OWC Pro vs. Pro RE for new Mini

[Ice Dragon]

I don't think there's a topic on this, though I was curious. Price is not an issue.

Should I take the Pro at 120 GB drive, 7% over-provisioning, and three year warranty or go for the Pro RE at 100 GB, 28% over-provisioning, and five year warranty for $369.

 

[DoFoT9]

personally i would go the extra storage over the warranty, but given that these are MLC drives i think its best to get the warranty just incase!

will you be putting the other HDD into optibay space?

 

[Ice Dragon]

Most SLC SSD drives look to be a bit expensive for my means right now, so it looks as though I will go with an MLC for right now. Either way, it'll be a definite upgrade over a stock hard drive.

 

[DoFoT9]

Most SLC SSD drives look to be a bit expensive for my means right now, so it looks as though I will go with an MLC for right now. Either way, it'll be a definite upgrade over a stock hard drive.

MLC is most certainly your best bet.

you are looking at ~60MB/s max for a 2/5" 7200rpm drive, compared to ~200MB/s max for the SSDs. crazy increase.

 

[Ice Dragon]

Just to pass along some information I found from what was being discussed on IRC.

Intel X25-E 64GB is $600 (SLC)
Intel X25-M 80GB is $210 (MLC)

OWC Mercury Pro 60 GB is $180 and 120 GB is $320 (both are MLC).

Crucial also has 32 GB and 64 GB SLC SSD drives as well as various MLC SSD drives on their website.

OCZ is probably okay as well but I have not heard as many positive things about them as I have the others.

 

[Baby Mac]

I am not that concerned with the warranty beyond 3 years, because the price per GB and technology will have advanced enough that I will either be supersizing the same technology or moving on to newer technology.

 

[mangrove]

Just to clarify both OWC SSD's are MLC.

The 5 year more expensive model sets aside around 25% and so the tech dept says its made for RAID setups more than the cheaper (?) one.

This later one sets aside 7% which sounds the way to go for me.

 

[Baby Mac]

Looks like this drive is the way to go for me

I discussed the 120GB (non-RE) drive with them today before ordering, and they answered a couple of my questions that are relevant to this discussion. The performance of both drives is the same, regardless of overprovisioning. Neither drive requires any maintenance to maintain peak performance (no reconditioning, garbage collection, etc.). Lack of maintenance to maintain near-initial performance is more important to me than any other drives that may initially test slightly faster.

 

[Baby Mac]

Fast shipping

It only took 48 hours from online ordering to front-door Saturday delivery from Chicagoland to Cincinnati-land. My Mac continues to sit in a warehouse a few miles from here since Friday for Monday delivery.

 

[mangrove]

So what size OWC SSD did you end up getting?