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SSD Buying Guide

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MJL said:
I bought a couple of Apple Toshiba SSD's that were pulls from the MacBook Pro on eBay. Find a reputable seller.

They work fine, the synthetic benchmarks are only part of the story, the gains made are due to that 90% of the SSD/HDD access is for 4K blocks and that is where the seek/write latency (moving the heads on a HDD) comes in which is on average around 10 - 13 Ms for a mechanical HDD and next to nothing (nS) for a SSD.

The only time the SSD performance gets important is when you do large sequential writes (video processing? Don't know.) but for "normal" usage these Toshiba's work fine. Have one in my Mac mini at the moment and the other is a spare and likely to be used when I get my next machine. (better grab them when they are cheap).

More than pleased - had before an Intel X25M G2 80 Gb and had no troubles (sold it with my Mac mini 2010) but a later Intel 320 has been reassigned to a Windows laptop - was not impressed in the Mac with it.
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I bought a Apple SSD 256 gb from ebay but when i put it in my Macbook 2011 it only did SATA2 link speed and trim was not enabled. So how do know that its the right one that works with SATA3 and trim capable ?
 
ok.. just ordered a Crucial M4 64gb from staples deal on slickdeals.. want to use that for the main drive but use the hard drive thats in my mbp as an external or get a optibay and put it there.. question.. when i bought my mbp i got the free lion upgrade.. is there a way to install lion w/o doing the upgrade? i know i can do it from usb flash drive using lion recovery disk.. would that be the same as doing a fresh install?
 
blueridge said:
ok.. just ordered a Crucial M4 64gb from staples deal on slickdeals.. want to use that for the main drive but use the hard drive thats in my mbp as an external or get a optibay and put it there.. question.. when i bought my mbp i got the free lion upgrade.. is there a way to install lion w/o doing the upgrade? i know i can do it from usb flash drive using lion recovery disk.. would that be the same as doing a fresh install?
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If you have a flash drive with the install image on it, you can use that. Depending on what MBP you have, it may do the internet recovery of Lion when you boot with a drive that has no OS on it. I put a blank SSD in my late 2011 MBP and it just downloaded Lion and did the fresh install.
 
I'm getting between 180 and 200mb/s read and write on my new OWC electra 3G. The website says up to 280mb/s. Is that normal, or should I be getting faster speeds than I am?
 
randy98mtu said:
If you have a flash drive with the install image on it, you can use that. Depending on what MBP you have, it may do the internet recovery of Lion when you boot with a drive that has no OS on it. I put a blank SSD in my late 2011 MBP and it just downloaded Lion and did the fresh install.
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thanks.. i got mine in july of last year it was when they were giving you free upgrade to lion.. i wonder if that would work.. i would rather do that then have to do an upgrade again..
 
can anyone give some feedback on upgrading their late 2008 17" non-unibody mbp 4,1 to a ssd? i have a 320gb 7200 drive right now and wondering if it's worth it to upgrade to a crucial m4 256gb. Thanks!
 
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Sshd?

Hey all, thanks to HellHammer for starting and providing excellent info at the start of this thread.

Unfortunately, I've seen barely a mention of using SSHD's (Solid State Hybrid Drives) in here. I have the mid-2009 13" MBP and wondering if anyone has any insight into whether or not a drive like the Seagate 750GB Momentus XT Hybrid Drive will cause problems or not.

Hoping someone does. Thanks!
 
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Already using a momentus XT hardrive.

cristovao said:
Hey all, thanks to HellHammer for starting and providing excellent info at the start of this thread.

Unfortunately, I've seen barely a mention of using SSHD's (Solid State Hybrid Drives) in here. I have the mid-2009 13" MBP and wondering if anyone has any insight into whether or not a drive like the Seagate 750GB Momentus XT Hybrid Drive will cause problems or not.

Hoping someone does. Thanks!
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Hello, i am currently running my computer off a 500GB seagate momentus XT. I have noticed that it did drop the boot time by about 12-15 seconds from the traditional 5400rpm drive that was in my pc, however from what i gather SSD's are alot faster. Infact, i am upgrading this drive to a 240 GB SSD once it arrives.
 
"SSD Drive for an Apple MacBook Pro Mid-2009 Laptop"‏ "SSD Drive for an Apple MacBoo

brave5213 said:
i can't say which ssd you should buy but i can 'say stay away from intel 520', i bought it from amazon, and returned it in 2 weeks because of freezing issues, there is a long thread in here you can check it also.
i'm still looking for a ssd which is compatible with our model.
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brave5213,

Thank you so very much for your admonishment! I've given up on the Intel series, both the 320 and the 520. I'm definitely going for the Crucial M4 CT256M4SSD2CCA 2.5" 256GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) with Transfer Kit, which comes so very highly recommended. According to Crucial, this SSD drive is compatible with our MBP model. Have you made a decision yet? I'd appreciate learning what you've decided. Perhaps, we can compare notes.

