SSD Buying Guide

[Weaselboy]

What I'd like to see going forward are the loss of horror stories. These SSD drives need to become so reliable that even the worst bargain basement units from a used electronics store should be good for many years of solid use. The technology needs to become bullet proof.

I think we are close to this point now. Between SSD firmware maturation and Mac firmware (EFI) updates, I have noticed far far fewer posts here about SSD problems then six months ago.

 

[MJL]

I would partly agree with this. I agree once the app is loaded it does not make as much difference when using an SSD, but it does make some difference and it is noticeable. For example, when using Safari the web page data is cached and this occurs much faster/smoother with an SSD then a HDD. Same for iPhoto... even if iPhoto is already loaded it needs to load up the photo once you click on it and that is much faster with an SSD.

I have a 2010 iMac with HDD and a 2011 Macbook Pro with SSD, and in using both machines the SSD equipped Macbook Pro feels faster in normal usage even after all the apps are loaded even though the iMac has a much more powerful CPU/GPU.

Please note that I mentioned "not a lot". However once you've had a SSD you'll never go back, especially if you use windows (like I do).

 

[Hellhammer]

Now we know why Apple is using a 5400 rpm drive and that OS X is doing more in memory (hence the larger memory requirements) than windows. And once the program is in memory then it does not matter a lot how fast the disk drive is except when you are ripping video's or doing some rendering.

And those tasks depend mainly on the CPU speed, especially in laptops.

now for trim
and/or GC which would be better for our macs? the 830 or m4?

A few days ago Hellhammer wrote:

I have seen a test yesterday, where Garbage Collection of the Crucial M4 AND the Samsung SSD 830 as well has been described as conservative. Intels 510 series is told to be noticeable more aggressiv.

But I don´t care. I bet GC works well in all of them as far as I will notice. The missing TRIM function in a Mac (without enabling) is the bigger problem. Thank you, Apple 😡

A couple of things. Crucial M4 and Intel 510 Series use the same Marvell controller, hence they both have fairly mild GC and rely on TRIM. The GC of Samsung 830 is slightly different as it's not real time. When the disk is idle, GC will be performed. This means the performance may degrade if the disk is constantly under load, but it should get better by leaving it idle for awhile.

 

[philipma1957]

It is indeed noticeable. I was considering returning my SSD after reading the horror stories. I even popped it out and put back the normal drive. After using my mac for all of ten minutes I couldn't stand it. I popped the SSD back in. Once you get used to the SSD being there, going back, at least to me, is impossible.

I'd say the SSD is the most significant upgrade you can make on your laptop these days. I was skeptical when I read others saying that. Microsoft Outlook in particular is so slow without an SSD. With a regular hard drive, the first launch of it after a boot is extremely slow. It must have been 6 or 7 bounces to start. If you quit it and then re-launch it, it opens in one bounce. With an SSD drive, first launch or second launch, it doesn't matter. You won't get to half a bounce and the app is already running.

With an SSD, everything pretty much feels like it's already loaded and you're merely switching to it. It's that fast. At least mine is. And once you get used to that, using a machine without an SSD feels like you are using a machine from 1995. You will right away find yourself wondering why it takes so long.

Boot time is that way too. It is dramatic to see the difference without an SSD. We have these nice Core i7 quad processor cores. Lots of RAM. But the hard drive is indeed holding it all back. The hard drive feels like it's a decade out of date.

What I'd like to see going forward are the loss of horror stories. These SSD drives need to become so reliable that even the worst bargain basement units from a used electronics store should be good for many years of solid use. The technology needs to become bullet proof. Because once you own one of these SSDs you'll find it very hard to go back. I want to put an SSD in my iMac now. I've been thinking of putting together external SSDs for backup rather than traditional hard drives in FireWire cases.

Speaking of external hard drives, we need SSD in Thunderbold 2.5" external cases for back up. No more of this slow FireWire and USB. I need to a minimum of 250 Megabytes a sec now.

I just did a set of tests with lacie's little big disk here is the thread


https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1280118/


you can build a 512gb unit that flys for a little under 1k gives you 450 read 350 write

 

[Sasha-1]

I'll likely just buy the 6 bay Pegasus for my external storage. But I would like to see a simple single drive external SSD with maximum bandwidth. Sata III 6 GBs connected to a dual port Thunderbolt.

