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SSD Buying Guide

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pshifrin said:
Some quick real world observations:

I have an early 2011 15 inch MBP 2.3. I had an intel 320 SSD for the last 4 months and recently changed to the Samsung 830. Needed something bigger and wanted to upgrade a coworker who was still running a HDD. You get to do stuff like that when you are in charge of IT !

The Intel 320 with the Trim Enabler was FLAWLESS the entire time. The firmware can easily be updated using a bootable CD you create from an ISO.

The Samsung 830, running with the Trim Enabler has also been FLAWLESS. I upgraded the firmware to the latest using the bootcamp partition.

Does the Samsung bench mark way faster than the Intel? Certainly, but day to day usage doesn't seem any more than a fraction of a second faster, if at all.

I sleep and wake the computer multiple times per day. Go to the office and back. Plug into a Thunderbolt display at work. Run all manner of Adobe, Office 2011, IT software, Remote Desktop, Aperture, iTunes, Video Encoding, you name it, it's all been perfect.

We are slowly replacing every company computer with a Mac as their PCs die or age out. It's fun times these days around here!

I can easily recommend both SSDs with the Trim Enabler.
Click to expand...

Thanks pshifrin, I'll remember to enable the trim from the start in that case. I've already noticed a difference with 8gb of RAM. The hard drive is being used a lot less.
Does anyone have a link to Intel's website for it's firmware for the drive?
 
Hellhammer said:
Booting depends on various factors. Each component will be initialized during the boot up so if you have many hard drives, RAM DIMMs, PCIe cards etc, it will take longer.

You can try repairing permissions with Disk Utility, resetting PRAM and SMC, and checking that the SSD is your #1 boot volume from Sys Prefs > Startup Disk. Those usually speed it up a bit.
Click to expand...
I will try all that. SSD is of course startup disk. Maybe the HDD in the optical bay is a problem. Very slow, when booting from it. And I will separate the RAID0 (bay 2-4) into 3 disks now, after moving the system to the SDD.

I knew before, that the change to SSD instead of RAID0 out of three fast HDDs would be no turbo boost at all. On the other hand I heared of 14-20 seconds booting times. That's why I felt a little bit disappointed.
 
Mac Husky said:
I will try all that. SSD is of course startup disk. Maybe the HDD in the optical bay is a problem. Very slow, when booting from it. And I will separate the RAID0 (bay 2-4) into 3 disks now, after moving the system to the SDD.

I knew before, that the change to SSD instead of RAID0 out of three fast HDDs would be no turbo boost at all. On the other hand I heared of 14-20 seconds booting times. That's why I felt a little bit disappointed.
Click to expand...

How is the performance overall? Booting is a very poor measure of performance. Besides, at least I do it so rarely that I don't care how long it takes. If the performance is great while in the actual OS, that's all that matters.
 
Absolutely wright. It was only the first point I noticed.

What tool would you use for performance test?

Or do you mean 'feeled performance'? Well, it's quite good fast.
Did not test Photoshop or Premiere so far.
 
Mac Husky said:
Absolutely wright. It was only the first point I noticed.

What tool would you use for performance test?

Or do you mean 'feeled performance'? Well, it's quite good fast.
Did not test Photoshop or Premiere so far.
Click to expand...

I meant "feeled performance". E.g. does Photoshop (or other bigger apps) launch immediately when you click it.
 
Kind of, yes. Photoshop takes about 2 sec, Premiere Pro about 7 sec and After Effects about 8 sec loading everything clear for working.

Started Lion from the RAID0 again to compare: Photoshop 2,4 sec, Premiere Pro 8,4 and After Effects about 8 sec.

Not that much difference. Spoiled by RAID0 I guess :)))
 
Last edited:
i have an owc 120gb mercury extreme pro 6g. i plan on reinstalling lion fresh. do i need to somehow use a security erase or can i just partition/format like a raw drive. i don't want to slow the ssd down. i know garbage collection will restore the drive once i get it up and running again.
 
Evening,

Anyone recommend a SSD around 120gb and $200 that's 6G for a 13inch MBP Early 2011? I recently returned a OCZ Vertex 3 MAX IOPS 120gb due to compatibility issues and horrible support...won't be purchasing anything from those guys anytime soon!


Thanks!
 
save 50 more dollars and get the owc mercury extreme pro 6g 120gb. i just got it and i love it. check out the owc mercury electra 6g 120gb for 189.99. its a little slower than the extreme pro. but its 6g
 
doctacarta said:
Evening,

Anyone recommend a SSD around 120gb and $200 that's 6G for a 13inch MBP Early 2011? I recently returned a OCZ Vertex 3 MAX IOPS 120gb due to compatibility issues and horrible support...won't be purchasing anything from those guys anytime soon!


Thanks!
Click to expand...

