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Which SSD Do You Use/Recommend

  • OCZ Vertex 3

    Votes: 39 61.9%
  • Intel 510

    Votes: 8 12.7%
  • Other (i.e. Crucial)

    Votes: 16 25.4%

  • Total voters
    63
Some say bootcamp partition works others say it doesn't (i didn't test it). But the update utility generally insists you to run the update from a volume that isn't the SSD itself. You must have a SATA port...won't work over USB as far as i know.

I've personally updated the firmware of a 120GB Vertex 2 in a Mac Mini with the SSD as the boot volume running Boot Camp. No issues at all.
 
intel 510 more reliable than a vertex 3? :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

i think intel reliability pertains to the x25 and 320 somewhat

the 510 had a catalogue of incompatibilities with the MBP sata3 port
the 320 is a 2yr old controller with 25x NAND flash

id prefer a v3 max iops or corsair force 3

Do you have any evidence to support your position with regard to reliability? I assume you have some study or something you are relying on since you feel strongly enough to give the :rolleyes: to another user.

At this point all I have seen is the admittedly imperfect French study Anandtech published. Now granted this study is for the last gen of drives, but here is how I look at it. If there is data showing, for example, the 2009 and 2010 Honda is reliable, it is probably reasonable to assume the 2011 Honda will be reliable also even though there were changes from one model year to the next. Still not perfect data, but better than nothing and guessing.

That said, I would not hesitate to buy either an Intel 510 or the Vertex 3. The speeds in real world tests seem to be very close. In the end, go with whichever company you feel most comfortable with long term.

I bought a Intel 510 when they first came out in March mainly because users here seemed to have good luck with the Intel X25-M SSD and Intel offers a boot CDRom to update firmware if the need arises.
 
I just accidently bought an intel 320 300gb SSD on ebay.
Put in a cheeky bid on ebay, not expecting to get it. But I did :)
Very happy...got it for about £50-£70 off anywhere else on the internet.

Will get it in a couple of days hopefully :cool:
 
SSD technology, is advancing so rapidly that unless you buy a lesser brand other than OCZ, Intel, Samsung or Apples own, you will be fine. I've tried all major brands over the last three years or so, and have marveled at how each of them has improved to date. My laptops (Macs & PC's) are centered on either OCZ or Intel and the side by side, as well as benchmark comparisons I've done reveals the usual.

Most of the speed differences are in the manufacturers advertising claims. When in real life they are reasonably close to one another and so fast in any case, that when using them there is not enough of a difference to justify spending more for one over the other. Newegg and others have promotions that are very competitive, I watch those for the best buying price.
 
I just accidently bought an intel 320 300gb SSD on ebay.
Put in a cheeky bid on ebay, not expecting to get it. But I did :)
Very happy...got it for about £50-£70 off anywhere else on the internet.

Will get it in a couple of days hopefully :cool:

Cheeky bastard!
 
I voted other because I just purchased an Intel 320 moments ago. Reliability seems really solid with these and I really don't want to have to do any more work rather than slapping the drive in and backing up from time machine. I here there are potential problems with sata 3 drives, and I figure the Intel 320 SSD drive is plenty fast for my first SSD, and by the time I outgrow it I will probably be getting a new MBP anyway.
 
Possible sata3 issue with macbook pro 2011 models

Hi,

I have created a thread in the OCZ forums with the vertex3 issues that macbook pro 2011 users have with sata3. If anyone has a sata3 ssd (does not have to be ocz vertex3 please feel free to have a look)

we want as many macbook pro 2011 17" especially owners to see the thread and see if they have similar problems worth adding to so I can send this to my technical advisor at apple to try to sort this out.

http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/f...1-Users-with-SATA3-Issues&p=645842#post645842

Regards,

Jase
 
I tried Vertex 3 (power consumption too high), Corsair Force 3 (completely unstable) and Crucial M4 (slightly unstable).

Sold them all and I'm now on Kingston V+ 100. Good performance and no complaints about power consumption.

Intel 320 is good too.
 
Some say bootcamp partition works others say it doesn't (i didn't test it). But the update utility generally insists you to run the update from a volume that isn't the SSD itself. You must have a SATA port...won't work over USB as far as i know.

someone tried to use a linux live cd (portable linux installation on a cd) in combination with an usb-stick (with firmware upgrade software) ?
 
Do you have any evidence to support your position with regard to reliability? I assume you have some study or something you are relying on since you feel strongly enough to give the :rolleyes: to another user.