 

[ljx718]

And those tasks depend mainly on the CPU speed, especially in laptops.





A couple of things. Crucial M4 and Intel 510 Series use the same Marvell controller, hence they both have fairly mild GC and rely on TRIM. The GC of Samsung 830 is slightly different as it's not real time. When the disk is idle, GC will be performed. This means the performance may degrade if the disk is constantly under load, but it should get better by leaving it idle for awhile.

any reason why you would pick the 830 over the m4? i keep going back an forth between both 128 gb

 

[Blue Sun]

A couple of things. Crucial M4 and Intel 510 Series use the same Marvell controller, hence they both have fairly mild GC and rely on TRIM. The GC of Samsung 830 is slightly different as it's not real time. When the disk is idle, GC will be performed. This means the performance may degrade if the disk is constantly under load, but it should get better by leaving it idle for awhile.

Do you know when GC is performed in OWC SATAII SSD's (Mercury Extreme Pro 3G)?

I have the 120GB SSD and I haven't been able to find info on when the garbage collection takes place. Whether it occurs when the MBP is sleeping, or whether it needs to sit idle.

Any ideas?

Cheers.

 

[SayMilesAway]

I see people mentioning breaking in their ssd. What is this all about?

 

[jnash]

Ok I have done a lot of reading in this thread and one page I will have my mind set to a drive and go to the next page I am confused again, so I hope HellHammer or someone can guide me in the right direction let me explain my situation..

I have a early 2011 MBP 2.2GHZ 8gig ddr3, I do a lot of video editing in Adobe Premier and sometimes in final cut, I planned on getting a 120 GB SSD and using it for apps/os I would keep all files/projects saved on the 740 GB. I was going to go with an OCZ vertex 3 but it looks like the M4 is a better buy?!?! What drive should I go with, and will I benefit from getting a bigger SSD and editing projects/rendering the files on the SSD drive oppose to the 740 5400 rpm? If this sound confusing I'm sorry just trying to get the best bang for my buck before I spend $300-600 bucks

 

[MJL]

Ok I have done a lot of reading in this thread and one page I will have my mind set to a drive and go to the next page I am confused again, so I hope HellHammer or someone can guide me in the right direction let me explain my situation..

I have a early 2011 MBP 2.2GHZ 8gig ddr3, I do a lot of video editing in Adobe Premier and sometimes in final cut, I planned on getting a 120 GB SSD and using it for apps/os I would keep all files/projects saved on the 740 GB. I was going to go with an OCZ vertex 3 but it looks like the M4 is a better buy?!?! What drive should I go with, and will I benefit from getting a bigger SSD and editing projects/rendering the files on the SSD drive oppose to the 740 5400 rpm? If this sound confusing I'm sorry just trying to get the best bang for my buck before I spend $300-600 bucks

HellHammer mentioned an order of recommendations and the first one is the M4. Personally I run a mile from OCZ. I have been playing around with the 40 Gb Intel series 320 to test a hypothesis but have not yet been able to get it to fail.

What is interesting that the internal 5400 rpm HDD is only really faster on the sequential read/write and substantially slower on the small stuff than a SSD connected with USB 2.0 (!). Even the NewerTech Raid 1 is substantially slower on FW800 than the Intel series 320 on the USB 2.0.

Since I am a firm believer in not having OS X and Windows on the same drive I have Windows on the internal and am now putting OS X Lion on the external SSD. Will be installing Windows under Parallels on it as well (backup facility).

 

[Artagra]

Thanks for the awesome thread Hell Hammer 🙂

I've got a weird issue with my HDD / SSD setup. I've got a X25-M 160gb (G1) in the main bay on my early 2011 Macbook Pro 13" 2.7ghz, and the original 500gb HDD in a MCE Optibay clone in the optical bay.

The problem I have is as follows - when I open the machine up from sleep, it sometimes gets "stuck" for between 15 seconds and 60 seconds. There are two specific behaviours: either I get the spinning beachball, or it's just frozen (mouse won't move / keyboard input is ignored), and then once it unfreezes everything works perfectly.

