OWC SSD Mercury Extreme Pro REVIEW

J

Jwink444

macrumors member
I recently put this drive into my Macbook Pro (i5, 6gb memory, 17in). I had the Momentus 7200 500gb HDD which was the stock drive in it before. I put the 60gb OWC Mercury Extreme Pro into it. The boot times are extremely fast...thats the biggest noticeable difference i see in this particular drive. How much faster do the apps really load? I'll be honest, i cant tell that much difference over the previous hard drive that i had in the computer. They may load slightly faster but overall, i didn't see that much of a difference.

Customer support as been excellent through OWC.

So unless you are just a massive spec whore, is the SSD really worth it? eh, i think i spent $175 on the drive i got from OWC and I'm going to keep it however I'm not blown away. I like the fast boot times.

I'm not trying to be a jerk either with the review. I've used the boards so much just thought id post a review if some are on the fence with the SSD switch.

Hope this helps someone.

J
 
what i use mac for:

- MSFT Word
- iPhoto
- iMovie ( a little bit)
- Parallel's
- ichat video
- internet browsing
- watch DVD's


those are my main uses on this computer
 
Jwink444 said:
what i use mac for:

- MSFT Word
- iPhoto
- iMovie ( a little bit)
- Parallel's
- ichat video
- internet browsing
- watch DVD's


those are my main uses on this computer
Click to expand...

So basically you lost 440 GB of storage for nothing. I would put the HDD back in and sell the SSD on ebay for your money back, you dont technically even need SSD for the work you do.
 
I didn't "lose 440gb" ill never in my wildest dreams use 50gb so why do i need all that extra storage that ill never use???. I'm talking about overall computer quickness. I just didnt see that much of a noticeable boost at all....but maybe you dont see any pick up with the programs i use.
 
Well your use scenario isn't where one would benefit from an SSD.

Virtualization, Databases and programs that need a lot of fast cache are the main candidates for an SSD.
 
I just saw you use parallels. I think you'd notice quite a difference with that. Especially when your Windows VM boots, installs updates etc.
 
I guess your fast processor and memory mean there's very little benefit for you.

For my 3 year old macbook, I tested out an OCZ Vertex 60GB drive and like you noticed the vast improvement in boot times (vs 120GB 5400 stock HDD) but I also noticed that I didn't get any lag on opening applications or bouncing ball of death anymore.

Although with another OS (parallels) you'll eat through the 60GB, so worth ditching.
 
Use SSD for a few months then go back to a normal hard drive...

You'll notice the difference, trust me. I miss my 160GB X25-M.
 
I didnt know SSD helped with battery life....i usually leave my computer plugged in...i'll have to test that out to see if last longer.
 
Parallels performance is improved with the SSD. I go back and forth a good bit so that is also a noticeable improvement along with the boot time.
 
Some people (Like me) just put an SSD in because it is fun. You don't need a "reason".

My MBP boots in 19 seconds. Photoshop opens in less than 3.

DO I need it? No. But it is damn cool.:D
 
Eddyisgreat said:
Too soon to tell? Really?

I didn't know multiple platters spinning at 7200 RPM and a head floating less than a milimeter off the surface of said platter is somehow as durable as a bunch of flash chips but...ok....
Click to expand...

No need to get ironic.

Theoretically the tech of SSD's is more durable but there are still some of them bricking, losing data, controller failures.

Search for SSD's that failed within months in this site and popular tech blogs like anandtech and you might get my point.

Also, I work in an enterprise environment and we replaced the SATA drives of a SAN storage with intel SSD's and so far we have had a couple of failures. Keep in mind that that's in a 10k euro Storage unit, sitting in a constantly climate-controlled server-room, ventilated, with regulated power and no vibrations at all.

No matter that I use one because of its speed but until 2-3 years pass and we see the longetivity of them we can't really tell.
 
juicedropsdeuce said:
False.
Click to expand...

False to your False.

I will never use a regular HDD again for anything other than storage. If anyone thinks HDD is = to SSD... then they have never used an SSD... or have only used crappy ones.

I almost didn't buy a Mac because when I was in the store everything felt so slow loading... turns out it was because all the Mac's in the store were HDD, no SSD. I had been so accustomed to the "Instant Loading" of Applications on my Win 7 PC with SSD that going back to a HDD system felt like the system had issues.
 
My $.02

Here's the deal, SSDs help mostly with boot times, application loading, and virtualization. The reason for this is these a read time intensive tasks.

When it comes to writing intensive tasks tho, SSDs can slow down, or even be outperformed by HDDs.

Added into the mix is that Apple doesn't yet support TRIM or garbage collection.

One way to save money AND see performance increases while not having to worry about needing TRIM at all in the first place, is to use an SSD as a boot drive and get an optibay for a HDD to store your files on.

Just remember to put your DVD drive back in if your MBP needs to be seen by Applecare. Hopefully in the future, Apple will allow user upgradeable dual drive configurations in MBPs. But don't hold your breath... :rolleyes:
 
BigBeast said:
Here's the deal, SSDs help mostly with boot times, application loading, and virtualization. The reason for this is these a read time intensive tasks.

When it comes to writing intensive tasks tho, SSDs can slow down, or even be outperformed by HDDs.

Added into the mix is that Apple doesn't yet support TRIM or garbage collection.

One way to save money AND see performance increases while not having to worry about needing TRIM at all in the first place, is to use an SSD as a boot drive and get an optibay for a HDD to store your files on.

Just remember to put your DVD drive back in if your MBP needs to be seen by Applecare. Hopefully in the future, Apple will allow user upgradeable dual drive configurations in MBPs. But don't hold your breath... :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

You're forgetting database performance and programs that need a fast scratch disk. So except for Database servers, programs like arcgis, autocad, revit really benefit from an SSD and so does photoshop when you are working with huge files.

Serial writing performance is similar to that of HDD's but you can't say the same for writing small blocks of data randomly.

Basically every I/O heavy application benefits from an SSD and the performance offered compares only to multi-spindle SAN stoarges or RAID setups with a lot of disks.
 
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