At this point all I have seen is the admittedly imperfect French study Anandtech published. Now granted this study is for the last gen of drives, but here is how I look at it. If there is data showing, for example, the 2009 and 2010 Honda is reliable, it is probably reasonable to assume the 2011 Honda will be reliable also even though there were changes from one model year to the next. Still not perfect data, but better than nothing and guessing.

That said, I would not hesitate to buy either an Intel 510 or the Vertex 3. The speeds in real world tests seem to be very close. In the end, go with whichever company you feel most comfortable with long term.

I bought a Intel 510 when they first came out in March mainly because users here seemed to have good luck with the Intel X25-M SSD and Intel offers a boot CDRom to update firmware if the need arises.

Please could you provide me with a paradigm where by one must indite a study in-order to utilse the 'rolling eyes' on a chat forum? Or what i think you mean is a large multi-centred, double blinded study. The tend to provide statisiclly more significant data and thus infrences.

Short answer no, i was simply giving some gravity to the situation where by so many on here like to jump on the band-wagon and harp on about somehting that they subjectively feel is correct. Objectively, i was simply pointing out that the french study mentioned in anatech was rather limited and had major shortcomings. If you read evidence based papers and understood studies and the grades of evdence based studies you would appreciate this.

Ayway, i am at 4200m in Tibet, and mindfully, will not waste the little Pa-O2 i have in my brain arguining over such trivial matters
 
I'm not sure if there are any studies done but the French study is not a very accurate one, but it's the only one we really got.

The trend is that Intel controllers > SandForce controllers in terms of reliability. It's all about the controllers.

But yea to answer the question, I think the Vertex 3 is less reliable than the Intel 510. However, the Intel isn't using an Intel controller, but rather a controller from Marvell, so it's reliability shouldn't be counted too much on. Especially when there are issues being posted on this forum that 510s/C300/m4s aren't able to negotiate to SATA 6 Gbps properly.

If you want reliability, go for the Intel 320s. I really wanted those but I couldn't due to being overseas. I went with OWC 6G, it's a company that has an Intel level warranty while the performance of the Vertex 3 really.
 
Here's another "study".
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sol...tomer-reviews-current-ssds-who-will-help.html

Reliability of Sandforce looks even worse there.

Samsung, Crucial and Intel look good.

The methodology seems a bit off. The more drives a manufacture produces and sells, more errors its bound to have. And I'm not sure if the "study" takes into account of the different types of failures. DOA on arrival or BSOD failures are different from drives that fail over time, as in their performance degrades horribly. My dad's Samsung suffers from the latter and although they have an amazing customer service in Korea, I wouldn't want to buy into that.

I think the better way of going about it is for reviews to follow up on their reviews on various issues these drives on facing and if they fixed them or not. It feels like reviewers review the release candidate drives and leave it be. But yes, generally, it's known that SF drives aren't too reliable compared to Intel.
 
The methodology seems a bit off. The more drives a manufacture produces and sells, more errors its bound to have.
There's a lot to criticize about the study but this isn't really an issue, because positive reviews are included too.

And I'm not sure if the "study" takes into account of the different types of failures. DOA on arrival or BSOD failures are different from drives that fail over time, as in their performance degrades horribly.

The first page exactly explains how was counted.

And I agree the study may not be scientifically valid but the conclusion is interesting at least: Of more than a thousand Sandforce reviews ~ 19% experienced failure.

For Samsung, Crucial and Intel it's about 5 times less.
 
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The conclusion is interesting and it points in the same trend as the French study.

Interesting. Kind of worries me seeing that I bought OWC 6G Drive yesterday and it has already shipped...

Nonetheless, I think when we look at buying SSDs, we should look at the company as well.

Ex. even though SF drives are less reliable, OWC and Corsair has done a fine job in sorting out their mess through RMAs or outstanding support while OCZ has only been screwing customers through their mysterious checklists and redirecting blame on users.
 
Seems like each maker has it's bad drives. But in all honesty, will we ever see a difference in speed from a sata2 drive to sata3? I'm talking about daily things such as email, web, word processing and iTunes. I know boot up times will vary from a second to a few seconds, but wouldn't you rather wait a few seconds for something that's the safer bet of sata2?
 
I just upgraded my vertex 3 to the newest firmware using windows 7 that I installed on the 750 GB drive in the optibay. it wasn't too bad once i got windows 7 to boot up in AHCI mode.
 
So Windows is needed to update the firmware on the OCZ Vertex 3??

Is anyone using the Vertex 3 on a Mid 2009 MBP?
 
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