It didn't do this problem with just the 500gb in the main bay, and I didn't experience this problem with the same SSD + a 320gb HDD (In the same optibay adapter) in my 2009 Macbook Aluminium. Doing a fresh install doesn't help. Doing a fresh install of Lion on the SSD doesn't make any difference.

Prior to one of the more recent EFI updates, the system often used to crash on wake (ie, never get out of this frozen state), but since the update it seldom crashes, just stays frozen for a while.

Any suggestions / input? My plan so far is as follows:

1. Yank out the HDD, and see if it does it with just the SSD.
2. Try another Optibay adapter.
3. Swap out the SSD for a Intel 320 120gb.

 

[jnash]

HellHammer mentioned an order of recommendations and the first one is the M4. Personally I run a mile from OCZ. I have been playing around with the 40 Gb Intel series 320 to test a hypothesis but have not yet been able to get it to fail.

What is interesting that the internal 5400 rpm HDD is only really faster on the sequential read/write and substantially slower on the small stuff than a SSD connected with USB 2.0 (!). Even the NewerTech Raid 1 is substantially slower on FW800 than the Intel series 320 on the USB 2.0.

Since I am a firm believer in not having OS X and Windows on the same drive I have Windows on the internal and am now putting OS X Lion on the external SSD. Will be installing Windows under Parallels on it as well (backup facility).

Thanks for the info, where is the list of order form Hell Hammer?

 

[Artagra]

It's on page three of this thread.

His recommendations, in order:

Here would be my recommendations:
Crucial M4
Samsung PM830
Samsung 470 Series
Intel 320 Series

 

[Weaselboy]

Do you know when GC is performed in OWC SATAII SSD's (Mercury Extreme Pro 3G)?

I have the 120GB SSD and I haven't been able to find info on when the garbage collection takes place. Whether it occurs when the MBP is sleeping, or whether it needs to sit idle.

No SSD performs GC while the machine is in sleep mode. Sleep means just that... sleeping with no activity.

One difference in GC implementation that might help guide a decision is performance with incompressible files (like compressed video formats or MP3s). Sandforce controlled drives like the OWC you mentioned usually do not do as well with incompressible data due to the way the controller works.

I have mentioned before I think everybody is too concerned about this issue. Do you see any users on the forums complaining that their drive speed went to hell after a few months? I don't see it. I would focus more on compatibility and reliability and not worry so much about TRIM/GC.

 

[Sasha-1]

No SSD performs GC while the machine is in sleep mode. Sleep means just that... sleeping with no activity.

One difference in GC implementation that might help guide a decision is performance with incompressible files (like compressed video formats or MP3s). Sandforce controlled drives like the OWC you mentioned usually do not do as well with incompressible data due to the way the controller works.

I have mentioned before I think everybody is too concerned about this issue. Do you see any users on the forums complaining that their drive speed went to hell after a few months? I don't see it. I would focus more on compatibility and reliability and not worry so much about TRIM/GC.

According to OWC, the Mercury Extreme Pro has been much improved for incompressible data:

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/OWC/Mercury_6G/

Not sure what they did to perform this. It's why I paid the extra $300 for the Extreme over the Electra model. I'll be the test case for the Extreme model as I have decided to keep it and see how it goes. I was lucky and got a firmware even ahead of the one they offer to upgrades. And as has been mentioned here, Apple's own EFI updates may have corrected problems which may have contributed to SSD problems in the past.

Mine does have a 5 year warranty. If it dies, they have to replace it. And I am pretty good about backing up the full drive with SuperDuper on a weekly basis. I should be okay. I do like the performance of the drive.

 

[Artagra]

I can agree with that! People are way too concerned. I'll quote from a comment I made on Hacker News a few months back:

I agree completely that, even with TRIM, the benchmarked performance of an SSD decreases over time. However, one thing to remember is that the real-world performance remains very similar, and that the average person won't be able to tell the difference. I recently had two identical Macbook Pro's next to each other, one with a Intel X25-M G1 drive in it that had been used for nearly 18 months, and the second with a fresh out the box X25-M G2. Even taking into account the fact that the G2 was factory fresh, and the G1 (a drive that does not support TRIM) was significantly slower benchmark wise, the experience of using the two machines was almost identical. There were differences, but they were very slight. I doubt I could have reliably picked which was which in a double blind test.

