That is good. You are constrained by the SATA II interface in your machine so you will not see the same high speeds shown in different reviews of this drive.
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SSD Buying Guide
- Thread starter Hellhammer
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That is good. You are constrained by the SATA II interface in your machine so you will not see the same high speeds shown in different reviews of this drive.
hi guys!
i have a late 2008 mbp with the nvidia mcp79 chipset. as i understand, sandforce based ssds dont work particularly well with my mbp.
do any of you know if an intel ssd 510 works flawlessly with no issues with this mbp model? Thanks in advance for your responses!
i have a late 2008 mbp with the nvidia mcp79 chipset. as i understand, sandforce based ssds dont work particularly well with my mbp.
do any of you know if an intel ssd 510 works flawlessly with no issues with this mbp model? Thanks in advance for your responses!
I just jumped on a brand new intel 330 series 180gb for $110 AR.
Will this drive work well?
And what software should I use to move everything on the HDD over?
This is for a 2010 Sata II MBP.
Will this drive work well?
And what software should I use to move everything on the HDD over?
This is for a 2010 Sata II MBP.
My head is about to pop off my shoulders...
I've decided I want to enable TRIM for my Crucial M4. How is this done? I seem to remember reading a post stating not to use Groths Trim Enabler, but also have read that the terminal method of enabling TRIM is "outdated" and that TRIM Enabler works best.
Is this what I should be using? Groths Trim Enabler 2.1
I've decided I want to enable TRIM for my Crucial M4. How is this done? I seem to remember reading a post stating not to use Groths Trim Enabler, but also have read that the terminal method of enabling TRIM is "outdated" and that TRIM Enabler works best.
Is this what I should be using? Groths Trim Enabler 2.1
The posts saying not to use the Groth's app are indeed outdated. Previously the terminal commands were more safe. The updated version of the Groth's app does the exact same thing as the terminal commands and is okay to use.
Helo, unfortunately I am not happy with SSD
I made a resourche and thougth well Intel is much better than OWC, Intell 520 is the most updated, I was wrong it works in a normal speed only , as I have sata 2 write 104 and read 160m/s. I tried TRIM, Firmware renew, update OS Lion, no way. A few times only it run double than this speed.
Some Intel people from support told me that it is just for Windows. Do you know something I could try before given up?
What does SSD speed up?
While I said the performance difference is enormous, it is still limited to certain tasks. It cant speed your encoding times because the drive is not the bottleneck, its most likely the CPU. In games, it may speed up game loading times but the actual frame rate and graphics will not be improved, again because the drive is not the bottleneck.
SSD will speed up anything that involves reading or writing of the drive. Tasks like that include but are not limited to: booting, launching apps and file transfers. People say that the OS feels more responsive with an SSD, which can be true because your slow HD was the bottleneck before. If your OS is in the SSD, then the swap file will be there too so in case you run out of RAM, the system shouldnt feel as unresponsive as with an HD because the SSD is so fast.
Which SSD to buy?
I again want to start off by saying that there is no single answer to this. It all depends on your budget, needs and Mac. Here are a few things to consider:
1. Capacity. How much capacity are you going to need? This is the number one element in determining what SSD to buy.
2. Budget. This could be the first one too but in my opinion, it is useless to buy an SSD that cannot fulfill your needs.
3. Mac. Different Macs have different SATA revisions and even different drive form factors. You should buy one that is the most suitable for your Mac.
4. Usage. For general usage, it wont matter much what SSD you get but if you are getting an SSD for serious work, then it can be crucial to get one with the best performance.
So what SSD to buy for what Mac? Lets see:
Any Mac with SATA 1.5Gb/s or SATA 3Gb/s (i.e. pre-2011 Macs): Intel 320 Series. Why? Because it is relatively fast, reasonably priced and probably the most reliable MLC SATA SSD on the market at the moment. Intel also offers an OS-independent firmware updater so you wont need Windows to update its firmware.