Crucial M4 has a pretty good price here. I use the 256GB version and it been great. Also from what I've seen so far their customer support is great in regards to issues and updating firmware for the SSD. Here is the link.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&sku=768801&is=REG&A=details&Q=
 
jcampbell1070 said:
i have an owc 120gb mercury extreme pro 6g. i plan on reinstalling lion fresh. do i need to somehow use a security erase or can i just partition/format like a raw drive. i don't want to slow the ssd down. i know garbage collection will restore the drive once i get it up and running again.
Click to expand...

there is no need to do a secure erase. Just partition/format and install.
 
Just bought a OCZ Vertex 3 for my Macbook Pro 13" mid 2010 (Sata II). Does it fell the difference from a motherboard with Sata III?
I bought a Sata III SSD in prevision of a future upgrade.
 
doctacarta said:
Evening,

Anyone recommend a SSD around 120gb and $200 that's 6G for a 13inch MBP Early 2011? I recently returned a OCZ Vertex 3 MAX IOPS 120gb due to compatibility issues and horrible support...won't be purchasing anything from those guys anytime soon!


Thanks!
Click to expand...

Crucial M4 all the way.
 
Hey all. My 256 Crucial M4 should be here tomorrow. I have a Late 2011 MBP.

My initial plan was to do a 100% clean install. And then reinstall all my apps etc....

I do have a Time Capsule /w my Time Machine backups. If I restore from a Time Machine backup, is that still considered a "clean install"?

Just looking for what is the 100% best way to go about this. Not a big deal, if I need to reinstall everything from scratch.

Thanks in advance.
 
iLukeJoseph said:
Hey all. My 256 Crucial M4 should be here tomorrow. I have a Late 2011 MBP.

My initial plan was to do a 100% clean install. And then reinstall all my apps etc....

I do have a Time Capsule /w my Time Machine backups. If I restore from a Time Machine backup, is that still considered a "clean install"?

Just looking for what is the 100% best way to go about this. Not a big deal, if I need to reinstall everything from scratch.

Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

That would not be a clean install. Instead install from Lion USB/CD or internet recovery. Some here report optimized performance with clean installs. That being said, I've used Time Machine to copy over to a new HDD before with no noticeable issues and others have found Carbon Copy Cloner to work fine.
 
Installing the newly ordered Crucial M4

new1macuser said:
Hi forum members, greetings.
I am a long time lurker and first time poster, relatively new to the Mac world.

I have a 15" late 2008 MBP with 2.53 GHz core 2 duo processor and 4 GB of RAM with a HDD at 5400 RPM speed. It has become pretty slow and I do not have budget to buy a new one MBP. I went through every post on this wonderful thread about having a SSD to boost up the MBP performance.

One special requirement I have is that I need to close the MBP often during the day. So the SSD should not have problem of freezing when waking up from sleep.

By going through the advice here, this is what I am thinking :

1) Go for a Crucial M4 SSD
2) Install it in the optical bay, preferably with a Data Doubler from OWC
3) Use an enclosure for the DVD drive to be used as needed
4) Use "System preferences" to have SSD as the start-up disk
5) Install Lion on the SSD and keep the music/photos on the HDD

Based on this, I feel the following are the "most reliable" choices :

Crucial 128 GB m4 2.5-Inch Solid State Drive SATA 6Gb/s CT128M4SSD2

http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-2-5-I...1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1327439452&sr=1-1

OWC Data Doubler Optical Bay Hard Drive/SSD Mounting Solution for select Apple Laptop Models - Item Number: OWCDDAMBS0GB

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/DDAMBS0GB/

Newer Technology 11 Piece Tool Set - All the screwdrivers/torx tools you need! - Item Number: NWTTOOLKIT11

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer Technology/TOOLKIT11/

OWC SuperSlim USB 2.0 Enclosure for Apple SuperDrive from MacBook/MacBook Pro Unibody - Item Number: OWCVLSS9TOPTU2

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/VLSS9TOPTU2/


Would love to get confirmation/corrections from the knowledgeable members here.

Thanks for reading.
Click to expand...

Based on all the information on this thread, I finally pulled the trigger on the Crucial M4 128 GB from B&H Photo for $169. It will be arriving early next week.

I would like to know how to replace the SSD with the HDD. There is an option to use the free App Carbon Copy Cloner but it needs a SATA/USB connection. I am not sure if the SATA/USB connection is included in the box.

Please guide what are the options for me.

Thanks
 
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new1macuser said:
Based on all the information on this thread, I finally pulled the trigger on the Crucial M4 128 GB from B&H Photo for $169. It will be arriving early next week.

I would like to know how to replace the SSD with the HDD. There is an option to use the free App Carbon Copy Cloner but it needs a SATA/USB connection. I am not sure if the SATA/USB connection is included in the box.

Please guide what are the options for me.

Thanks
Click to expand...

One option is to purchase a USB or Firewire enclosure. You can get them for about $6-20 from NewEgg or a similar supplier. It is also a good way to be able to use the old hard drive as a backup drive.
 
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