I'm glad I picked up the x25-m 160GB for $419.99 when I did!
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167017
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167017
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OWC Mercury Extreme Enterprise SSD announced today... are better specs available?
- Thread starter spaceballl
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I'm on the same page. I'm going to be buying dual SSDs as soon as the new MacBook Pro comes out. It is between the C300 and the OWC drive, but I'm leaning toward the C300. I'm just hoping Anandtech comes out with another SSD round-up article that discusses how these drives have performed over time. It has been a couple weeks since his last article so I feel like we're just about due!
I am not convinced the "recondition" is the same as the secure erase. MBHockey, i think the method you mentioned above is the best way to use secure erase on the mac. My slightly modified method is:
1) Image drive
2) Remove HD from my MBP
3) Boot off a GParted-Live CD with the secure erase commands
4) Reinstall HD after my system starts - important because macs EFI bios sends security-freeze command to disk which you have to wait for and then can reinstall the disk after boot.
5) Use the GParted disc to run secure-erase commands
6) No just restore my image back to disc
However, it is a pain and if the sandforce controllers in the OWC/Vertex LE really mitigate the need to do this, it would be worth it for me. I have found that on my Intel, the write degradation occurs pretty quickly to where it is noticeable and i think having to do this often enough is a pain and frankly it pisses me off.
I also think its incorrect to say that OWC is unproven - relatively speaking. The problems are the controllers not the end vendors. Most of them are rebranding drives that are made by one or two manufacturers. Crucials realSSD series is just as unproven as OWC's MEs. It uses a brand new Marvell controller. Crucials other SSDs use the Indilinx which we all know about the Pros and Cons. Both Marvell and Sandforce are proven companies and I would bet on either of them to have a quality product.
And when you really look at it every controller i have read about has sleep issues with the mac, including the Intel. It depends on the make and model of apple computer. Im personally using a 13" macbook unibody (5,2) and have never had sleep issues but my friends brand new MBP has had issues at some point with every SSD he's tried. The real problem is apple's piss support for these products and their passivity in trying to fix the problems.
I dont disagree with the notion of paying less $/GB for a drive if your penny conscious but if the early performance benchmarks are any indication, the OWC drives look worth waiting for. Personally, i just bought a M225 from crucial in the interim while i wait for my OWC. Even though they said the 19 day delay was due to "processor delays", my bet is that this is the amount of time Sandforce said they needed to have an updated firmware.
I was talking about 'unproven' in comparison to Intel not Crucial.
And yeah, you're right. When I boot to the Kubuntu disc to run the secure erase ata command I have to remove the bottom casing of my macbook pro so I can hot plug my SATA drive to make it unfrozen. The worst part about this entire process is that i have to redo my time machine backup every time. I was hoping Super Duper would have somehow preserved my data in such a way that Time Machine didn't realize what i had done. So every time I do this i have to re-backup 130 GB of data over ethernet which is definitely annoying.
I'm probably going to wait and see what Intel comes up with in Q4. If they can make a drive like the G2 but with better write speeds that is much less vulnerable to performance degradation I'd probably go with that. For now, I want to wait and see how all these new controllers work out for end users. My horrible experience with OCZ has really pushed me to stick with proven companies in the SSD field, like Intel. The fact that I've been running this intel G2 drive for months now without any issues at all gives me a lot of confidence in them.
Like many here, I also eagerly await the next write up from anandtech about SSDs. Their stuff is second to none.
And yeah, you're right. When I boot to the Kubuntu disc to run the secure erase ata command I have to remove the bottom casing of my macbook pro so I can hot plug my SATA drive to make it unfrozen. The worst part about this entire process is that i have to redo my time machine backup every time. I was hoping Super Duper would have somehow preserved my data in such a way that Time Machine didn't realize what i had done. So every time I do this i have to re-backup 130 GB of data over ethernet which is definitely annoying.
I'm probably going to wait and see what Intel comes up with in Q4. If they can make a drive like the G2 but with better write speeds that is much less vulnerable to performance degradation I'd probably go with that. For now, I want to wait and see how all these new controllers work out for end users. My horrible experience with OCZ has really pushed me to stick with proven companies in the SSD field, like Intel. The fact that I've been running this intel G2 drive for months now without any issues at all gives me a lot of confidence in them.
Like many here, I also eagerly await the next write up from anandtech about SSDs. Their stuff is second to none.
Let me ask this. How about an OWC SSD as a boot drive and an Intel externally as storage via Firewire or USB? On top of that, won't a degraded Intel drive still be way faster than a standard HDD?
A mini update from Anandtech about about the latest Crucial drive. Unsurprisingly, it's got some issues.
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3779
Regarding the OWC boot drive and intel as the external, I don't understand why you'd want to do that. You'd want to relegate an SSD to a USB enclosure? USB 2 maxes at around 55 mb/sec, so you'd really be throttling an SSD drive in there.
And with respect to degraded writes, just look at the link i posted. The crucial drive shows to have slowed to well below HDD write speeds even after TRIMing.
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3779
Regarding the OWC boot drive and intel as the external, I don't understand why you'd want to do that. You'd want to relegate an SSD to a USB enclosure? USB 2 maxes at around 55 mb/sec, so you'd really be throttling an SSD drive in there.
And with respect to degraded writes, just look at the link i posted. The crucial drive shows to have slowed to well below HDD write speeds even after TRIMing.
Marvell is a proven company. They've been around since 1995, and they make a variety of integrated chips and controllers. Sandforce was founded in 2006, and their first products (SSD controllers) were released in 2009. There's not really that much information about them out there, as evidenced by the fact that the only Wikipedia article about them is in Japanese.
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ja&u=http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/SandForce
More like 30-35 MB/sec.