Macs with SATA 6Gb/s: This just got a lot harder. I have yet to see a totally trouble-free SATA 6Gb/s SSD. No matter what SSD you pick, there seems to be some issues. All 6Gb/s SandForce based SSDs seem to be having a share of issues which look like firmware related. Intel 510 Series isnt perfect either. There seem to be random slow downs and long boot times with that SSD. Crucial m4/Micron C400 uses the same controller as Intel 510 Series and thus shares the same issues. In fact, Crucial even pulled MacBook Pro from supported machines list.
Its important to note that there are plenty of users with no issues. For example AnandTech tried to recreate the issue in their 2011 MBP review but they were not able to do it. Its also worth it to note that at least 17 MBPs are experiencing some SATA issues. Moreover, 2011 MBPs are supposed to have two SATA III ports, but some of the earlier versions only have one SATA III port. MBPs built in late May and June most likely have two SATA III ports. Some users have stated that they have two SATA III ports even though they bought their Macs at an earlier time.
Performance degradation and TRIM
TRIM is a command that allows the operating system to inform the SSD controller which files are no longer in use. In other words, when you delete something from the ssd, the operating system does not erase the actual data from the drive, the OS will just mark that space as free space and overwrite the data when needed.
However, the issue with mainstream SSDs with MLC NAND is that only blocks can be erased, individual pages cannot be. To make this simpler, think page as a file and block as a folder. So, if you want to delete one file (page) inside a folder (block), the whole whole folder needs to be erased and rewritten to get rid of that file. The issue raises when you don't have TRIM because the SSD controller still thinks that the file is in use. When the OS decides to overwrite that file, you first need to read the whole block to the cache (usually DRAM) and then you can rewrite the folder (block). The difference is that if you had an empty block, only the write action would have to be done. Now the SSD needs to read the while block first and then write. For the end-user, that appears as performance degradation. It looks like your write speeds have gone and they can easily degrade by 50%.
With TRIM, the OS can inform when a file has been deleted and the SSD controller can do this action in the background. You won't have useless files floating around, thus write speeds will remain great.
Windows 7 supports TRIM on all SSDs. As of Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.6, TRIM is enabled on 2011 Macs with SSDs. OS X Lion is to add TRIM support for all Apple SSDs. As of DP4, third party SSDs are not supported. This may change in the future though. For third party SSDs, there is TRIM Enabler, but it is known to cause problems for some SSDs see the forum thread for more info).
AnandTech's article covers this through with a great example. If you are interested in this whole performance degradation issue, read that, it will open your eyes a lot. In my opinion, the performance degradation issue is overhyped. Most of today's SSDs have very effective garbage collection which helps if your OS does not support TRIM. A good SSD will experience little to no degradation, even without TRIM.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTE: This is still in progress and you can help me building it by PMing me. I plan on updating this when new information is released too.
To do list:
I made a resourche and thougth well Intel is much better than OWC, Intell 520 is the most updated, I was wrong it works in a normal speed only , as I have sata 2 write 104 and read 160m/s. I tried TRIM, Firmware renew, update OS Lion, no way. A few times only it run double than this speed.
Some Intel people from support told me that it is just for Windows. Do you know something I could try before given up?
What does SSD speed up?
While I said the performance difference is enormous, it is still limited to certain tasks. It cant speed your encoding times because the drive is not the bottleneck, its most likely the CPU. In games, it may speed up game loading times but the actual frame rate and graphics will not be improved, again because the drive is not the bottleneck.
SSD will speed up anything that involves reading or writing of the drive. Tasks like that include but are not limited to: booting, launching apps and file transfers. People say that the OS feels more responsive with an SSD, which can be true because your slow HD was the bottleneck before. If your OS is in the SSD, then the swap file will be there too so in case you run out of RAM, the system shouldnt feel as unresponsive as with an HD because the SSD is so fast.
Which SSD to buy?
