SSD Buying Guide

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LordDextro said:
I just wanted people to know that it is possible to raid two SSD's from different manufactures (same GB storage) and have Bootcamp working with Windows 7.

First I backed up my software on external drives (carbon copy cloner for Mac).
Then I installed the second SSD using the "data doubler".
I booted into the Mac OS and performed a bootcamp install.
Then I used the mac utility (before booting into OS X) to RAID (0 striped) the two SSD's together.
This wiped out everything except the "windows (bootcamp) drive". I then took out the SSD and reinstalled the optical drive to utilize the Windows 7 CD to restore a prior backup after re-formatting to NTFS. Once I verified that Windows 7 was working, I reinstalled the Second SSD, and connected my Carbon Copy cloner drive (external bootable backup of OS X.)
After booting up from the backup (external drive) I used the carbon copy cloner to install to the pair of SSD's I configured to RAID.

All I can say is... every bulletin board I read stated that this wasn't possible. I haven't noticed any obvious improvement from day to day performance, but the read and write speeds have doubled: Write in the lower 530's, and Read in the 830's. The volume for both drives on RAID 0 (less the amount I have partitioned for windows around 272GB) is 722 GB.

The two SSD's I utilized are the Crucial M4 (firmware 010G) and Vertex 4 (firmware 1.50). Both have TRIM enabled. I have a late 2011 macbook pro with 16GB of corsair ram.

Just wanted to let people know about this.
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SCAAAARYYY FAAAAAST!!! Wow, love it;)
 
My setup is with the mid-2012 cMBP9,2 with 16GB RAM and 256GB Samsung 830 as a startup and 512GB Crucial m4 for data storage (music, pictures, videos) in place of my Superdrive. Here are my benchmarks: Samsung 830 on the left, Crucial m4 on the right. Plenty of speed!!! Can't complain;)
 

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richnyc said:
My setup is with the mid-2012 cMBP9,2 with 16GB RAM and 256GB Samsung 830 as a startup and 512GB Crucial m4 for data storage (music, pictures, videos) in place of my Superdrive. Here are my benchmarks: Samsung 830 on the left, Crucial m4 on the right. Plenty of speed!!! Can't complain;)
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Very nice. Expensive computer you have there.
 
brop52 said:
Very nice. Expensive computer you have there.
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Hahaha, I wouldn't say so...

The MBP9,2 from Amazon was for $1,012 (new); extra RAM from OWC for $100 (new, overpaid a little here), 256GB Samsung SSD for $190 from Adorama (new), 512GB Crucial m4 for $300 from eBay reseller (new)... So, the total: $1,600, give and take a few bucks. Plus, another $60 on OWC Superdrive USB and HDD USB3 enclosures... I'm set for some time, for a long time, 3-4 years, at least... lol;)
 
Trim

Hey guys, I've been using a Crucial M4 512GB SSD for almost 2 months now. I still have about 300GB of free space left and I'm contemplating enabling TRIM.

But before I do so, should I do anything else? I think I read somewhere that you should TRIM the free space first or something for optimal results?
 
jon08 said:
Hey guys, I've been using a Crucial M4 512GB SSD for almost 2 months now. I still have about 300GB of free space left and I'm contemplating enabling TRIM.

But before I do so, should I do anything else? I think I read somewhere that you should TRIM the free space first or something for optimal results?
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Nope, you shouldn't need to do anything.

Once you enable TRIM, the OS will take care of the rest and perform the garbage collection in the background. Any files marked as deleted by the will be permanently removed from the SSD, meaning faster write speeds.
 
MacBook Pro Mid-2009 SSD Upgrade Results/Questions

Another happy customer here, upgrading to the Samsung 256 GB 830 SSD on my MacBook Pro Mid-2009 model. Before Read/Write speeds were 33.2/32.5 MB/s, After Read/Write speeds are 188.3/222.2 MB/s. I attached the screen shots from the disk test, but not sure how that will show up here

The questions I have are 1) the boot-up time is still very slow, about 45 seconds and 2) I thought I saw people posting R/W speeds on the order of 350 MB/s. Any thoughts on how I can improve the boot-up time and boost the R/W speeds are appreciated.

FYI, I'm running Mountain Lion OS, ver. 10.7.5. I did the install by cloning the drive from the existing drive using SuperDuper (could not figure out how to download the OS for a clean install). Also, I upgraded the RAM from 4 GB to 8 GB (two 4 GB sticks from Kingston), but when I just looked at the "About My Mac" panel, it still only shows 4 GB memory, not sure what that is about. I don't think I have the TRIM enabled - not sure how to work with the Samsung Magician software for FIRM update, so any help along those lines is also appreciated. Total time for the install was 30 minutes, and about 20 minutes to set up the cloning.

