SSD query

[snerkler]

Recently I've been asking a few questions on spec etc for a MBP 15", and have come to the conclusion that the lower spec MBP is ample for me in terms of processor and graphics card, so there's no point in paying £300 ($470) for the higher spec one. I would love a SSD but need 500GB minimum, and Apple want £960 ($1500) to upgrade tot he 512GB SSD, which I'm not prepared to pay, so was going to just pay the £120 ($188) to upgrade to the 750GB 7200rpm sata drive.

However, I've been looking around the internet and come across this at crucial http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/mpartspecs.aspx?mtbpoid=3D217106A5CA7304. This costs £522 ($820) which is much more reasonable imo. However, I'm new to SSD's and so have no idea what's classed as a good/fast drive. This one at crucial has a read speed of 500mbps (SATA 6GB/s), and a write speed of 250Mbps (6GB/s), is this considered fast, slow or average? How does this compare to the read/write speeds of the 7200RPM SATA drive? (anyone know what the exact speeds are?). What does it mean when it gives a speed such as 500Mpbs, and then in brackets "SATA 6GB/s"?

Also, if I do buy the crucial SSD how do I trnasfer the OS X lion and all installed software from the preinstalled drive to the new SSD one?

Cheers.

 

[shmonkus]

Recently I've been asking a few questions on spec etc for a MBP 15", and have come to the conclusion that the lower spec MBP is ample for me in terms of processor and graphics card, so there's no point in paying £300 ($470) for the higher spec one. I would love a SSD but need 500GB minimum, and Apple want £960 ($1500) to upgrade tot he 512GB SSD, which I'm not prepared to pay, so was going to just pay the £120 ($188) to upgrade to the 750GB 7200rpm sata drive.

However, I've been looking around the internet and come across this at crucial http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/mpartspecs.aspx?mtbpoid=3D217106A5CA7304. This costs £522 ($820) which is much more reasonable imo. However, I'm new to SSD's and so have no idea what's classed as a good/fast drive. This one at crucial has a read speed of 500mbps (SATA 6GB/s), and a write speed of 250Mbps (6GB/s), is this considered fast, slow or average? How does this compare to the read/write speeds of the 7200RPM SATA drive? (anyone know what the exact speeds are?). What does it mean when it gives a speed such as 500Mpbs, and then in brackets "SATA 6GB/s"?

Also, if I do buy the crucial SSD how do I trnasfer the OS X lion and all installed software from the preinstalled drive to the new SSD one?

Cheers.

I use the www.anandtech.com reviews quite a lot to get the best, honest unbiased reviews on the different SSD's available on the market.

In terms of SATA Interface, there are generally 2 types: SATA2 and SATA3. The former has a theoretical transfer rate of 3GBps and the latter can perform (again, theoretically) at 6GBps, thanks to the chipset on the system board. From experience, the performance of an SSD is only as fast as the controller that controls it, so those performance figures can sometimes be misleading. Have a look at the review on this link, to give you a better idea of what I mean:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5508/intel-ssd-520-review-cherryville-brings-reliability-to-sandforce

Although they all boast either 3GBps or 6Gbps, the overall performance when directly compared to other SSD's is pretty big!


Working at Intel, we tend to be quite biased to Intel SSD's (as you can probably imagine) however most Intel SSD's run older firmware and are looking more at the enterprise business now.

Generally speaking, the price of SSD's are based mainly around the cost of the NAND memory used within the SSD. Current process sizes are at about 22nm, and the smaller the process size, the more NAND chips can be produced, driving down the overall cost per GB. this is the same for most brands, so the prices tend to be pretty much the same for most companies. The biggest SSD I have seen so far is the 600Gb Intel 320 series SSD, but you are looking at paying as near as makes no difference $1000 for it.

Apple SSD's are generally overpriced like their memory, and you can get a much better deal by shopping around the interweb for similar-sized SSD's. It might also be worth looking into the SSD/Mechanical Hybrid drives available too - as they offer much bigger volumes at a fraction of the cost, and the performance is a lot higher compared to standard mechanical HDD's. When I got my MBP, I stuck with the standard 500Gb Hard drive, that way if I decide to upgrade, you will properly notice the difference

Regards to transfering the data, I am fairly new to apple so I can't answer that unfortunately!

 

[bobcan]

Start Reading HERE..

Start Reading HERE.. ** a 'sticky' at the TOP of the page where you Posted!!

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1177020/

There is lots of Good Information and Thoughts on exactly what you are going through.. From what I have learned so far, the Crucial M4 and Samsung 830 appear to be both good Options, but there are MANY others too..

** Read Up and then Head Out shopping.. Good Luck!!

 

[snerkler]

Start Reading HERE.. ** a 'sticky' at the TOP of the page where you Posted!!

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1177020/

There is lots of Good Information and Thoughts on exactly what you are going through.. From what I have learned so far, the Crucial M4 and Samsung 830 appear to be both good Options, but there are MANY others too..

** Read Up and then Head Out shopping.. Good Luck!!

Thanks. I think I need my eyes testing as I didn't see that sticky

 

[bobcan]

No Troubles.. I have often done that.. this SSD Thread is quite comprehensive, I am SURE you will learn a lot and find some thing that agrees with you..

Good Luck!!