I again want to start off by saying that there is no single answer to this. It all depends on your budget, needs and Mac. Here are a few things to consider:
1. Capacity. How much capacity are you going to need? This is the number one element in determining what SSD to buy.
2. Budget. This could be the first one too but in my opinion, it is useless to buy an SSD that cannot fulfill your needs.
3. Mac. Different Macs have different SATA revisions and even different drive form factors. You should buy one that is the most suitable for your Mac.
4. Usage. For general usage, it wont matter much what SSD you get but if you are getting an SSD for serious work, then it can be crucial to get one with the best performance.
So what SSD to buy for what Mac? Lets see:
Any Mac with SATA 1.5Gb/s or SATA 3Gb/s (i.e. pre-2011 Macs): Intel 320 Series. Why? Because it is relatively fast, reasonably priced and probably the most reliable MLC SATA SSD on the market at the moment. Intel also offers an OS-independent firmware updater so you wont need Windows to update its firmware.
Macs with SATA 6Gb/s: This just got a lot harder. I have yet to see a totally trouble-free SATA 6Gb/s SSD. No matter what SSD you pick, there seems to be some issues. All 6Gb/s SandForce based SSDs seem to be having a share of issues which look like firmware related. Intel 510 Series isnt perfect either. There seem to be random slow downs and long boot times with that SSD. Crucial m4/Micron C400 uses the same controller as Intel 510 Series and thus shares the same issues. In fact, Crucial even pulled MacBook Pro from supported machines list.
Its important to note that there are plenty of users with no issues. For example AnandTech tried to recreate the issue in their 2011 MBP review but they were not able to do it. Its also worth it to note that at least 17 MBPs are experiencing some SATA issues. Moreover, 2011 MBPs are supposed to have two SATA III ports, but some of the earlier versions only have one SATA III port. MBPs built in late May and June most likely have two SATA III ports. Some users have stated that they have two SATA III ports even though they bought their Macs at an earlier time.
Performance degradation and TRIM
TRIM is a command that allows the operating system to inform the SSD controller which files are no longer in use. In other words, when you delete something from the ssd, the operating system does not erase the actual data from the drive, the OS will just mark that space as free space and overwrite the data when needed.
However, the issue with mainstream SSDs with MLC NAND is that only blocks can be erased, individual pages cannot be. To make this simpler, think page as a file and block as a folder. So, if you want to delete one file (page) inside a folder (block), the whole whole folder needs to be erased and rewritten to get rid of that file. The issue raises when you don't have TRIM because the SSD controller still thinks that the file is in use. When the OS decides to overwrite that file, you first need to read the whole block to the cache (usually DRAM) and then you can rewrite the folder (block). The difference is that if you had an empty block, only the write action would have to be done. Now the SSD needs to read the while block first and then write. For the end-user, that appears as performance degradation. It looks like your write speeds have gone and they can easily degrade by 50%.
With TRIM, the OS can inform when a file has been deleted and the SSD controller can do this action in the background. You won't have useless files floating around, thus write speeds will remain great.
Windows 7 supports TRIM on all SSDs. As of Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.6, TRIM is enabled on 2011 Macs with SSDs. OS X Lion is to add TRIM support for all Apple SSDs. As of DP4, third party SSDs are not supported. This may change in the future though. For third party SSDs, there is TRIM Enabler, but it is known to cause problems for some SSDs see the forum thread for more info).
AnandTech's article covers this through with a great example. If you are interested in this whole performance degradation issue, read that, it will open your eyes a lot. In my opinion, the performance degradation issue is overhyped. Most of today's SSDs have very effective garbage collection which helps if your OS does not support TRIM. A good SSD will experience little to no degradation, even without TRIM.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTE: This is still in progress and you can help me building it by PMing me. I plan on updating this when new information is released too.
