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SSD Buying Guide

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I am thinking up upgrading to a SSD in my 2010 13" Macbook pro. I am thinking the Crucial M4 or the Samsung 830 256GB. What are your opinions?

Thanks
 
cMBP 15inch 2.6

Hi guys,
Been reading the past 30 or so pages here. Great forum.
I have been toying with getting an air but I've decided on the Pro for my photography work.
Going to order the cMBP with 2.6ghz and hi res screen.
Natural and logical thing is to upgrade to the ssd. As this is the new 2012 model, the optical drive can house another ssd using the data doubler.
I've noticed from the comments that people who have changed over have commented that they wished they put in a second SSD into their system as opposed to the HHD.
I'm going to america next week from Ireland and want to order two SSD's and the data doubler for my new cMBP.WHich two drives would you informed people choose. My initial thought would be a 256(apps) and a 512(pictures) in the optidrive (both samsungs 830's??). Anyone have any suggestions on this set up.
Thanks in advance. hoping to order today.
Damien
 
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Thanks Smithers2,
Yes, they have gotten a lot of positive feedback. I suppose when it comes down to it there is not much between them. I suppose all I was looking for was confirmation that any of them will work equally as good with the new 2012 MBPs.
Will probably put in a RAID configuration of two 256gbs for now.Have you heard much of the vertex 4's??




Smithers2 said:
I have been a huge fan of the Crucial M4. It has changed my MBP into a unbelievably fast machine! Gets great reviews:

http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-2-5-Inch-Solid-State-CT512M4SSD2/
Click to expand...
 
It is my impression that the Vertex 4 is the fastest consumer drive out there, but unfortunately it also has a few stability issues if I'm not mistaken. I'm torn between the Vertex 4 and Samsung 830.
 
I have the 830 and love it. No slowdowns after 3 months. Was going to get the Sandisk Extreme for price/speedbut the 830 had a solid reputation. Also didn't want to get sandforce controller as my OWC 115 gb mercury slowed down and finally died after less than a year in March.

T'hain Esh Kelch said:
It is my impression that the Vertex 4 is the fastest consumer drive out there, but unfortunately it also has a few stability issues if I'm not mistaken. I'm torn between the Vertex 4 and Samsung 830.
Click to expand...
 
I decided to go for the Samsung 830 over the Vertex - I want reliability as well as fast speed. At these speeds, under general everyday use, you're hardly going to see a difference anyway.
Enabled TRIM on my 830 and Im a happy customer!

----------
pjny said:
I have the 830 and love it. No slowdowns after 3 months. Was going to get the Sandisk Extreme for price/speedbut the 830 had a solid reputation. Also didn't want to get sandforce controller as my OWC 115 gb mercury slowed down and finally died after less than a year in March.
Click to expand...

Vertex 4 now has an Indilinx controller. Although its not been around long enough to judge its reliability, its had a number of firmware updates already!
 
Ifti said:
I decided to go for the Samsung 830 over the Vertex - I want reliability as well as fast speed. At these speeds, under general everyday use, you're hardly going to see a difference anyway.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I realize that.. But the perfectionist in me you know.. ;)
Vertex 4 now has an Indilinx controller. Although its not been around long enough to judge its reliability, its had a number of firmware updates already!
Click to expand...
Good to hear! Unfortunately you can't update it on a Mac, and I don't have access to a PC to do it.. :(
 
Is there a way to lock down the secondary HDD in order to stop any spinning parts or use any battery?

I installed an SSD as my MBP13 primary drive and a 750GB HDD as my secondary internal in the optical bay, but since I'll be using the SSD 99% of the times figure I should just lock down the HDD for when I need it
 
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T'hain Esh Kelch said:
It is my impression that the Vertex 4 is the fastest consumer drive out there, but unfortunately it also has a few stability issues if I'm not mistaken. I'm torn between the Vertex 4 and Samsung 830.
Click to expand...