So for desktop use, I wouldn't worry about the performance over time of a good SSD.

 

[Hellhammer]

Thanks for the awesome thread Hell Hammer 🙂

I've got a weird issue with my HDD / SSD setup. I've got a X25-M 160gb (G1) in the main bay on my early 2011 Macbook Pro 13" 2.7ghz, and the original 500gb HDD in a MCE Optibay clone in the optical bay.

The problem I have is as follows - when I open the machine up from sleep, it sometimes gets "stuck" for between 15 seconds and 60 seconds. There are two specific behaviours: either I get the spinning beachball, or it's just frozen (mouse won't move / keyboard input is ignored), and then once it unfreezes everything works perfectly.

It didn't do this problem with just the 500gb in the main bay, and I didn't experience this problem with the same SSD + a 320gb HDD (In the same optibay adapter) in my 2009 Macbook Aluminium. Doing a fresh install doesn't help. Doing a fresh install of Lion on the SSD doesn't make any difference.

Prior to one of the more recent EFI updates, the system often used to crash on wake (ie, never get out of this frozen state), but since the update it seldom crashes, just stays frozen for a while.

Any suggestions / input? My plan so far is as follows:

1. Yank out the HDD, and see if it does it with just the SSD.
2. Try another Optibay adapter.
3. Swap out the SSD for a Intel 320 120gb.

Have you tried the usual SMC and PRAM resets? Does your SSD have the newest firmware? Might sound like very simple things, but it's still good to make sure.

Thanks for the info, where is the list of order form Hell Hammer?

It's on page three of this thread.

His recommendations, in order:

I might change the Samsung 830 to be on top in case a heavier workload is in question. Having a decent GC is important unless you want to enable TRIM. Both are great drives though, so Samsung is simply my preference due to the success of 470 series (I own a 64GB version too).

However, the performance can always be restored by TRIMing the SSD, so the lack of TRIM and GC isn't that big deal.

I can agree with that! People are way too concerned. I'll quote from a comment I made on Hacker News a few months back:

Erase gets slower as the tunnel oxide degrades and higher voltage is needed to erase and program the cell. This causes slower write speeds, which are inevitable. Okay, I bet most of you didn't understand much but stay tuned, I will have an article out about this in the (near) future.

 

[ljx718]

my useage is low- moderate. i wont be transfering lots of files. i mainly want the fastest in "useage" i will be getting a 128 bg ssd. i know the 830 and m4 at 256 gb and above are nearly the same. but what about at 128? from what i read the 830 stay at the same performance. the m4 at 128, on the other hand goes down.

so at 128 which would be best? also, i would not use trim hacks, so GC would be used overnight while its idle


thanks

 

[MJL]

my useage is low- moderate. i wont be transfering lots of files. i mainly want the fastest in "useage" i will be getting a 128 bg ssd. i know the 830 and m4 at 256 gb and above are nearly the same. but what about at 128? from what i read the 830 stay at the same performance. the m4 at 128, on the other hand goes down.

so at 128 which would be best? also, i would not use trim hacks, so GC would be used overnight while its idle


thanks

Without know what you mean with "usage" it is hard to give advice. Are you talking about photoshop, music recording, video rendering? I have often mentioned to study the document by Intel about "over provisioing" which indicates some dramatic improvements in life expectancy and speed.

Have also seen enough documentation that when talkign about starting ' stopping applications it hardly makes a difference which SSD you take. The biggest difference is not to have the 10 - 12 mS seek delay (moving the physical heads on a mechanical HDD) and the speed is only becoming important when moving / writing large files (e.g. as in video conversion)

My suggestion would be to look for reliability first (unless you are doing webhosting or something similar where speed starts to become important).

 

[Quicksilver337]

I have a 2009 Mac Pro and want swap out my HD and put in a 120GB SSD.
I've seen recommendations like OWC Mercury SSD and Intel 320. Are these the only two that are recommended? or ???

Thanks in advance...

