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SSD Buying Guide
- Thread starter Hellhammer
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Very Informative
And useful, as I will shortly be buying 3 high capacity SSD's to replace my current HDD backup system. I've been holding off for a drop in price and more confirmation of reliability....The latter being the most important to me.....My backups HAVE to be rock solid.
Thanks HellHammer, and any further info. you come across would be invaluable!
And useful, as I will shortly be buying 3 high capacity SSD's to replace my current HDD backup system. I've been holding off for a drop in price and more confirmation of reliability....The latter being the most important to me.....My backups HAVE to be rock solid.
Thanks HellHammer, and any further info. you come across would be invaluable!
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Now the speeds are on-par with the adverts.
Well, you only need access to a PC AFAIK, the SSD doesn't need to be in that machine. Otherwise it is true, Samsung doesn't have a Mac or OS-independent updater.
My OCZ Vertex 2 drive died in my 2010 17" MacBook Pro.
So, should I go with the Intel 320 120GB, since Samsung does not support firmware flashing on a Mac? (I don't have easy access to Windows).
What about the Crucial m4? How does it fare w.r.t. reliability?
Anything else I should consider?
Reliability matters to me. My Vertex 2 lasted less than six months.
So, should I go with the Intel 320 120GB, since Samsung does not support firmware flashing on a Mac? (I don't have easy access to Windows).
What about the Crucial m4? How does it fare w.r.t. reliability?
Anything else I should consider?
Reliability matters to me. My Vertex 2 lasted less than six months.
Just thought I'd post this here since I looked through this thread when looking to buy an SSD. I recently bought a Samsung 830 128GB and have been using it for about two weeks without problem.
My computer is in my signature. Overall very happy with the SSD
My computer is in my signature. Overall very happy with the SSD
At one stage Intel was regarded as the most reliable one (X25M G2 series) but there are many complaints about the 320 series. I had no problems with my X25M G2 80 Gb in my Mac mini 2010 but testing a 40 Gb series 320 for my Mac mini 2011 has put me off from using it as a boot drive and it has been reassigned to be a "silent" ("non mechanical" in USB enclosure) backup drive.
At the time of the X25M G2 the Toshiba were the next most reliable ones but more modern drives have better performance.
Personally I would see if I could get a SSD from Apple - one never knows what they have done to the firmware especially for Apple.
What are the complaints with the Intel 320? I have read several good reviews on anandtech and elsewhere.
So, there is not one good non-Apple SSD for Apple computers?
I'm looking for a 120GB drive that's reliable. There's nothing other than Apple SSD? Can you even purchase these after the fact?
Correct. Unfortunately, it looks like Samsung has only realsed their SSD Magician software for Windows. However, I see no reason why you couldn't update from a bootcamp'ed Windows 7 partition. (on your MBP)
Does the Apple SSD include firmware updates to itself in official Software Updates?
At any rate, it's no big deal. I will still get the SSD and not really worry about the firmware that much since I won't be putting much on it.
At any rate, it's no big deal. I will still get the SSD and not really worry about the firmware that much since I won't be putting much on it.
IF you buy a non-Apple then you have to "hack" OS X to enable TRIM. When you use only Windows (like I do) then you can use an Intel or Samsung who have some software to manually do the TRIM (although I do believe that TRIM works fine under Windows 7).
Every now and then some "pulled" Apple SSD's turn up on the oBoy! website - often these were pulled because they do not offer encryption which in some companies is mandatory for the laptops. In other cases a 128 Gb may have been pulled to be replaced by a larger one. Alternatively you may see if you can get some Apple service centre to put in an Apple SSD.
Problem with putting a non-Apple SSD in is that a) you may void warranty (not all models I've been told) and b) if you do have a problem Apple service will/may only look at the issue when you have the "standard" disk back in with "standard" OS X. (read a story recently about smcFancontrol being blamed for all kind of ills which is total nonsense).
Unless you have a noisy drive in a desktop I would just keep the mechanical HDD. For a laptop it is a no-brainer because a severe jolt (e.g. dropping) can damage the HDD (how valuable is your data). Also frequent starting and stopping may shorten the time you can run on battery.
Yeah.. and I ran another benchmark - this time QuickBench and got read speeds between 500-510 MB/s and write 440-470 MB/s. So I guess it's fine and we shouldn't really be using Xbench anymore because it's obviously outdated and inaccurate...
Optical drive usually serves as an extra storage drive. People mostly use the SSD to install OS X + apps on it, while the HDD in the optibay provides space for data like music, movies, pics, docs etc.
So basically its best to buy a 120gb SSD and replace the optical drive wit the HD that came with the mac....
or would jus replacing the HD with a 518GB SSD be better?
not talking about cost but the speed, etc.
From what I understand it's generally still best to keep the SSD in the main bay because there have been reported some sleep issues with SSDs in optibay and also there might be problems with the OS if running it from optibay. Besides, the optibay cannot utilize 6G (Sata 3) speed gains (optibay only supports Sata 2 in most cases), so your best bet is SSD in the main bay and HDD for storage in the optibay.
With say the Samsung 830, there is no difference in speed (read/write) between the 256 GB and 512 GB as far as I know. Though I would buy the 256, put your OS and apps on it, and have an external HDD for the media and other stuff.
If you only need a 128 GB then get a 128 GB though the 128 GB is somewhat slower (read/write) than the 256 and 512 and the 64 is slower than the 128. Only use the 64 GB to slash costs if you have very minimal to put on it.
Thanks. How do you update the firmware.
So if I purchase this drive, I need to then hack OS X to enable TRIM? I thought 10.7 included TRIM? And I have read that TRIM isn't necessary.
So what's the deal? The previous post looks scary. What's required? I am pretty sure I want the Intel 320.
Thanks.
This link from Intel has the ISO you need to make a bootable image for FW updates. I would be surprised if that SSD is still on store shelves with the old firmware though.
OS X does not support TRIM on drives other the Apple's OEM drives. You can use the TRIM hack to enable it on the Intel but it is not necessary.
Does the TRIM hack make it more reliable? If you use the TRIM hack, can you first install OS X, then do the TRIM hack?
The Grant Pannell hack replaces in two places "Apple" with spaces and then the check for the drive name accepts every other drive.
In theory TRIM should make it more reliable however we do not know what special firmware Apple had incorporated in their SSD and what they have done with their drivers. In other words: I am very reluctant to muck around with it (but then I require something that is ultra reliable).
In a normal case when a drive starts to fill up TRIM will help with managing deleted data. Most SSD's have different algorhytms for managing deleted data ("garbage collection") and some are more aggressive than others.
On another note: there is misinformation around regarding AHCI being required for TRIM (not true - it had me attempting some hack to enable this under Windows 7 but I had the -impression- that the environment was more unstable).
AHCI does enable NCQ however there are drives that do not use this. IMHO NCQ may potentially increase the risk of failure since there is more complexity in the logic to manage the SSD. Ofcourse NCQ increases the synthetic benchmarks but the gains are barely noticeable in real usage. The difference between a HDD and any SSD is very noticeable and only in special cases is the difference between one and another SSD noticeable.
You would install OS X, then the hack.
The TRIM hack does nothing to increase reliability. All it does is prevent a possible slow down in write speeds in the future, assuming the built in garbage collection does not do its job. Even if you do experience a write speed slow down at some future date, you can install the hack then TRIM the drive, and remove the hack... putting you back to like new performance. There will be no damage done by not running TRIM.
Personally, I don't run it.
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