http://slickdeals.net/forums/sdsear...hildforums=1&mode=forum&search=g2&showposts=0
There appears to be quite a few different sellers selling these at under $250.
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OWC Mercury Extreme Enterprise SSD announced today... are better specs available?
- Thread starter spaceballl
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http://slickdeals.net/forums/sdsear...hildforums=1&mode=forum&search=g2&showposts=0
There appears to be quite a few different sellers selling these at under $250.
actually, we're both kind of right. I was comparing it to the gen2 intel's, but it appears that they're gen1 knockoffs.
Still, you're right, not a bad deal, but for a few extra bucks, I'd rather the real thing
actually, we're both kind of right. I was comparing it to the gen2 intel's, but it appears that they're gen1 knockoffs.
Still, you're right, not a bad deal, but for a few extra bucks, I'd rather the real thing
Hey, like I said, I have an intel drive that I paid 173$ for. Also they aren't Gen 1s... they are Gen 2s. The fact that the intel tool will let you upgrade to trim, and that 02HA is a gen 2 firmware will tell you. I've owned an intel Gen 1 also. which I can say is still really fast, in fact faster at a few things. I was just worried about trim support in the future if the drive were to slow down. but then again it's a non issue since OSX doesn't support trim yet. (Gen 1 drives take different firmware versions, ie 8820 etc.) The first iteration of these drives back when intel made Gen 1 drives was a Gen 1. Now that intel makes gen 2 drives, it's a gen 2 drive as confirmed by people who have bought it and flashed it.
Also there are no knock off intel drives being sold sold as far as I know. In order to put the intel sticker on it and sell it officially, I believe that they are all manufactured by intel. There are drives that use intel 50nm and 34nm chips such as the OCZ agility which pairs 50nm intel flash (can also be toshiba 40nm or samsung 50nm flash) with an indilinx controller. Or the OCZ solid 2 which pairs intel 34nm flash with an indilinx controller.
Here are 3 drives. One is an official intel, one is a Adata x-25m and one is a kingston SSD225-80 x-25m. Take a look at the label. All 3 drives are confirmed to be intel drives.
I know you're skeptical, and the previous generation of adata drives were gen 1, and that they along with kingston make a billion other SSD types which can make it alot harder to sort out. But these 2 drives are confirmed, which is why they sell out fast. Infact no one can seem to get a kingston drive anymore. The Adata drive was also sold out until the past week. and I expect it to sell out too. If I didn't already own one. I would have bought it.
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I was going purely by the specs Newegg listed for the 160GB drives:
a-data
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820211413
read/write = 250/70
Intel Gen2
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167017
read/write = 250/100
Intel Gen1
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167015
read/write = 250/70
Would seem to me, the A-data is a gen1, wouldn't it?
anyway, the reason I'm so interested is I will be purchasing an SSD with a new MBP soon, and right now the Intel G2 160GB is leading the way, though I'm still waiting to see what the actual street price of the 128GB C300's is in another week or possible some othe alternative (like these A-data's, though for the 160GB there isn't a price difference that would make me get them over the Intel ones)
a-data
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820211413
read/write = 250/70
Intel Gen2
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167017
read/write = 250/100
Intel Gen1
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167015
read/write = 250/70
Would seem to me, the A-data is a gen1, wouldn't it?
anyway, the reason I'm so interested is I will be purchasing an SSD with a new MBP soon, and right now the Intel G2 160GB is leading the way, though I'm still waiting to see what the actual street price of the 128GB C300's is in another week or possible some othe alternative (like these A-data's, though for the 160GB there isn't a price difference that would make me get them over the Intel ones)
Nope I think it's the same. Take a look. at the serial numbers etc. The discrepency is neweggs fault.
http://www.adata.com.tw/EN/product_show.php?ProductNo=AX25M
if you go to the info on the drive it will tell you that it's 100mb/sec for the 160gb drive.
the model on the Adata drive is SSDSA2M160G2GN
The G2 means it's a Gen 2. It's a metal case which is only used in 34nm
the GN means it doesn't come with spacers so the drive is a bare 7mm drive.
I also posted the intel 160gb for comparison.
All Gen 1s come in black plastic.
You'll have to update the firmware to 02HD on either drive to get trim support, which unfortunately isn't supported yet in OS X. I also think that some people have had issues with flashing these drives on macs, but I'm not certain the details, as I flashed mine on a pc.
The difference in price is only 20$ USD between the 2 models. If you are worried then 20$ isn't much. But at the 80gb range 229 vs 289 is huge.