Thanks for your help.
 

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macnut2 said:
Another happy customer here, upgrading to the Samsung 256 GB 830 SSD on my MacBook Pro Mid-2009 model. Before Read/Write speeds were 33.2/32.5 MB/s, After Read/Write speeds are 188.3/222.2 MB/s. I attached the screen shots from the disk test, but not sure how that will show up here

The questions I have are 1) the boot-up time is still very slow, about 45 seconds and 2) I thought I saw people posting R/W speeds on the order of 350 MB/s. Any thoughts on how I can improve the boot-up time and boost the R/W speeds are appreciated.

FYI, I'm running Mountain Lion OS, ver. 10.7.5. I did the install by cloning the drive from the existing drive using SuperDuper (could not figure out how to download the OS for a clean install). Also, I upgraded the RAM from 4 GB to 8 GB (two 4 GB sticks from Kingston), but when I just looked at the "About My Mac" panel, it still only shows 4 GB memory, not sure what that is about. I don't think I have the TRIM enabled - not sure how to work with the Samsung Magician software for FIRM update, so any help along those lines is also appreciated. Total time for the install was 30 minutes, and about 20 minutes to set up the cloning.

Thanks for your help.
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Download the Trim enabler and install from it:

http://www.groths.org/?page_id=322

That should help some with your speeds but don't forget your MBP has only SATA-II speeds so you'll be limited to about half of what you've seen here from folks with newer faster (SATA-III capable) MacBook Pros (from early 2011 onward).

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For comparison, when running Samsung 830 SSD in my old Dell laptop under Windows 7 Ultimate, also only SATA-II capable, I was able to reach 243/174 MB/s rw speeds at best... Whereas on 2012 cMBP9,2 (OS X 10.8.2) the same disk reached 476/409 MB/s.
 
I have the early 2011 mbp

I am thinking about buying

Intel 520 Series Cherryville 240GB 2.5" SATA 6.0 SSD

do you suggest this one?
 
emrbzr said:
I have the early 2011 mbp

I am thinking about buying

Intel 520 Series Cherryville 240GB 2.5" SATA 6.0 SSD

do you suggest this one?
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I work for intel, and all I can say is hold off buying an intel drive as 20nm models are due imminently, Probably worth waiting to see how they compare to the 520 series and I have a feeling the improvements they are making will be worth it!
 
richnyc said:
Download the Trim enabler and install from it:

http://www.groths.org/?page_id=322

That should help some with your speeds but don't forget your MBP has only SATA-II speeds so you'll be limited to about half of what you've seen here from folks with newer faster (SATA-III capable) MacBook Pros (from early 2011 onward).

----------

For comparison, when running Samsung 830 SSD in my old Dell laptop under Windows 7 Ultimate, also only SATA-II capable, I was able to reach 243/174 MB/s rw speeds at best... Whereas on 2012 cMBP9,2 (OS X 10.8.2) the same disk reached 476/409 MB/s.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip, really helpful. That boosted Read/Write by 5% - 10%. Got my other issue with the RAM sorted out.
 
richnyc said:
Download the Trim enabler and install from it:

http://www.groths.org/?page_id=322

That should help some with your speeds but don't forget your MBP has only SATA-II speeds so you'll be limited to about half of what you've seen here from folks with newer faster (SATA-III capable) MacBook Pros (from early 2011 onward)..
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I just got M4 512GB for my 2009 MacBook Pro 13. I am in the same situation. I am new to this SSD thing. What's the purpose of using Trim? And what if i dont?

Also I tried to download the Trim app, and OSX said it's not verified? I am running 10.8.2. And M4 is on 010G
 
TheBigKing said:
thanks with this ssd i not need to modified it or something only plug it and got running ??
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Just like an new HD - you will need to install the OS on it. You have several options. Fresh install, install from time machine backup, other 3rd party options like CCC.
 
shmonkus said:
I work for intel, and all I can say is hold off buying an intel drive as 20nm models are due imminently, Probably worth waiting to see how they compare to the 520 series and I have a feeling the improvements they are making will be worth it!
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No offense but I have a feeling that you don't work for Intel or if you do, at least not in the SSD department. Using smaller lithography NAND doesn't yield better performance like it does with CPUs. In fact, it's the vice versa: 20nm NAND is slower than 25nm (erase times are slightly slower, everything else should be the same).