To do list:
- Performance, different usages etc. Will get this done ASAP
Performance degradation and TRIM - What it is, how it works, is it necessary, support in OS X etc- List of SSDs with specifications and their current compatibility with Macs and OS X (maybe a fancy table?)
- Alternative methods (OptiBay, external SSD etc)
- Wear out (finite amount of P/E cycles)
Vertex 4 - best price?
First post
I've been keeping myself relatively up to date with SSD's in anticipation of upgrading my MBP from a HDD, been looking at either the Intel 520 240gb or the OCZ Vertex 4 256gb
The cheapest I can find the Vertex 4 256gb at the moment is here:
http://www.waeplus.co.uk/product/283440/OCZ-2.5"-Vertex-4-Series-Internal-Solid
(apologies if anyone has trouble opening that link it wouldn't open for me unless you right click and 'copy link' then paste it into the url bar, thanks)
If anyone can hit me with any good buys (I live in Scotland in the UK) of either of the Vertex 4 or the Intel 520 and advice of which one to get (I use a Western Digital MyBook Live with time machine to backup, so the reliability of Intel over the proposed speed and cheapness of the Vertex is pushing me further towards the latter) then it would be much appreciated cheers
First post
I've been keeping myself relatively up to date with SSD's in anticipation of upgrading my MBP from a HDD, been looking at either the Intel 520 240gb or the OCZ Vertex 4 256gb
The cheapest I can find the Vertex 4 256gb at the moment is here:
http://www.waeplus.co.uk/product/283440/OCZ-2.5"-Vertex-4-Series-Internal-Solid
(apologies if anyone has trouble opening that link it wouldn't open for me unless you right click and 'copy link' then paste it into the url bar, thanks)
If anyone can hit me with any good buys (I live in Scotland in the UK) of either of the Vertex 4 or the Intel 520 and advice of which one to get (I use a Western Digital MyBook Live with time machine to backup, so the reliability of Intel over the proposed speed and cheapness of the Vertex is pushing me further towards the latter) then it would be much appreciated cheers
Last edited:
OWC SSD died - what should i get next?
hi, I had a 115 OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 3g I bought in March 2011. It just died today and the Macbook Pro 13" (2010) would only display a gray screen (no logo) until I pulled it out of the Data Doubler drive bay.
I inserted the SSD into an external drive enclosure but the drive activity light when connected to a MAC and a PC would be constant red and the drive would not show up under disk utility or computer management(PC).
Do you know what might have happened to this drive and is common with Sandforce drives as I have heard?
I am looking at either the Sandisk Extreme (240gb) or the Samsung 830 256GB. I heard the Sandisk is faster but the Samsung is more reliable. Which should I get for image processing in Adobe Lightroom.
I heard the Sandisk is faster with uncompressible data but the reviews show many problems.
Thanks.
hi, I had a 115 OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 3g I bought in March 2011. It just died today and the Macbook Pro 13" (2010) would only display a gray screen (no logo) until I pulled it out of the Data Doubler drive bay.
I inserted the SSD into an external drive enclosure but the drive activity light when connected to a MAC and a PC would be constant red and the drive would not show up under disk utility or computer management(PC).
Do you know what might have happened to this drive and is common with Sandforce drives as I have heard?
I am looking at either the Sandisk Extreme (240gb) or the Samsung 830 256GB. I heard the Sandisk is faster but the Samsung is more reliable. Which should I get for image processing in Adobe Lightroom.
I heard the Sandisk is faster with uncompressible data but the reviews show many problems.
Thanks.
I have a 2011 Mac Mini Server i7 for Logic Pro 9 work.
Will be buying 8GBx2 modules this week and am also interested in upgrading my HDD to SSD. Problem is all these SSDs are pretty small. I need at least 500GB on my main OS HD. I guess I should wait for another year or so to upgrade to SSD hey?
