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Raptor 150 died!!! Which SSD - Is OWC still the bomb? No time to wait for new models.

Sean Dempsey

Sean Dempsey

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Aug 7, 2006
1,622
8
So my Raptor 150 died tonight. 3.5 years of service, 24/7 usage, never shut it down or slept it once. Pretty good run I'd say.

I'm all backed up, so there's no data loss. But now, I have to get a new system drive for the old 2006 Mac Pro.

I am 99% sure I want an OWC drive, but I want to make sure nothing sweeter has come out in the last few weeks. I know that Intel and OCZ are going to have Sandforce drives, but I am placing my order tonight, so I need whatever is superior as of today.

My system drive was down to 27 gigs, so the OWC 40gig looks good, but its so close to the 60gig in price, I am thinking that is better, I could store a bunch of files on it as well for rapid access.

Is OWC the clear winner as of 9/14/2010?
 
Patriot Inferno?

Might google the Patriot Inferno drives. Several reviews out there, all good. Latest Sandforce controller like OWC's. Got my 240GB version from Amazon, where it's $599 plus $30 rebate. Same deal at Newegg.
 
Dammit, you're right. I thought this was my chance to buy an SSD.

I can't put up with the Cement Mixer sound that the raptor makes any longer. Every time my machine beachballs because the Raptor is busy going "KRKKRKKKRKRKRKRKRKKKRRRRKRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRKKKRKRKRKRKRKKKKRKKRKKRKR" I nearly rip it out of the machine and throw it across the room.
 
Sean Dempsey said:
Is OWC the clear winner as of 9/14/2010?
Click to expand...

No.

My testing still shows the Intel x25e outperforms OWC mercury extreme pro's.
Also, a worrying factor for me is that benchmark performance reported by DiskTester is not consistent between multiple "identical" OWC's.

If you do enough random writes, then Intel is the clear winner vs. OWC.
 
spunkysayswoof said:
No.

My testing still shows the Intel x25e outperforms OWC mercury extreme pro's.
Also, a worrying factor for me is that benchmark performance reported by DiskTester is not consistent between multiple "identical" OWC's.

If you do enough random writes, then Intel is the clear winner vs. OWC.
Click to expand...

Maybe for writes, in which case it's barely faster.

For reads, the OWC or OCZ Vertex 2 drives are the best because of the Sandforce controller. Go for one of those. I got an OWC SSD and absolutely love it.
 
spunkysayswoof said:
No.

My testing still shows the Intel x25e outperforms OWC mercury extreme pro's.
Also, a worrying factor for me is that benchmark performance reported by DiskTester is not consistent between multiple "identical" OWC's.

If you do enough random writes, then Intel is the clear winner vs. OWC.
Click to expand...

I thought they were also like 3x the cost ?

for the price I would much rather buy more OWC ones ? heck two in raid 0 is going to be way faster and cheaper ?
 
curvephotograph said:
How big a difference is there between vertex and vertex 2? I can get a vertex for half the price BTW
Click to expand...

I would skip the vertex ! look at the read write time in MB/s
use something like newegg that lists them all out

OWC or Vertex 2 ? I would say choose the OWC lots of mac users have been having very good luck with them ;)
 
curvephotograph said:
How big a difference is there between vertex and vertex 2? I can get a vertex for half the price BTW
Click to expand...

The Vertex is okay, but it's not great to use a Mac since it's doesn't have its own garbage collection. Basically over time your SSD will get slower and slower.
 
alphaod said:
The Vertex is okay, but it's not great to use a Mac since it's doesn't have its own garbage collection. Basically over time your SSD will get slower and slower.
Click to expand...

Is this not easily fixed by just cloning your system over to an external, wiping the SSD and resetting it, and cloning your system back, like once every 6 months?
 
Sean Dempsey said:
Is this not easily fixed by just cloning your system over to an external, wiping the SSD and resetting it, and cloning your system back, like once every 6 months?
Click to expand...

Cloning doesn't work because it copies block by block (that's what cloning should do).

You can however backup via Time Machine and then restore, but that's just tedious.
 
alphaod said:
Cloning doesn't work because it copies block by block (that's what cloning should do).

You can however backup via Time Machine and then restore, but that's just tedious.
Click to expand...

Well I didn't mean a block level clone, I meant like Carbon Copy Cloner, or what I use, SuperDuper. SuperDuper can do a bootalbe, system drive backup and restore, but it's not block level.

The 2 hours it takes to SuperDuper your system, wipe the SSD, and SuperDuper it back doesn't seem like much of a chore to do once a year.
 
Also, I've had great results from buying OWC ram and External enclosures, so I ordered the 60gb SSD and an Icy Dock, should be here tomorrow.

I plan on running the Photoshop Speed test again with the SSD... then we'll truly see what an SSD does for a program that is "already open" and running all the files and swap of another drive. According to the "only effects boot time and loading apps" people, my speed test results shouldn't change much.

I suspect with OS X and Photoshop running off a SSD instead of a Raptor, with no other changes to my system, there's going to be a huge change.

Last time I did the test: https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/4787365/
 
I own 8 OWC SSD's of varying sizes-love them all as of today 9/15/10.

