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What is the best SSD for the Price/Performance right now?

V

vader1990

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 23, 2008
220
2
Hi,

So it seems that the best upgrade for a uMBP right now is installing a SSD. I'm looking into buying an SSd for my late 2008 1st-gen unibody MBP. I haven't been in the SSD market ever, so I need you guys to tell me which is the best SSD for the price v. performance right now.

I dont really have a budget and the space isn't necessarily a big deal since I have an external. But I prefer at least 80GB. I dont want to just waste money either, so can you guys tell me which one is worth the money and which isn't?

Thanks, and links to website would be appreciated.

-V
 
prices fluctuate quite a bit specially with sales and all but...

the intel x25-m G2s are well regarded
the ocz vertex 2s are faster but more expensive
 
rmbrown09 said:
I would say go with a momentus XT.

Has the small amount of Flash SSD onboard to give you SSD speed, but also has a 7200RPM HDD component. Costs about $130 for 500GB.

That would be like 2k if it was a SSD.

My MBP boots so fast, actually Ill make a vid, one sec.
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/laptops/laptop-hdd/
Click to expand...
Reviews are ok for that drive. I would highly recommend intel x25-m as well. I use it in my mbp 13 and its nice.
 
Intel x25-M 80GB would be perfect for you.

The price/performance ratio for the Intel x25-M series cannot be beat.
 
the XT is the fastest non-SSD on the market. I suggest that if you want more space, but I don't get why Intel is so popular their write speeds are TERRIBLE. Some drives are up to 275MB write, and Intel is only 100MB, 150MB if you pay for their crazy pricy SLC edition.
 
altecXP said:
the XT is the fastest non-SSD on the market. I suggest that if you want more space, but I don't get why Intel is so popular their write speeds are TERRIBLE. Some drives are up to 275MB write, and Intel is only 100MB, 150MB if you pay for their crazy pricy SLC edition.
Click to expand...

The write speeds don't matter at all. The OS doesn't write out large chunks of data at once but tiny bits. Its the intel's crazy 4 kb write speeds that wiped the floor when it came out and actually improved real life usage (unlike the controllers before it which had high write speeds but crappy 4kb writes which led to the OS freezing a lot in real world use :eek:)
 
altecXP said:
the XT is the fastest non-SSD on the market. I suggest that if you want more space, but I don't get why Intel is so popular their write speeds are TERRIBLE. Some drives are up to 275MB write, and Intel is only 100MB, 150MB if you pay for their crazy pricy SLC edition.
Click to expand...

How often are you writing to your SSD? Most people have an internal HDD or an external drive to store their files on.

And if you are writing, how often are you writing huge files to it? Most people will never notice a difference in writing speeds between various SSD manufacturers.

Fact is, Intel is incredibly reliable and their cost to performance ratio is great. Plus, their 4kb random writes is through the roof, which is the most important part of an SSD. Don't be fooled by extremely high sequential writing speeds, it makes next to no difference.
 
Baral said:
How often are you writing to your SSD? Most people have an internal HDD or an external drive to store their files on.

And if you are writing, how often are you writing huge files to it? Most people will never notice a difference in writing speeds between various SSD manufacturers.

Fact is, Intel is incredibly reliable and their cost to performance ratio is great.
Click to expand...

Have a page file? temp file? anything that caches? where do you think that all sits? It's written to your HDD.

Personaly I use large files all the time, I work in DB and programming.
 
altecXP said:
Have a page file? temp file? anything that caches? where do you think that all sits? It's written to your HDD.

Personaly I use large files all the time, I work in DB and programming.
Click to expand...

All those things you mentioned will make no noticeable difference between various SSDs. However, if you personally work with large files, then maybe you would benefit from a more expensive, faster sequential writing speed SSD. Very few people work files that are half a gig or more.
 
bhattsan said:
Again, these large files are written to with small writes so that argument doesn't apply. Heres a great write-up on ssd's: http://www.anandtech.com/show/2738
Click to expand...