Code:
Model Name: Mac mini
Model Identifier: Macmini5,3
Processor Name: Intel Core i7
Processor Speed: 2 GHz
Number of Processors: 1
Total Number of Cores: 4
L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB
L3 Cache: 6 MB
Memory: 4 GB
Boot ROM Version: MM51.0077.B10
___________________________________________
Intel 6 Series Chipset:
Vendor: Intel
Product: 6 Series Chipset
Link Speed: 6 Gigabit
Negotiated Link Speed: 3 Gigabit
Description: AHCI Version 1.30 Supported
ST9500420ASG:
Capacity: 500.11 GB (500,107,862,016 bytes)
Model: ST9500420ASG
Revision: 0009APM1
Serial Number: 5VJCRHGG
Native Command Queuing: Yes
Queue Depth: 32
Removable Media: No
Detachable Drive: No
BSD Name: disk0
Rotational Rate: 7200
Medium Type: Rotational
Bay Name: Lower
Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
S.M.A.R.T. status: Verified
Volumes:
disk0s1:
Capacity: 209.7 MB (209,715,200 bytes)
BSD Name: disk0s1
Content: EFI
Server HD:
Capacity: 499.25 GB (499,248,103,424 bytes)
Available: 350.18 GB (350,183,505,920 bytes)
Writable: Yes
File System: Journaled HFS+
BSD Name: disk0s2
Mount Point: /
Content: Apple_HFS
Recovery HD:
Capacity: 650 MB (650,002,432 bytes)
BSD Name: disk0s3
Content: Apple_Bootyeah depending on what your budget is 256gb+ ssd's get exponentially more expensive the higher amount of storage you go, however they are drastically coming down in price, you might not even have to wait a year as you have said (although again depending on your budget) on the other hand you could look into using a hdd with an SSD (although I'm not extremely clued up on that) I'm sure you can run things that you use a lot on the SSD like the OS, Logic and your music files, and keep everything else on the HDD
also if you are looking for a good deal on 2x8gb ram then i found this:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Corsair-CMZ...UO22/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1338473146&sr=8-5
although I'm not entirely sure if that specific ram would work in a Mac Mini or MacBook Pro, so if someone on here could verify if that ram would work in the mini's and mbp's that would be helpful for me also
Hope that helps
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In bold the major point. I've had two of the most "hated" SSD's in a earlier '11 17" MBP (the most problematic machines) - Crucial m4 and now a Sandforce based Sandisk 240 Gb - and both worked just fine, at 6 Gb/s speeds and with TRIM enabled. No slowdowns, no beachballing, no issues at all.
I also disagree on getting a Sata II SSD for earlier MBP. The price difference is almost negligible for Sata III drives, and generally performance is much higher on these latest drives where it matters the most - small and frequent reads and writes to the disk. You only get 500 MB/s in Sata III SSD's on benchmarks, that's useless in real life. Even hdd's have respectable sequencial transfer numbers. SSD's are so much faster than hdd's because they combine a almost zero access time to data with almost 100x faster small data amounts reads and writes.
I think it's important to note that the OP was written almost a year ago. Back then the case was different as SATA 6Gbps SSDs were almost without an exception more expensive than SATA 3Gbps ones, plus they all had quite a few issues.
So I bought an Intel 330 180GB a few days ago for $110 AR.
Today I was able to get a Crucial M4 256GB for $170.
I'm a little leery of sandforce drives, but i've also heard of some problems with M4s in MBPs.
Which would you suggest I keep?
Today I was able to get a Crucial M4 256GB for $170.
I'm a little leery of sandforce drives, but i've also heard of some problems with M4s in MBPs.
Which would you suggest I keep?
As I said, no problems at all with a m4 128Gb on both '10 15" and '11 17" MBP.
Thanks. Btw, do I need a special screw driver or something to open the Mini and to swap the RAM/HDD?
