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Solid State drive

T

Tech198

Cancelled
Original poster
Mar 21, 2011
15,915
2,152
Hi all

Thinking of replacing my internal Apple spinning drive with an SSD drive.

Preparing to buy non-Apple to keep price down... What does everything think of the Intel 330 series 120 Gig Sata 3

Internal Data Rate
500 MBps (read) / 450 MBps (write)

Price: $115

Personally, i don't need any bigger, as i can use massive external for data storage, as i'm preparing for this in advance.

Are Intel still the best? or should i try OCZ Vertex
 
the intel 330 series is based on a sandforce controller, like the rest of the bunch ( ocz, owc, etc).

However, afaik Intel are the only ones that put their own firmware in, fixing a lot of the reliability issues, but sacrificing a tiny bit of speed. I would recommend it (have one myself), since all the reviews peg it as top of the budget ones.
 
The Crucial M4 and Samsung 830 score high marks in reviews and the prices have been trending downward in recent weeks. The Samsung seems to be especially favored as a platter drive replacement for Macs. I had been considering both myself but opted for the M4 as it was slightly cheaper.
 
I have purchased 3 Crucial m4s for: my self-built PC, my 2012 MacBook Pro, and my mother's 2010 MacBook. It is extremely stable, fast, and generally awesome. You can't go wrong with the Crucial.
 
Agreed. Any of the Intel, Samsung 830 or current Crucial drives are a safe bet. I'd avoid OCZ.
 
As an owner of the 330 (the 60GB one), I can say that I don't know if I'd recommend it or not... **BUT THIS IS WITH A COUPLE OF CAVEATS**

First, I am running mine in a PC (Windows 7) and on SATA II. My MBP is SATA II also, and I have recently installed an OCZ Agility 3 (120GB) in it. To makes things "even," I benchmarked both drives in my PC. The Intel is MUCH slower than the OCZ (~130MB/s average vs. ~185MB/s for the OCZ). For comparison sake, my WD10EALS HDD scores in the ~112MB/s average.

Second, as I mentioned before, I'm on SATA II. Don't know if it'll be completely different with SATA III or not, but SATA II vs SATA II on my two machines, the OCZ is much faster.

Third, I just don't see getting a slower drives for more money. :) The OCZ is easy to find deals on now - I guess it's because the Agility/Vertex 4's are out.

In straight up terms of speed, I would have to recommend OCZ. Not to mention it has given me ZERO issues in my MBP. That being said, I have no issues with the Intel either; it's just not much faster than the Caviar Blue HDD I had before (now my data drive). I assume this is for the Macbook Pro in your signature?
 
The reason many of us don't recommend OCZ is because sequential read/write speeds matter very little in day to day use, and not at all in terms of how fast the drive will make the computer feel. In addition, OCZ has a terrible reputation for reliability, and Intel has a sterling one.
 
First, I have a 256GB OCZ Octane in my 2009 15" MBP and it has been flawless. It installed Lion in under 20 minutes. You should be aware that your drive may or may not run Mountain Lion. There is an issue where the install will work but the first time you reboot you will be stuck in a boot loop and the OS will not load. There are workarounds for this but they are not exactly ideal.

Second, why did you not spend $7 more to get the 128 Vertex 4?

Third, the good thing about OCZ is that their newer drives use indilinx instead of sandforce which OCZ owns so they are much quicker with firmware updates.
 
I have no problem with my Intel drive, other than the price/performance ratio. Warranty is the same between the two, so I really don't see an issue with either - if you're worried about data security and you DON'T have a backup, you're just inviting trouble anyway. Personally, I think most any "major" brand should prove to be OK. But that's my two cents... :)

An apples to oranges comparison (literally): My old Athlon II PC (I haven't moved my SSD to my xw8400 yet) "feels" slower than my C2D MBP, though both benchmark nearly identically overall. A direct benchmark of the SSDs shows the OCZ considerably faster (both tested on the PC). I know benchmarks are synthetic, though... could be that my MBP is, well, a MBP... :D
 
Yes, OCZ consistently wins the benchmarks. As I noted though, for MOST users, they will see no noticeable performance difference between a fast SSD and a very fast SSD. The industry statistics clearly show that OCZ has a much higher failure rate than Intel, Samsung, et. al. and personal experience and experience reported by others I trust bears this out. Note that you don't see OCZ drives offered in OEM applications? The failure rate is too high. Even with proper backups, losing a drive is a pain that most people don't want to deal with, and you'll be rewarded with another questionable drive as replacement.
 