One of the things is the sandforce drives come out in march. They have a big premium still, but have a much faster write speed ie 250mb/sec vs the intels. The intels are still damn fast and random read and writes, but there's going to be a spec bump this year also. If you look inside the old 50nm intel drives it uses 20 chips.. 10 on each side for the 160. The old 80gb used 10 chips all on one side. The new 34nm 160gb ones use only 10 chips (one side is blank) and the 80gb ones only use 5 chips. (or low density chips). So it's been easy for intel to make a 320gb drive with even faster specs ever since the G2s were released. They've held off due to demand issues and probably lack of competition. There will be a refesh this year with a new processor and likely the 25nm flash they announced at the end of Jan. This will provide for 640gb 2.5inch SSDs which are even faster even without changing the processor. The next processor for the intel SSDs will drastically improve the write speeds as well, but they are going to wait for SATA 6gb because it will exceed the 3gb easy. But this update is due at the end of 3rd quarter 2010 ro 4th quarter. So that's at least 6 months away.
With the release of the sandforce drives, there's some rumbling that intel will introduce the 320gb drive and lower the price of the 160s and 80s to compete before their revision.
That's why I went with the cheapest 80gb (heck I tossed it into my netbook)
If you decide to buy now, it's not a bad choice, but march you can probably get a sandforce drive, or a cheaper intel. Or if you can wait 6 months for the big refresh, it might be worth it. Who knows, by the time apple refreshes and the arrandale thread dies, we might be in may lol.
http://www.adata.com.tw/EN/product_show.php?ProductNo=AX25M
if you go to the info on the drive it will tell you that it's 100mb/sec for the 160gb drive.
the model on the Adata drive is SSDSA2M160G2GN
The G2 means it's a Gen 2. It's a metal case which is only used in 34nm
the GN means it doesn't come with spacers so the drive is a bare 7mm drive.
I also posted the intel 160gb for comparison.
All Gen 1s come in black plastic.
You'll have to update the firmware to 02HD on either drive to get trim support, which unfortunately isn't supported yet in OS X. I also think that some people have had issues with flashing these drives on macs, but I'm not certain the details, as I flashed mine on a pc.
The difference in price is only 20$ USD between the 2 models. If you are worried then 20$ isn't much. But at the 80gb range 229 vs 289 is huge.
One of the things is the sandforce drives come out in march. They have a big premium still, but have a much faster write speed ie 250mb/sec vs the intels. The intels are still damn fast and random read and writes, but there's going to be a spec bump this year also. If you look inside the old 50nm intel drives it uses 20 chips.. 10 on each side for the 160. The old 80gb used 10 chips all on one side. The new 34nm 160gb ones use only 10 chips (one side is blank) and the 80gb ones only use 5 chips. (or low density chips). So it's been easy for intel to make a 320gb drive with even faster specs ever since the G2s were released. They've held off due to demand issues and probably lack of competition. There will be a refesh this year with a new processor and likely the 25nm flash they announced at the end of Jan. This will provide for 640gb 2.5inch SSDs which are even faster even without changing the processor. The next processor for the intel SSDs will drastically improve the write speeds as well, but they are going to wait for SATA 6gb because it will exceed the 3gb easy. But this update is due at the end of 3rd quarter 2010 ro 4th quarter. So that's at least 6 months away.
With the release of the sandforce drives, there's some rumbling that intel will introduce the 320gb drive and lower the price of the 160s and 80s to compete before their revision.
That's why I went with the cheapest 80gb (heck I tossed it into my netbook)
If you decide to buy now, it's not a bad choice, but march you can probably get a sandforce drive, or a cheaper intel. Or if you can wait 6 months for the big refresh, it might be worth it. Who knows, by the time apple refreshes and the arrandale thread dies, we might be in may lol.
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thanks for all the info, i really appreciate it. Yea, I'm not sure I'm too high on the sandforce controllers (look like they're out already btw, per the initial post of this thread). If the new MBP's support SATA 3, may be worthwhile to look at the Marvell driven Crucial C300's released next week. Though if the street price is $499 for 128GB, no f'in way. I'm pretty much going to buy whenever the new MBP's come out, as I don't want to have clone any drives or any of that, gonna plop my SSD into my new MBP right off the bat and go from there. Right now from a performance/price standpoint, I'm still thinking the Intel is leading my choice selection. Though the fact that it doesn't have garbage collection versus the Sandforce and Marvell controllers also is a knock against it (considering OS X doesn't support trim, I feel GC is almost a necessity). I'm also debating the size needed. I will run boot camp, which is why I was leaning towards 128GB+, but I also have a 3TB NAS setup so most file storage in the way of movies/music/etc are on that.