 

[MJL]

HellHammer mentioned an order of recommendations and the first one is the M4. Personally I run a mile from OCZ. I have been playing around with the 40 Gb Intel series 320 to test a hypothesis but have not yet been able to get it to fail.

What is interesting that the internal 5400 rpm HDD is only really faster on the sequential read/write and substantially slower on the small stuff than a SSD connected with USB 2.0 (!). Even the NewerTech Raid 1 is substantially slower on FW800 than the Intel series 320 on the USB 2.0.

Since I am a firm believer in not having OS X and Windows on the same drive I have Windows on the internal and am now putting OS X Lion on the external SSD. Will be installing Windows under Parallels on it as well (backup facility).

Booting OS X Lion from the Newertech takes 34 seconds, shutting down 6 seconds. Booting from external SSD in USB 2.0 enclosure (limited to approx 28~30 Mb bandwidth rather than FW 800) takes 21 seconds and shutdown 3 ~ 4 seconds. Quite interesting - it proves more or less that the performance for small blocks is more important for "normal" running (browising, email, word processing) where lots of small read/writes are involved.

@QuickSilver: look at the postings a few back for the recommendations.

 

[Artagra]

Have you tried the usual SMC and PRAM resets? Does your SSD have the newest firmware? Might sound like very simple things, but it's still good to make sure.

Thanks for the suggestions - I've tried SMC and PRAM resets, didn't improve it 🙁 I think the SSD is on the latest firmware, but I'll double check. I received an Intel 320 120gb today, so I'll try that out with the 160gb in different configs to isolate the issue. If 320 in the main bay and X25-M in the secondary bay doesn't have this issue I'll be thrilled 🙂

Erase gets slower as the tunnel oxide degrades and higher voltage is needed to erase and program the cell. This causes slower write speeds, which are inevitable. Okay, I bet most of you didn't understand much but stay tuned, I will have an article out about this in the (near) future.

I understand it and I agree... SSDs get theoretically slower over time, both due to the condition of the drive (which can be fixed by being TRIM'd) and the nature of flash NAND.

But my point is this - for most users, GC / Trim / SSD performance over time is hugely blown out of proportion. With this new Intel 320 I'll do some side by side tests, but my guess is even compared with the elderly G1 that has a 9 month old install on it, the performance will be almost imperceptible in real world useage, while being a big difference in benchmarks.

 

[MR1cntrl]

S.S.D. cappacity

hi , every one
I have right now vaio notebook ; which is running on windows
so i usually use about 70 GB for the system and programs
how much i will use if I use mac OS X;
I need t buy a mac has ssd so i need to know it.

 

[finalcut]

According to OWC, the Mercury Extreme Pro has been much improved for incompressible data:

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/OWC/Mercury_6G/

Not sure what they did to perform this. It's why I paid the extra $300 for the Extreme over the Electra model. I'll be the test case for the Extreme model as I have decided to keep it and see how it goes. I was lucky and got a firmware even ahead of the one they offer to upgrades. And as has been mentioned here, Apple's own EFI updates may have corrected problems which may have contributed to SSD problems in the past.

Mine does have a 5 year warranty. If it dies, they have to replace it. And I am pretty good about backing up the full drive with SuperDuper on a weekly basis. I should be okay. I do like the performance of the drive.

OWC Extreme pro 120GB is very tempting for me to replace my Corsair 120GB (200Write/230Read). Does your runs at 500MB/sec?
I've got a MBP 2011 and when I look at the data info on my system, it says that the HDD bay is 6mbps as speed link but 3mbps right now. Is it because my Corsais is only SataII or I simply can't get SataIII speed at all?

 

[Sasha-1]

OWC Extreme pro 120GB is very tempting for me to replace my Corsair 120GB (200Write/230Read). Does your runs at 500MB/sec?
I've got a MBP 2011 and when I look at the data info on my system, it says that the HDD bay is 6mbps as speed link but 3mbps right now. Is it because my Corsais is only SataII or I simply can't get SataIII speed at all?

It truly depends which benchmark app you use. And how the drive is used. They tend to better if you use them separate from the OS, which I don't do. I use mine as the OS boot drive.

Which specific benchmark app do you use? Do you have a link to it? If so, I'll use that app and give you the results.