Why do OCZ have much higher failure rates if the speeds are better? Wuld have thought no?
 
zhenya said:
Yes, OCZ consistently wins the benchmarks. As I noted though, for MOST users, they will see no noticeable performance difference between a fast SSD and a very fast SSD. The industry statistics clearly show that OCZ has a much higher failure rate than Intel, Samsung, et. al. and personal experience and experience reported by others I trust bears this out. Note that you don't see OCZ drives offered in OEM applications? The failure rate is too high. Even with proper backups, losing a drive is a pain that most people don't want to deal with, and you'll be rewarded with another questionable drive as replacement.
Click to expand...

I don't know if this counts as a "failure" but I picked up an OCZ Agility 480 GB drive about a week ago. I thought it would be great. I put it in my 2008 Macbook and it booted quickly and all apps launched quickly. We had a death in the family this week and as we were working on the funeral program, my Macbook was pinwheeling more and more. Today, I was so desperate, I went to the Apple store intending to let them keep it if necessary. It turns out it was the OCZ drive. As I sit here and type this on the somewhat slower Momentus XT drive which I put back in at their recommendation, I've gotten through a whole paragraph without one beachball. Perhaps the OCZ drive was defective. Perhaps it isn't compatible with Mac. I don't care. It's going back this weekend. Perhaps I'll consider a Samsung. More importantly, I ordered some RAM from OWC and I'm hoping that makes a bigger impact with less risk than the SSD.
 
Tech198 said:
Why do OCZ have much higher failure rates if the speeds are better? Wuld have thought no?
Click to expand...

Speed has nothing to do with reliability, in fact, often the inverse is true. Just like in racing, pushing the boundaries generally results in less reliability. You have to applaud OCZ for being flexible in trying many different approaches and making big changes very quickly. For some people that works. For most of us though, the more careful approach taken by the big companies is worth the slight drop in performance.

----------
r0k said:
I don't know if this counts as a "failure" but I picked up an OCZ Agility 480 GB drive about a week ago. I thought it would be great. I put it in my 2008 Macbook and it booted quickly and all apps launched quickly. We had a death in the family this week and as we were working on the funeral program, my Macbook was pinwheeling more and more. Today, I was so desperate, I went to the Apple store intending to let them keep it if necessary. It turns out it was the OCZ drive. As I sit here and type this on the somewhat slower Momentus XT drive which I put back in at their recommendation, I've gotten through a whole paragraph without one beachball. Perhaps the OCZ drive was defective. Perhaps it isn't compatible with Mac. I don't care. It's going back this weekend. Perhaps I'll consider a Samsung. More importantly, I ordered some RAM from OWC and I'm hoping that makes a bigger impact with less risk than the SSD.
Click to expand...

Bummer. That sounds suspiciously like the very old OCZ drives using the J-Micron controller. I wouldn't expect that today, however.

With an Intel drive in my 2008 iMac I have no such behavior, FWIW. Unless you are woefully short on RAM, it's unlikely to make anything like the difference that a SSD will.
 
zhenya said:
he industry statistics clearly show that OCZ has a much higher failure rate than Intel, Samsung, et. al. and personal experience and experience reported by others I trust bears this out.
Click to expand...

A bit to the side of the topic, but I find this amusing. I have installed OCZ drives in at least 5 MBPs (including my own) with no issues at all; however, when a buddy of mine was looking for an SSD for his, being a techy guy himself, he had read some of the "oooh, OCZ sucks" comments online and wanted something else. I pointed him to a Samsung... and it died within 10 days.

Moral of the story: ALL drives can and will fail. It's just a matter of when (and luck of the draw). :) Personally, I'll keep my money in my pocket, take a chance, and keep a good backup! :D
 
js81 said:
A bit to the side of the topic, but I find this amusing. I have installed OCZ drives in at least 5 MBPs (including my own) with no issues at all; however, when a buddy of mine was looking for an SSD for his, being a techy guy himself, he had read some of the "oooh, OCZ sucks" comments online and wanted something else. I pointed him to a Samsung... and it died within 10 days.

Moral of the story: ALL drives can and will fail. It's just a matter of when (and luck of the draw). :) Personally, I'll keep my money in my pocket, take a chance, and keep a good backup! :D
Click to expand...

And at our office, we have at least 25 Intel drives, a few Samsungs, a few Crucials, and 5 OCZ's. We've had 2 Intel failures, and 4 OCZ failures. The Intel failures were both in the same laptop that was eventually replaced due to other un-fixable hardware issues and we believe they played a role in the drive failures. YMMV.
 
I have been using the 250GB Crucial M4 for about a year now and I can highly recommend it. So far it has been totally reliable.
 
JonesMatt said:
I have been using the 250GB Crucial M4 for about a year now and I can highly recommend it. So far it has been totally reliable.
Click to expand...

Crucial and Samsung were two brands the guys at Microcenter recommended when I told them the problems I was having with the OCZ. It's ironic. I've got OCZ SSDs in several of our older Macs. They were all Vertex 3's. Now when I decide to try an Agility in my machine, I have a problem.
 
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