All best wishes,

joey3 :)
joetune@gmail.com
 
joey3 said:
brave5213,

Thank you so very much for your admonishment! I've given up on the Intel series, both the 320 and the 520. I'm definitely going for the Crucial M4 CT256M4SSD2CCA 2.5" 256GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) with Transfer Kit, which comes so very highly recommended. According to Crucial, this SSD drive is compatible with our MBP model. Have you made a decision yet? I'd appreciate learning what you've decided. Perhaps, we can compare notes.

All best wishes,

joey3 :)
joetune@gmail.com
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i'll try samsung 830, but right now i'm waiting the price to come down little bit more, like around 140. if you already bought crucial please share your thoughts.
thanks.
 
I have nothing but praise for my Samsung 830. Very fast machine now, the start up time is incredible. Obviously I can not compare it to any other SSD's, only my previous stock 750Gb 5400HDD.

I have kept the HDD in an optibay and externalised the superdrive. Was dubious at first but I have to say - it is a great set up - I rarely used the superdrive, but the extra storage - total of 1Tb is very handy. My second HDD stores all my media now and a time machine backup - giving my three (anal I know - but its a work machine) - one on the TC, one on a NAS, and now one internal.
 
Hi all, I have a late 2008 MacBook Pro and I recently installed a 180GB OCZ Vertex SSD. Only issue that's been bothering me is that; when shutting down, it takes longer and there is a spinning wheel that comes up for ~10 seconds before the machine actually shut downs. Can anyone help me get back the normal instant shutdowns? Thanks in advance.
 
cristovao said:
Hey all, thanks to HellHammer for starting and providing excellent info at the start of this thread.

Unfortunately, I've seen barely a mention of using SSHD's (Solid State Hybrid Drives) in here. I have the mid-2009 13" MBP and wondering if anyone has any insight into whether or not a drive like the Seagate 750GB Momentus XT Hybrid Drive will cause problems or not.

Hoping someone does. Thanks!
Click to expand...

There are plenty of threads about hybrid drives on the forums. Reviews have been mixed.
 
Any opinions on Intel 330? I know it's been on the market just a couple of days, but has anyone got the chance to try one of them out? Seems really cheap...
 
ok got around to installing SSD.. had a lil trouble with lion recovery.. had to use usb dock with my old drive to get the dmg file to install and it worked.. of course Lion fresh install doesnt have iLife stuff.. do i really need it? i would like to have garageband on here though.. i use that sometimes.. i have final cut so i dont need iMovie.. anyways. few questions..

how do i run a speed test on this drive and are there any other tests i should do before i start using it?

i ordered an optibay and 16GB of mem to max this out.. can i use my old drive as my user folder? i dont want to clutter this 64gb SSD with any data files.. what would be the best way to do so..

thanks in advance.. now my mbp boots fast and shutdown is like instant.. :)
 
Cheezewhiz said:
I'm getting between 180 and 200mb/s read and write on my new OWC electra 3G. The website says up to 280mb/s. Is that normal, or should I be getting faster speeds than I am?
Click to expand...
OWC uses SandForce controllers, which compress data to achieve their highest speeds. If you tested your drive using a benchmark that uses incompressible data to test drive speeds, such as Blackmagic Disk Speed Test, you will see substantially lower read/write speeds. The app is designed to test a drive's ability to capture and read video.

Most data written to and read from a drive in normal use is compressible, and so under normal workloads, you will see the advertised speeds.
 
Quick question Guys. What's the avg. write/read speed on SSD's used by Apple in their MBP's? Is something around "200" correct? (not to mention they charge wayyyyyyyy to match for it).
 
Which is best (SSD)choose

Hi guys

About to order SSD plea could you advice which of these following SSD best choose. thx in advance
MBP 2010 17 i5 500gb hdd 5400rpm
1) Corsair Force 120GB Series 3 Series SATA III
SandForce
Read 550Mb/s
Write 510Mb/s
85,000 IOPS

2)OCZ Agility 3 120GB SSD
SandForce 2281
Read 525Mb/s
Write 500Mb/s
85,000 IOPS

3) Intel 120GB 330 Series SSD SATA III
Intel 330 Series
MLC-Flash
Read 500MB/s
Write 450MB/s
33000 IOPS Max

1st and 2nd same price, Intel is slightly expensive but in this case technical performance important rather than "financial"

Also, is that make a sense if install SSD in primary HDD bay and move HDD to optic drive bay?
thanks
 
My WD Scorpio Black 750GB just failed on me so I think I am going to do it right this time. Looking at the Crucial M4 512Gb (I need the space for partition etcl). I'm running a mid 09 MacBook Pro 13" 2.53 Intel Core Duo with 8GB Crucial RAM. This should work fine right? Just want to make sure before pulling the plug. Thanks
 
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