Lastly, just as an fyi as i said to a previous poster, the Newegg Intel SSD prices are all out of whack. You can get the 80GB G2's for less that $250 at may different respectable retailers, which I may in fact decide to ultimately do (or the A-data you pointed out), go with a cheaper solution for now, and maybe upgrade in a year or so. I really need to sit down and just figure out after both OS' are installed, and all my primary programs, how much space I have left over...80GB might be well more than enough for the time being.
Lastly, just as an fyi as i said to a previous poster, the Newegg Intel SSD prices are all out of whack. You can get the 80GB G2's for less that $250 at may different respectable retailers, which I may in fact decide to ultimately do (or the A-data you pointed out), go with a cheaper solution for now, and maybe upgrade in a year or so. I really need to sit down and just figure out after both OS' are installed, and all my primary programs, how much space I have left over...80GB might be well more than enough for the time being.
If it's any indication, I put the 80gb in my netbook, and I boot OSX and windows 7 on it. I have it allocated 30gb mac 50gb windows because I store my music etc on the windows partition and installed the read write ntfs on osx. You'll have to clean install it probably, because I stripped out the printer drivers with osx since that was another 2-3 gb. I also used xslimmer to strip out all the powerpc, and language stuff other than english and japanese. Which saved another 1-2gb with all my apps. I have about 17gb free on each partition so my total OSX install only takes 13gb with office, photoshop, parts of ilife, adobe acrobate, and iwork. It works with an 80gb drive, but you gotta shoehorn a bit to get it all to fit and cut out fat. (to have some free space also) It also depends on how much you use windows and what files you store on it.
If I was going to put it in my primary macbook pro, I'd probably have saved for the 160 or more. I have alot more junk on it and a 500gb drive. I'm also hoping trim support comes to os x soon. In fact I think that we'll probably get trim support before the drives really get degraded enough in performance with day to day use. Most of the tests they do really beat up the drive first before they see the slower results, which won't happen overnight.
Also the sandforce drives aren't really out in force yet, especially at the sizes/prices that we are looking for. It might be worth it to wait on them too, so that we can see if they have any teething issues as alot of brand new hardware does.
FYI I was able to play with this drive @ the OWC booth at MacWorld this past weekend... Wowee is it a screamer! I think I'll end up buying the Crucial RealSSD C300, though, because I need 256GB, not 200....
Right. That's what a lot of us are guessing. It might not be rebadged per se (it's weird that OWC beat OCZ out), but it's almost certainly almost identical.
didn't realize OWC actually had their own manufacturing plant, but i guess they do after reading the "about us" on their page. Anyway, found a direct review of the drive from last week:
http://macperformanceguide.com/Reviews-SSD-OWC-Mercury_Extreme.html#Striped
Would get the drive in a heartbeat if the price was even $299 for 100GB. But $4/GB....no way.
http://macperformanceguide.com/Reviews-SSD-OWC-Mercury_Extreme.html#Striped
Would get the drive in a heartbeat if the price was even $299 for 100GB. But $4/GB....no way.
...
I decided I will likely be getting the 50gb model. Its not much space, I am not sure what the actual formatted capacity is on it but I don't have the money for the 100gb model and I have spent the last day seeing how much I can trim down my storage requirements and I have got it down to 11.22gb after moving my itunes, iphoto and video libraries onto my time capsule and deleting a couple programs I never use such as iweb, garageband (which is over 1.4gb in itself!), parallels which I had but never really used, deleting extra languages, extra printer drivers etc. I also deleted the sleep image and disables hibernation. It was pretty easy to trim after I used daisy disk which I got for free during mac heist or something and also clean my mac
I decided I will likely be getting the 50gb model. Its not much space, I am not sure what the actual formatted capacity is on it but I don't have the money for the 100gb model and I have spent the last day seeing how much I can trim down my storage requirements and I have got it down to 11.22gb after moving my itunes, iphoto and video libraries onto my time capsule and deleting a couple programs I never use such as iweb, garageband (which is over 1.4gb in itself!), parallels which I had but never really used, deleting extra languages, extra printer drivers etc. I also deleted the sleep image and disables hibernation. It was pretty easy to trim after I used daisy disk which I got for free during mac heist or something and also clean my mac
...
the review of the OWC says it runs a sandforce 1500 controller. The review of the OCZ says its running a 1200 with the firmware from the 1500 so I doubt that they are identicle unless the OCZ is just pre-production and thats why it didn't have the 1500 controller
the review of the OWC says it runs a sandforce 1500 controller. The review of the OCZ says its running a 1200 with the firmware from the 1500 so I doubt that they are identicle unless the OCZ is just pre-production and thats why it didn't have the 1500 controller
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3702&p=6
"Its a SF-1200 controller with the firmware of the SF-1500 as far as I can tell. The final shipping version with be a full fledged SF-1500."
