SSD vs HDD for imac

[draculaxxx]

Hi,

I will buy the new imac as soon as it comes out. I am planning to develop an application that would write data to the disk around 100MB every day (possibly more but for now I would think the upper limit is 1GB) and then transfer to an external storage. I heard warnings that SSDs have shorter life span compared to HDDs especially if multiple writes are done on the disk, but I haven't seen anywhere a quantitative comparison. The speed of bringing the applications up is not relevant except when it comes to my personal use and comfort.

Can anyone tell me at what level are too many writes too many for a SSD, and what's your opinion, which one is better for me?

 

[Apple fanboy]

Due to the lack of moving parts in an SSD I would say it would prove much more reliable than the old spinning disk.

 

[draculaxxx]

perhaps not necessarily imac related, but a good pointer when it comes to buying

After doing some research, I found out that about two years ago when SSDs first came on the market people were expressing serious doubts for deploying databases to SSD systems (a huge amount of data writing). The main reason has to do with how flash memory stores data as opposed to old magnetic disks. Obviously for a private user this is a non issue because the amount of data one writes for the lifetime of a computer (5 years) is insignificant compared to average DB usage. I would think that by now the industry solved this problem, but again I don't seem to find a reference that would state clearly: "Yes we tested SSDs and for so many writes, in that much time, the system has no failure".

 

[bobright]

Is it possible if I get a base model 27" iMac with 1TB and to later add an additional 250GB SSD for my OS only?

 

[Mr Rogers]

Hybrid solutions

Every one keeps yapping about SSD and HDD - there are hybrid solutions available such as the Seagate Momentus XT 750G with 8G NAND - this is 3X the speed of a regular 2.5in HDD and far cheaper than the SSD option - okay, you can only load the OS onto the NAND and no applications given its only 8G - however, I'm sure larger options of NAND will become available once WD enters the market with perhaps NAND storage of 32G - this being enough for OSX 8 and a few applications.

 

[Dadioh]

Every one keeps yapping about SSD and HDD - there are hybrid solutions available such as the Seagate Momentus XT 750G with 8G NAND - this is 3X the speed of a regular 2.5in HDD and far cheaper than the SSD option - okay, you can only load the OS onto the NAND and no applications given its only 8G - however, I'm sure larger options of NAND will become available once WD enters the market with perhaps NAND storage of 32G - this being enough for OSX 8 and a few applications.

The Momentus XT doesn't work that way. You don't get to choose what goes on the SSD portion. The drive puts frequently used files there and adapts as you change your patterns. I have a 320GB Momentus XT in my wife's MBP 17" and it does help a "bit" with boot times. Maybe shaves about 15 seconds off from a 60 second boot to 45 seconds. But in general the performance improvement using the machine is almost imperceptible. However, I run a 1TB OCZ Colossus SSD in my iMac and the difference is night and day... 15 seconds to boot from cold start and everything I do that involves disk access is much much much faster... So although they sound good in theory the hybrids don't hold a candle to an actual SSD.