No I wouldn't want to do that. I misunderstood when people said dual SSDs which I suppose means remove the optical drive (which I need to learn about). So I guess go with OWC for booting and MyBook for data.
I keep going back and forth on this because I keep hearing different things.
So... Dual SSD drives. Who could do an optical drive removal to put in my second SSD? I look at OWC video for replacing the first HDD and am confident I could do that. I am not confident in the second one.
So... where does this leave me?
So... Dual SSD drives. Who could do an optical drive removal to put in my second SSD? I look at OWC video for replacing the first HDD and am confident I could do that. I am not confident in the second one.
So... where does this leave me?
I was REALLY hoping that the C300 wouldn't have any issues. Oh well... I can still wait, for now. As soon as the new MacBook Pros come out, though - then i'm pulling the trigger! I'd rather have the extra storage space of the C300 over the OWC drive, but i'm REALLY looking forward to Anand's next SSD roundup.
I think you'd have to find out if it'd even be worth it. I think you might be limited by the available bandwidth of the SATA II interface if you wanted to raid two SSDs in a current gen macbook pro.
Thank you for continuing to help out a n00b such as myself. So what do you propose I do. Just go with my earlier solution of MyBook and OWC Mercury?
Who can remove an optical drive without voiding my warranty or am I kind of screwed there?
I have two Crucial 128gb drives in my MBP with the optical drive removed. They are not Raid O though. I was told running Raid O on them is not a good idea as they get fragmented pretty bad. So for me I have one with the OS and the other is raw image files that I process in Capture One. So read from one write to the OS drive. But soon realized it does not matter in this program at least it does not matter where they are reading from and writing too as i get the same times to process a image. My images are 40mpx each so i am pushing heavy data and this is a core dependent program . I'm maxed out on CPU when I batch process. I need more bandwidth and cores more than anything else. The drives at this point are hitting the wall.
I do recondition them using zeroing out the drives but with a 7 time pass. If there is a better way i would like to know about it
I was told you can Raid O these OWC drives though . I thought about switching over but may not buy me much with the bandwidth anyway. Not sure
I do recondition them using zeroing out the drives but with a 7 time pass. If there is a better way i would like to know about it
I was told you can Raid O these OWC drives though . I thought about switching over but may not buy me much with the bandwidth anyway. Not sure
writing zeros to the drive does not recondition it. it will only further degrade perfromance. you need to run the secure erase command to recondition it, which disk utility cannot do.
For a bit of perspective, I've been running a C300 in my 15" unibody for just over two weeks and it's fantastic. Everything feels extremely fast if not instant and due to the lower temperature (hard disks get *hot*) the fans only ever come on when using Bootcamp to play games. I use the MBP for long hours every weekday for general internet use and app development, occasional gaming and also for running three windoze virtual machines (Sun VirtualBox) for my work.
which is in line with the article. the problem seems to be a precipitous decline in write performance after months of real world use without any way of restoring it. hopefully Crucial will get this sorted out. I'm a big fan of their ram and was happy to see them get into the SSD space.
JasonH, that's great to hear! I'm hoping that Crucial can poop out that firmware fix before I take the plunge on mine!
Yeah, and there's always the case that the benchmarks and tests aren't really telling the whole story. But I do have a lot of faith in Anand when it comes to finding potential issues with SSDs because they have a good track record.
Are there authorized technicians who can remove the optical drive and put in place another SSD? Is it something I should chance? Perhaps I'm too concerned with speed for casual use?
I don't think there's any way for you to get that done and keep you warranty, but i haven't really looked into doing that and could be wrong.
Most people do the optibay thing because they can't afford a large enough SSD (or there isn't one made, i think the biggest now is 256 gb) for their needs so they use a smaller capacity SSD as the boot drive and put their data on the HDD. If you can afford a 256 gb SSD (or whatever, 160 is enough for me) and that's enough space for you i don't think there's any good reason to go dual ssd in a current gen apple notebook.
Most people do the optibay thing because they can't afford a large enough SSD (or there isn't one made, i think the biggest now is 256 gb) for their needs so they use a smaller capacity SSD as the boot drive and put their data on the HDD. If you can afford a 256 gb SSD (or whatever, 160 is enough for me) and that's enough space for you i don't think there's any good reason to go dual ssd in a current gen apple notebook.
I use two 128 SSD Crucials. One reason is i keep raw images off the OS drive and if I have a failure my raw files are separate from the OS. Money is not really the reason. Also I can have backup with my raws as well files on both drives until I get home to my Drobo to store.
BTW not sure about the warranty could care less myself ( gear is heavily insured against any loss) but it is pretty easy to remove the optical and install the bracket for the second drive. You do have to make at least one unplugging of a connector that maybe sensitive to getting screwed. But the connection for the drive itself is easy peasy. Basically three screws for the bracket to MBP and two screws for the SSD drive itself into the bracket maybe three I forget. Install SSD outside the box into the bracket than make the connection and screw it into the MBP. Make sure you remember location of the MBP screws as you take the back off . I believe it is one or two screws towards the back that are shorter than the others
Also keep my I tunes library on the second drive to give the OS plenty of space to roam. I store nothing on the OS drive pretty much
BTW not sure about the warranty could care less myself ( gear is heavily insured against any loss) but it is pretty easy to remove the optical and install the bracket for the second drive. You do have to make at least one unplugging of a connector that maybe sensitive to getting screwed. But the connection for the drive itself is easy peasy. Basically three screws for the bracket to MBP and two screws for the SSD drive itself into the bracket maybe three I forget. Install SSD outside the box into the bracket than make the connection and screw it into the MBP. Make sure you remember location of the MBP screws as you take the back off . I believe it is one or two screws towards the back that are shorter than the others
Also keep my I tunes library on the second drive to give the OS plenty of space to roam. I store nothing on the OS drive pretty much