There is no confirmation that the SSD 525 will even use 20nm NAND. So far the SSD 525s Intel has shipped in NUCs have used 25nm NAND, making them identical to SSD 520 (but in mSATA form factor and likely special firmware).
 
Hellhammer said:
No offense but I have a feeling that you don't work for Intel or if you do, at least not in the SSD department. Using smaller lithography NAND doesn't yield better performance like it does with CPUs. In fact, it's the vice versa: 20nm NAND is slower than 25nm (erase times are slightly slower, everything else should be the same).

There is no confirmation that the SSD 525 will even use 20nm NAND. So far the SSD 525s Intel has shipped in NUCs have used 25nm NAND, making them identical to SSD 520 (but in mSATA form factor and likely special firmware).
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None taken - should have gone in more detail, so apologies about that. Although the die shrinks don't improve performance, manufacturers have to get smarter with how they handle data written to the drive, as you know.

There are significant tradeoffs with making NAND more affordable, and the key to reducing this tradeoff in future will be behind improving the drive endurance through massively controlling the way data is written to the drive. I believe that along with reduced writes will include consistency across the board with any kind of read and write, a lot like we have seen with the s3700, only a lot more affordable, and I believe this is where intel will be going.

Regarding the brands due for release i havent seen them nor do i know anything about them yet (your assumption is right, i dont work within the SSD side of intel) i can only assume on what i read and hear about, but it will be interesting to find out nonetheless. We'll have to wait and see I guess, but it makes a lot of business sense to look at consistency rather than raw performance.
 
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Blue604 said:
I just got M4 512GB for my 2009 MacBook Pro 13. I am in the same situation. I am new to this SSD thing. What's the purpose of using Trim? And what if i dont?

Also I tried to download the Trim app, and OSX said it's not verified? I am running 10.8.2. And M4 is on 010G
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The 'unverified' thingy is fine, developers of some of the smaller apps don't want to go through hassles having them approved for App Store, or are simply not big/commercial enough to justify it. You can enable downloads from anyone in OS X: Gatekeeper. THe OS X will still warn you every time you are trying to download such an app, but wil let you do it. The 'Enable Trim' app has been around for a while so there is plenty of feedback here to know that it is a legit app.

Your Crucial m4 has the latest firmware, so you are fine. In short, without TRIM enabled, your SSD would slow down over time. I have TRIM enabled on both of my internal SSDs, Samsung 830 and Crucial m4, both of which have non-Sandforce-based controllers: Samsung has Samsung's own, Crucial uses Marvell. AFAIK only Sandforce based drives 'shouldn't' have TRIM enabled. For more on TRIM, see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIM

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Blue604 said:
Just a warning to people who are considering M4. I bought M4 512GB after reading this thread. And within the 24hr of using it, the drive didn't work. There are people having the same issues.

https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=16412600&posted=1#post16412600
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Sorry to hear about your troubles:( Read it on your other post... Mine is fine so far but since you just bought it new, return it and get a replacement, different brand, Samsung 830 or 840 maybe;)
 
MacBook Pro MID 2009 Plextor M5PRO SSD working

Good news.. working.. I just finished my install. I purchased the M5PRO on my Macbook Pro MID 2009 with 8gigs of ram 183gigs used.... I just rebooted after enabling TRIM.

the trick is:


[/ol]1.on your old system download the create recovery disk from Apple. create the disk on a thumb drive. i used a 2gig usb drive.2. boot with your usb drive installed holding (option, command, P R keys) to reset your PRAM 3. install your SSD drive. 4. boot holding the option key to allow boot to other drives.. select your usb drive. 5. when in recovery open disk utilities and create a new part ion (mac os journaled/ and GUID table set) name the partition Macintosh HD close disk utilities 6. now click install your OS version from Apple.. so you have to have your MAC hardwired to your network.. i didn't try wireless 7. install from apple this will take about 45mins to hour 8. after install on first boot up connect your old hard drive to your computer by usb and transfer all your data back.. this will take from 30 to 2 hours depending on how much data your have. 9. on first boot run TRIM enabler app reboot and enjoy the life in the fast lane!!!!!! with your new Plextor M5PRO drive on your Macbook Pro MID 2009 with the said problem controller.. works great reboots take 13secs I'm loven it...



the entire process has taken about 3 hours .. but now I have it working very very fast...and 5 year warranty so now worries just shelf your old drive for backup
:eek:
 
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