive been looking at OWC website and can only see an Electra model. Would this be comparable in speed to my existing one ? Any downsides of this drive over what I have already ? Im very happy with the drive I have


Thanks

 

[drumrobot]

Hi,
I have a MBP (5,5) which has an OWC Mercury Extreme Pro ssd drive.
Im going to install lion so I want to buy a new drive for that, and keep my existing drive as a backup until I know all is well, and then put that in the wifes MB
Ive been looking at OWC website and can only see an Electra model. Would this be comparable in speed to my existing one ? Any downsides of this drive over what I have already ? Im very happy with the drive I have
Thanks

We actually have the same computer... and as it turns out, ours don't support SATA III drives, so if you have the 6G Extreme Pro, it won't seem any faster than the substantially cheaper 3G Extreme pro (even though it is). If you want to confirm this, open System Profiler (via About this Mac>More Info) and click Serial-ATA. It should say "3 Gigabit" for the Link and Negotiated Link speeds. If it's higher than this, you must have mistyped your model number, and you can indeed use the SATA III drives. Now, then...
The Electra is in the middle in terms of both speed and price, but again, there's no point in getting it vs. the 3G (see above for 'disclaimer').

 

[dazed]

Mine is the 3G Extreme Pro (not sure if 6G was even out when I bought it).

Is the Electra below my existing drive ?

Thanks

 

[bdodds1985]

look at the read/write speeds of the drive, they should be on OWC or you can google it. Newegg will offer you cheaper and faster drives. My suggestion, The samsung or an Intel.

 

[dazed]

The specs never tell the whole story and so i don't usually trust them.

Real World scenarios and experiences are better.

 

[alphaod]

Mine is the 3G Extreme Pro (not sure if 6G was even out when I bought it).

Is the Electra below my existing drive ?

Thanks

They will be more or less the same when in used in your computer.

~~~
However let's assume you have a computer that supported SATA III (which you don't have).

3G = SATA II (3Gbps) interface maxes out at around 280MB/s.

6G = SATA III (6Gbps) interface maxes out at around 530MB/s.

The Electra 6G is a step down below the Extreme 6G, but in most scenarios is still faster than the Extreme 3G.
~~~

However with your model (MacBookPro5,5), if you attempt to use a SATA III (6Gbps) SSD, you'll actually be linked at SATA I (1.5Gbps) speeds (that's slower than 3Gbps), so your current choice is the best for your computer.

2008/2009 MacBook/MacBook Pro 13", 15", and 17" models. (Model IDs: MacBookPro5,1; 5,2; 5,3; 5,4; 5,5 and MacBook5,1)
While a 6G SSD does function, it will only do so at SATA Revision 1.0 (1.5Gb/s) speeds rather that the SATA Revision 2.0 (3.0Gb/s) speed the machine can deliver. Should owners of these machines desire another SSD option, the Mercury Extreme Pro 3G SSD does run at the full SATA Revision 2.0 (3Gb/s) specification.

 

[bdodds1985]

The specs never tell the whole story and so i don't usually trust them.

Real World scenarios and experiences are better.

real world scenarios = owc is over priced.