I know how SSD's work and if you think I can tell the speed different in my friends intel G2 and my Crucial SSD then your nuts. My friend rants to me constantly about how Intel SSD's, and GPU's are behind the curve, and I think he'd know, he works there on SandyBridge.
 
altecXP said:
I know how SSD's work and if you think I can tell the speed different in my friends intel G2 and my Crucial SSD then your nuts. My friend rants to me constantly about how Intel SSD's, and GPU's are behind the curve, and I think he'd know, he works there on SandyBridge.
Click to expand...

That article wasn't targeted at you specifically but nonetheless, the intel is still a solid choice in terms of price/perf
 
vader1990 said:
Hi,

So it seems that the best upgrade for a uMBP right now is installing a SSD. I'm looking into buying an SSd for my late 2008 1st-gen unibody MBP. I haven't been in the SSD market ever, so I need you guys to tell me which is the best SSD for the price v. performance right now.

I dont really have a budget and the space isn't necessarily a big deal since I have an external. But I prefer at least 80GB. I dont want to just waste money either, so can you guys tell me which one is worth the money and which isn't?

Thanks, and links to website would be appreciated.

-V
Click to expand...

Just to chime in I have a both the intel 160 and 80 gig. I also have a Kingston V+512gb in my MacBook pro I7. To be quite honest with you I can't really tell any difference between any of them. I cannot see how anything can get any faster than these.
 
Intel x25-M 80GB
Click to expand...

I love mine. In that size/price range I was looking at WD, but the review didn't look that good. Lots of people were reselling their NIB 80GB G2 Intels for the price of the WD with tax, so I went that route instead. I'll never go back to regular HDD again.
 
Another thumbs up on the Kingston V+ series SSD. I have the 128gig that I bought for $279 from Newegg.com and haven't had a single issue with it. Love it.
 
bhattsan said:
That article wasn't targeted at you specifically but nonetheless, the intel is still a solid choice in terms of price/perf
Click to expand...

Oh for sure it is, but many people seem to thinks that it's the best, and nothing is close to it.
 
Love my intel x25-m. If I had the money for an SSD right now I'd give the OWC Mercury a hard look. But they are very pricey.
 
LoneWolf121188 said:
Anyone have any experience with the Vertex 2 or Crucial C300? OS X doesn't support TRIM, right? How does that affect SSD usage?
Click to expand...

I have been using both my Intels since early January and have not noticed any speed degeneration. The kingston v+ 512 to me seems to be faster as time goes on but it has only been used in my MacBook pro for about 3 weeks. But no slow downs as I use them both heavily all day long.
 
LoneWolf121188 said:
Anyone have any experience with the Vertex 2 or Crucial C300? OS X doesn't support TRIM, right? How does that affect SSD usage?
Click to expand...

the C300 is SATA3, Macs are SATA2 you'd never reach advertised speed, Nice though I have one in my PC desktop.
 
vader1990 said:
Hi,

So it seems that the best upgrade for a uMBP right now is installing a SSD. I'm looking into buying an SSd for my late 2008 1st-gen unibody MBP. I haven't been in the SSD market ever, so I need you guys to tell me which is the best SSD for the price v. performance right now.

I dont really have a budget and the space isn't necessarily a big deal since I have an external. But I prefer at least 80GB. I dont want to just waste money either, so can you guys tell me which one is worth the money and which isn't?

Thanks, and links to website would be appreciated.

-V
Click to expand...

Have you considered a 72K HDD with two partitions? Partition 1 is relatively small so you don't lose that much transfer speed and Partition 2 is a larger one for less disk intensive operations. A much cheaper solution; and worth a try even with your existing disk to see if it speeds things up. I went to a dual partitioned 72K drive simply because it offered, for me, the best speed / space / cost trade off; I am quite happy with it. 90% of my work is with Office and Fusion/Parallels; I have no speed issues with this setup.

Once SSD prices drop enough to make a larger drive affordable I may switch.
 
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