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SSD Buying Guide

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JTToft said:
- You have quite a lot of things totally backwards and some names mixed up. I'll try to help.

First of all, no you cannot upgrade your RAM (which you call "work-memory") from the existing 4 GB by installing an SSD. RAM is totally different from an SSD. You have 4 GB RAM. RAM takes care of temporary caches in your workflow (handling multiple files in Photoshop for instance). So the more RAM the more you can do at once (to put it simply). For most people 4 GB is enough, 8 GB is better and 16 GB is unnecessary. You will see in my signature that I have 4 GB and I get by just fine.

SATA has nothing to do with storage space. SATA is the interface that is used to connect your hard drive or your SSD to the rest of the computer. The size of your hard drive or SSD has no impact on performance.

If you were to install an SSD it would replace your 500 GB hard drive. The benefit of the SSD is that it is much faster than a hard drive (in some cases up to 10 times as fast), which means that applications will launch more quickly, file transfers will be faster and starting your computer will be faster.

I hope this has helped with your understanding of all this.
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Thanks for your information. So if I am right, the best thing is to upgrade the 4GB to 8GB and put a SSD in it. And ofcourse the SSD are really expensive (and definetly in the Netherlands, 120GB for around 150 euros. So the only thing to improve is the speed because I will go down from 500GB to 120GB:p
 
DutchAmerican said:
Thanks for your information. So if I am right, the best thing is to upgrade the 4GB to 8GB and put a SSD in it. And ofcourse the SSD are really expensive (and definetly in the Netherlands, 120GB for around 150 euros. So the only thing to improve is the speed because I will go down from 500GB to 120GB:p
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If you need the 8 GB, then yes, that's a good upgrade. SSDs are very expensive relative to the storage space, but they are quite cheap relative to performance. :)
 
JTToft said:
If you need the 8 GB, then yes, that's a good upgrade. SSDs are very expensive relative to the storage space, but they are quite cheap relative to performance. :)
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Well said. I think SSD may be the single best upgrade I have seen in many, many years in the computer industry.

I've spent hundreds on mild upgrades on gaming computers, so a couple hundred bucks for noticeable performance increase (this rarely is even possible to this level) is a steal in my mind.
 
what benchmark test are you guys using? they said blackmagic isnt consistent with all ssd's as owc ssd's score low on that test
 
My new upgrade benchmarks

Just upgraded the ole HDD with an SSD in my 2012 13" MBP. See below. :)

Before with just stock HDD
DiskSpeedTest.png

New Samsung 830 512 SSD!!! I LOVE this thing, WOW!!!
SSD Installed.png
 
What OS are you guys running with the Samsung?

I am still on SL and im wondering if this is the cause of all my problems?
 
Dangerous Theory said:
I would say those speeds are far too low for a SATA 6 connection. Do you have the latest drivers?
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I have trim enabler 2.1 running and it says it patches the latest drivers? I'm not sure. But from what I read online and what I watched on youtube with people running this corsair series 3 sad, the benchmarks were close to mine and it has something to do with sandforce and its gonna score low on the blackmagic disk speed test. Im going to install windows 7 this tues when the package comes and ill test on the windows side.

As I tried to time the boot from shutdown, it was around 18secs. It seems to be running well tho
 
igiboi said:
I have trim enabler 2.1 running and it says it patches the latest drivers? I'm not sure. But from what I read online and what I watched on youtube with people running this corsair series 3 sad, the benchmarks were close to mine and it has something to do with sandforce and its gonna score low on the blackmagic disk speed test. Im going to install windows 7 this tues when the package comes and ill test on the windows side.

As I tried to time the boot from shutdown, it was around 18secs. It seems to be running well tho
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Hmm 18 seconds does seem about right. YouTube videos show something like 18-21 for the M4 and 830.
 
Dangerous Theory said:
Hmm 18 seconds does seem about right. YouTube videos show something like 18-21 for the M4 and 830.
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I read from a couple of forums that ssd's with sandforce same with OWC ssd's, don't do well in blackmagic disk speed test. I saw a youtube video with same ssd running in a 13" pro had same results.
 
igiboi said:
I read from a couple of forums that ssd's with sandforce same with OWC ssd's, don't do well in blackmagic disk speed test. I saw a youtube video with same ssd running in a 13" pro had same results.
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because the black magic test uses mostly incompressible data, sand force gets it's advantages from compression of data
 
igiboi said:
so weird, mine isn't even close to that.
I got Corsair Force 3 SSD and benchmarked on blackdisk
Read: 200mb/s
Write: 137mb/s
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I'm not sure, I had 200's thru USB 3 when I was testing it after cloning the HDD to my SSD. Was using an OWC enclosure. Not sure why your speeds are so low compared to mine.

USB screenshot.png
 
I'm probably going to be in the market for a 512GB SSD around October/November. Do you guys think there's a chance Samsung 830 prices could drop to around $400 for the 512GB version?

Otherwise, I'll probably just go with Crucial m4, but I'd obviously like the faster drive of the 2. How much speed difference is there really between the 2 drives in real life? Like, does Samsung boot 1-2 secs faster or something? And does it open apps on 1 bounce only, while Crucial opens them on 2 bounces etc? Or is this difference in speed not as apparent as the two examples I just mentioned?
 
Mikey86uk said:
Ah, all 2010 Macbooks are SATA2 i believe, so those speeds are find then?
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In real world use, you most likely will not be able to tell a difference at all between SATA 2 SSD and a SATA 3 speeds. Zero difference to the user in almost all tasks in real world use.

So don't let it get you bummed out. Get the most reliable drive you can. Performance over time is the most important aspect of a SSD, not the highest Seq. or Write speeds with synthetic benchmarks. In my opinion reliability is no #1, then everything else within reason.

Buy a Sata 3 drive and you will see only SATA 2 speeds because of the interface, but the person with a 6Gps SATA 3 interface will not see a better user experience in real world use than you will.

I have a M4 in a few Mac Mini's at work and a Toshiba OEM Apple SSD in my late 2011 15 MacBook Pro. So that is a SATA 2 SSD vs a SATA 3 SSD.

Using them both you would be hard pressed to tell the difference. Actually you would not be able to tell the difference on boot up, application speed, or general use. Or file transfers that much if at all. I use both and cannot tell the difference.

Here is a good article on the subject. Very good read.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/sata-6gbps-performance-sata-3gbps,3110.html
 
Hey guys when i buy a top of the range cMBP and put the ssd into the optidrive bay, what steps do i need to follow to make it the main drive and the 750HDD the secondary ?

Cheers
 
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