It may seem fast in many reviews but it has poor read performance at small transfer sizes. Unfortunately, real world IOs tend to consist of smaller transfers, hence the V4 isn't all that fast when put into real world comparison.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6074/ocz-vertex-4-review-128gb/
 
Thanks Everyone.
I'm definitely going Samsung. Have been doing a lot of reading the past 24 hours and they have gotten better reliability claims against the vertex 4's as they are obviously a lot longer on the market.
Now my latest delima is whether to go 2*256gb and try a raid 0(Can this be done in Mopuntain Lion?) or go for the safe bet of a 256 for programs and a 512 for my Aperature library.

Anyone succesfully installed a raid zero on Mountain Lion?

Hellhammer said:
It may seem fast in many reviews but it has poor read performance at small transfer sizes. Unfortunately, real world IOs tend to consist of smaller transfers, hence the V4 isn't all that fast when put into real world comparison.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6074/ocz-vertex-4-review-128gb/
Click to expand...
 
From my experience it's best to backup one drive to the other. even ssd failed. i back up data to second internal drive after every important assignment. my owc ssd died and i lost some stuff not much but it was a wakeup call to always backup when adding new data. i missed a half-days-work of photos. nothing too important thank god. rememebr it's not if, but when when it comes to drive failure. i use prosoft data backup to sync photo folder and lightroom library to backup drive. very easy.

tradman said:
Thanks Everyone.
I'm definitely going Samsung. Have been doing a lot of reading the past 24 hours and they have gotten better reliability claims against the vertex 4's as they are obviously a lot longer on the market.
Now my latest delima is whether to go 2*256gb and try a raid 0(Can this be done in Mopuntain Lion?) or go for the safe bet of a 256 for programs and a 512 for my Aperature library.

Anyone succesfully installed a raid zero on Mountain Lion?
Click to expand...
 
Does anyone know of any guides of replacing an HD with a SSD in a 17" MBP? I really want to speed up my MBP.
 
Today I received more port in the mail that replaces the Optical Drive for a second hard drive. I recently bought a Samsung 830 SSD that is in my main drive port. My 750gb Momentus XT hard drive is in the optical port.

All of my applications are installed on my SSD and on my HDD.

First question: am I able to delete my applications off the HDD if I'm just running them on my SSD?

Second: If I'm accessing anything in Finder that's in the HDD, finder rainbow wheels for a good 20-30 seconds. If I stay in the HDD folder it will continue doing so. I tried setting my "Home" setup as my user on that drive but that caused Finder (and other apps running) to rainbow wheel. How do I fix this?

Third: I can't actually log into my main account (the one with the "Home" from my HDD linked) because it says an error is occurring.
 
M0esmac said:
Hi guys,

How much there is real space in 120GB SDD? Eg Samsung 830 or Cruical?

Thanks
Click to expand...

120GB is 120GB (120,000,000,000 bytes, usually slightly more). OS X counts 1GB as 1000MB so 120GB is really 120GB. Windows is slightly different as its GB refers to GiB (1,073,741,824 bytes), hence drives appear smaller under Windows. In the end, the actual usable space is the same.
 
What SSD would you guys suggest for a Core 2 Duo Mac Mini? It's SATA II, so my immediate thought is a Intel 320 or X25M G2 or a Samsung 470 .... none of which I can find locally!

In terms of the SATA III SSDs, what do you think will have the highest chance of being reliable? I can get the following:
Agility 4,
Agility 3
Vertex 3,
Vertex 4,
Intel 520,
Intel 330,
Intel 510

None of them are ideal :( but which gives me the highest chance of working well on an older system like that?

Thanks!
 
Artagra said:
What SSD would you guys suggest for a Core 2 Duo Mac Mini? It's SATA II, so my immediate thought is a Intel 320 or X25M G2 or a Samsung 470 .... none of which I can find locally!

In terms of the SATA III SSDs, what do you think will have the highest chance of being reliable? I can get the following:
Agility 4,
Agility 3
Vertex 3,
Vertex 4,
Intel 520,
Intel 330,
Intel 510

None of them are ideal :( but which gives me the highest chance of working well on an older system like that?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Intel 330 or 520.
 
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