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
I'm not sure about the mini as i only have a macbook pro, but I'm pretty sure there are installation guidelines on how to do this stuff on the apple website, however if it doesn't mention tooling etc you could search the mac mini part of the forum? I'm sure the question will have been asked before
Hey All,
i am looking to upgrade my current SSD which is a Kingston hyperX 120gb ssd... its sata 3 and has been causing my laptop to lag which has forced me back onto a hard drive so ive gotten a list of SSD's i am looking at buying and wandering your opinions.
http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=210_902_1006&products_id=18388 Corsair Force Series GT 240GB SSD
http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=210_902_1247&products_id=17686 Crucial M4 SSD 256GB
http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=210_902_1221&products_id=19277 Intel 520 Series 240GB SSD
http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=210_902_1283&products_id=18440 Kingston HyperX 240GB SSD (have had problems with this SSD, tests fine in pc but laggs in macbook pro early 2011 unsure if failing.)
http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=210_902_903&products_id=17030 OCZ Vertex 3 240GB SSD
http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=210_902_1370&products_id=20358 Samsung 830 Series 256GB SSD
http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=210_902_1376&products_id=20077 SanDisk Extreme Solid State Drive 240GB
basicly i am looking for the best one out of all of those.
Thanks In Advance.
i am looking to upgrade my current SSD which is a Kingston hyperX 120gb ssd... its sata 3 and has been causing my laptop to lag which has forced me back onto a hard drive so ive gotten a list of SSD's i am looking at buying and wandering your opinions.
http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=210_902_1006&products_id=18388 Corsair Force Series GT 240GB SSD
http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=210_902_1247&products_id=17686 Crucial M4 SSD 256GB
http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=210_902_1221&products_id=19277 Intel 520 Series 240GB SSD
http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=210_902_1283&products_id=18440 Kingston HyperX 240GB SSD (have had problems with this SSD, tests fine in pc but laggs in macbook pro early 2011 unsure if failing.)
http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=210_902_903&products_id=17030 OCZ Vertex 3 240GB SSD
http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=210_902_1370&products_id=20358 Samsung 830 Series 256GB SSD
http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=210_902_1376&products_id=20077 SanDisk Extreme Solid State Drive 240GB
basicly i am looking for the best one out of all of those.
Thanks In Advance.
sorry meant, II or III. Is it really worth spending the extra money for an SLC instead of a MLC SSD?
Samsung 830 - 256GB SSD
Tigerdirect has the Samsung 830 - 256 GB on sale for $200 w/FS - use COUPON CODE: NEQ62908
Bought one and plan on adding to my early 2011 MBP-15. Is there a way to enable TRIM on non-Apple OEM SSD's?
Also, fingers crossed, I had read somewhere that the Apple will likely upgrade their OEM SSD's to the Samsung 830 (from the current Samsung 470 and Toshiba SSD's) with the expected MBP update next week so maybe there will be a way to enable TRIM?
Tigerdirect has the Samsung 830 - 256 GB on sale for $200 w/FS - use COUPON CODE: NEQ62908
Bought one and plan on adding to my early 2011 MBP-15. Is there a way to enable TRIM on non-Apple OEM SSD's?
Also, fingers crossed, I had read somewhere that the Apple will likely upgrade their OEM SSD's to the Samsung 830 (from the current Samsung 470 and Toshiba SSD's) with the expected MBP update next week so maybe there will be a way to enable TRIM?
If you have the money, go ahead. But for most consumers, a decent sized SLC SSD is way, way over their heads.
----------
Tigerdirect has the Samsung 830 - 256 GB on sale for $200 w/FS - use COUPON CODE: NEQ62908
Bought one and plan on adding to my early 2011 MBP-15. Is there a way to enable TRIM on non-Apple OEM SSD's?
Also, fingers crossed, I had read somewhere that the Apple will likely upgrade their OEM SSD's to the Samsung 830 (from the current Samsung 470 and Toshiba SSD's) with the expected MBP update next week so maybe there will be a way to enable TRIM?
Use this link:
http://digitaldj.net/2011/07/21/trim-enabler-for-lion/
- Status