Dod you ever check out Lloyd Chambers MAc Performance Guide? He has tons of SSD comparisons. Take a look at the OWC read/writes, any way you want. That's real world data.

http://macperformanceguide.com/index_topics.html#ChoosingConfiguring

http://macperformanceguide.com/SSD-RealWorld-SevereDuty2.html

http://macperformanceguide.com/SSD-RealWorld-SevereDuty.html

http://macperformanceguide.com/SSD-RealWorld-BeforeAfter-AppleToshiba512.html
 
Copying my SuperDuper backup of my system to the SSD right now!!

I left the SSD as 1 partition, HFS+ Journaled. I read about the journaling thing, but if in a year or 2 I need a new SSD, I am sure $150 dollars will buy me more than 60gb.

Here we go!! I'ma gonna post results on the Photoshop Speed Test thread as soon as it's all up and running. I am very confident that I am going to see some pretty great results, just by going from a Raptor to a SSD.

Just a matter of time now.


And SSD's are scary light, they feel like they're made of foam.
 
Sean Dempsey said:
Copying my SuperDuper backup of my system to the SSD right now!!

I left the SSD as 1 partition, HFS+ Journaled. I read about the journaling thing, but if in a year or 2 I need a new SSD, I am sure $150 dollars will buy me more than 60gb.

Here we go!! I'ma gonna post results on the Photoshop Speed Test thread as soon as it's all up and running. I am very confident that I am going to see some pretty great results, just by going from a Raptor to a SSD.

Just a matter of time now.


And SSD's are scary light, they feel like they're made of foam.
Click to expand...
did you rma the raptor they have a very good rma program. the drive is the receipt . they will print a UPS label for about 7 bucks. so you will get a new raptor for only 7 dollars! Also if you have a 74gb they will most likely upgrade it to 150gb. I only buy western d. because the warranty system is so easy to do.
 
philipma1957 said:
did you rma the raptor they have a very good rma program. the drive is the receipt . they will print a UPS label for about 7 bucks. so you will get a new raptor for only 7 dollars! Also if you have a 74gb they will most likely upgrade it to 150gb. I only buy western d. because the warranty system is so easy to do.
Click to expand...

I did RMA the raptor150, I expect it will come back in a week or 2? Since they don't make them anymore, I presume they'll just give me one that was in a warehouse somewhere. Or, maybe they stockpiled enough drives to satisfy 5 year warranties.

Either way, I'll have a spare 150gb raptor I have no use for.
 
Photoshop speed test, shaved off 8 seconds (23%) with the SSD installed. From 36 to 28
 
mangrove said:
I own 8 OWC SSD's of varying sizes-love them all as of today 9/15/10.

Dod you ever check out Lloyd Chambers MAc Performance Guide? He has tons of SSD comparisons. Take a look at the OWC read/writes, any way you want. That's real world data.

http://macperformanceguide.com/index_topics.html#ChoosingConfiguring

http://macperformanceguide.com/SSD-RealWorld-SevereDuty2.html

http://macperformanceguide.com/SSD-RealWorld-SevereDuty.html

http://macperformanceguide.com/SSD-RealWorld-BeforeAfter-AppleToshiba512.html
Click to expand...


Those charts are impressive but they don't tell the whole story of a big section of real world usage.
What they do is support the claims of read/write throughput for sequential access.
Want to know the performance of an OWC Sandforce SSD using 4k random reads? Variable between 25 to 30 (at a stretch) MB/s.

Big difference, that's not a stat that'll get used in their advertising.

I think the claim if for "up to" 10,000 IOPS which exceeds the specs for say an Intel X25m or X25e, yet in my testing I see higher sustained IOPS from both Intels.

I bought a batch of the OWC's... interesting that using these Digitools tests I can see ~250MB/s reads on one SSD but only 215MB/s reads on an identical OWC SSD where it's performance regularly dips to ~171MB/s.
These are brand new so they've not had a chance to get worn down... but even if they had been used a lot the Sandforce firmware with overprovisioning is supposed to make that not possible.
 
spunkysayswoof said:
Want to know the performance of an OWC Sandforce SSD using 4k random reads? Variable between 25 to 30 (at a stretch) MB/s.

I bought a batch of the OWC's... interesting that using these Digitools tests I can see ~250MB/s reads on one SSD but only 215MB/s reads on an identical OWC SSD where it's performance regularly dips to ~171MB/s.
These are brand new so they've not had a chance to get worn down... but even if they had been used a lot the Sandforce firmware with overprovisioning is supposed to make that not possible.
Click to expand...

curious how you hooked them up and tested ? what did you use to test the 4K

as example you installed all and tested or
say bay 1 each drive went through the same channel and if that drive moved around to another channel ?

sounds like maybe a bad drive ? send it back ?

not sure what your batch is ? I just have 5 but all are good to go :)

I would say send the bad one back :)
 
Honumaui said:
curious how you hooked them up and tested ? what did you use to test the 4K

as example you installed all and tested or
say bay 1 each drive went through the same channel and if that drive moved around to another channel ?

sounds like maybe a bad drive ? send it back ?

not sure what your batch is ? I just have 5 but all are good to go :)

I would say send the bad one back :)
Click to expand...


ATTO & CDM & Digitools recondition.
 
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