...
so then this SSD may be faster than the one reviewed by that site. I would definately pull the trigger but I wish I didn't have to get it from the USA and I also wish it wasn't a 4 day shipping delay, no point in ordering one until a few days from now anyway
so then this SSD may be faster than the one reviewed by that site. I would definately pull the trigger but I wish I didn't have to get it from the USA and I also wish it wasn't a 4 day shipping delay, no point in ordering one until a few days from now anyway
Mercury Extreme Enterprise SSD
Greetings all..Just joined the forum today.
Anyone install a Mercury Extreme Enterprise SSD yet?
Here is a video of the comparison between stock MBP HD and the OWC SSD.
http://videos.macsales.com/podcasts/owctv/ssd-speed-test-feb-10.mov
Greetings all..Just joined the forum today.
Anyone install a Mercury Extreme Enterprise SSD yet?
Here is a video of the comparison between stock MBP HD and the OWC SSD.
http://videos.macsales.com/podcasts/owctv/ssd-speed-test-feb-10.mov
Seems like you'll be out of space pretty quickly. Not worth paying a lot of money for a drive that's too small IMHO. Besides, if your iTunes and iPhoto libraries are on a time capsule, the crappy performance of that will far outweigh the benefit of an SSD.
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I never use iphoto or itunes for much and itunes performance is fine with the library on the time capsule, iphoto isnt quite as good but the library isnt that big anyway so I could move it back if I really wanted. Doesnt much matter though as I have a PC in the kitchen my wife uses for photos/facebook and a PC in the living room we use for TV, movies with media center. The hard drive on my MBO only has 11gb used so 50 should be fine for me since my files with high storage requirements are located elsewhere and accessed through the network
I never use iphoto or itunes for much and itunes performance is fine with the library on the time capsule, iphoto isnt quite as good but the library isnt that big anyway so I could move it back if I really wanted. Doesnt much matter though as I have a PC in the kitchen my wife uses for photos/facebook and a PC in the living room we use for TV, movies with media center. The hard drive on my MBO only has 11gb used so 50 should be fine for me since my files with high storage requirements are located elsewhere and accessed through the network
Did you see on AnandTech the C300's max write latencies? Just something to think about.
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3747&p=3
Saw it... not too worried about it though. It's a theoretical max, and the averages are still incredibly low. I also don't have too many options. I have 70GB left on my 256GB drive right now. So if I get the OWC/OCZ drive, i'll only start with 200GB left. No good... I'm waiting for the new Macbook Pros to come out, but I'm definitely considering going with an Optibay dual SSD solution as well....
...
installed the 50gig mercury extreme today
so first impressions are OK. It not exactly the insane speed I was expecting but it does go fast, boot takes about 17 seconds and about 10 seconds of that is just waiting for the spinning flower to show up. The Xbench results are a bit odd because 4k sequential reads are actually SLOWER than the hard drive it replaced! Unfortunately Xbench lost my results from before I upgraded but after I upgraded here are the disk results
sequential
4k write 126.10MB/sec
256K write 122.48MB/sec
4K read 18.39MB/sec
256K read 163.78MB/sec
random
4k write 120.05MB/sec
256K write 128.03MB/sec
4K read 16.01MB/sec
256K read 163.46MB/sec
Its slower than the results the manufacturer sent me but they used a macpro with 8 gigs of ram and a 100gig drive. This was on a 13" macbook pro with 2 gigs ram and 50gig drive. Also battery life seems like it may have gone up a bit but too early to tell
installed the 50gig mercury extreme today
so first impressions are OK. It not exactly the insane speed I was expecting but it does go fast, boot takes about 17 seconds and about 10 seconds of that is just waiting for the spinning flower to show up. The Xbench results are a bit odd because 4k sequential reads are actually SLOWER than the hard drive it replaced! Unfortunately Xbench lost my results from before I upgraded but after I upgraded here are the disk results
sequential
4k write 126.10MB/sec
256K write 122.48MB/sec
4K read 18.39MB/sec
256K read 163.78MB/sec
random
4k write 120.05MB/sec
256K write 128.03MB/sec
4K read 16.01MB/sec
256K read 163.46MB/sec
Its slower than the results the manufacturer sent me but they used a macpro with 8 gigs of ram and a 100gig drive. This was on a 13" macbook pro with 2 gigs ram and 50gig drive. Also battery life seems like it may have gone up a bit but too early to tell