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Which of these SSDs for Mid-2010?

Piplodocus

Piplodocus

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 2, 2008
570
589
Thinking of getting an SSD to replace one of my 500GB HDDs in my 17" mid-2010 MBP (I have an optibay). I'd change the drive that has OS, apps, and my music projects and samples for better performance (leaving the photos/mp3s/movies/everything else on the 2nd HDD).

Much as I'd like a 480GB/500GB one, budget means I'd have to go for a 240/256GB drive. Anything smaller would mean my music production stuff (the main thing hitting the drive bottleneck), apps or OS would have to go elsewhere!

Currently from my research I'm mostly thinking of a OCZ vertex 2 E (£260), or an OCZ Agility 3 (£315). The vertex 3 is just too much money.

The mid-2010 MBP is 3GB/s SATA, so I wouldn't be able to take full advantage of the Agility 3 and it's 6GB/s SATA, but it should still be faster than the Vertex 2, until it hits the SATA bus limit.

So, would I really notice, and is it worth the extra money for the performance of the A3, or should I save my pennies and get the V2?

Any other similar or better drives I should consider? These seem about the best bang for buck here in the UK.

Also, what's the formatted capacity of these 240GB drives? Are they 240GB, or will I get a horrible surprise and they come out noticeably less due to all the wear levelling stuff, or something (I'm no SSD expert!).

Thanks! :)
 
I would opt for a Samsung 470. You never hear of any problems, very stable and very fast for SATA II. You can get an OEM model (drive only) for probably sub-$350. (http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?LH_B...d=p3286.c0.m282&_mPrRngCbx=1&_udlo=200&_udhi=)

OCZ, especially the Vertex 3 which I used to have, is one of the most unstable SSDs out there for Mac. Besides, your MBP does not have SATA III so you couldn't take advantage of the SATA III speeds anyway.

Formatted capacity under Mac OS X is the advertised amount. If it's Windows, you'll lose nearly 7% for the NTFS file system.

Multiply the SSD size (or any drive size) by 0.93132257462 to find formatted capacity in Windows. Under Mac, you lose nothing. I have a 64GB Samsung 470 SSD and a 1TB Samsung drive and they are 63.68GB and 1000.21GB respectively. That's one thing great about HFS, no loss in capacity.


EDIT: Just saw you're in the UK, not sure about the prices I posted, but I'd still try to opt for the 470.
 
Personally, I feel the Crucial M4 or Samsung 470 Series would do you well. They seem to be the ones around here. Whilst the OCZ ones are fast, they seem to have a larger failure rate.
 
I can tell you I have a Vertex 2 and there are no problems but when I bought it, it was by far cheaper than any other because of the 25nm issues probably even though the higher capacity ones weren't troubled by it.
 
Thanks for the info.

The Samsung's £345, Corsair is £350. So they're a both really pushing my price boundary (up to £90 more than the Vertex 2E). :(

I guess from a brief look the Corsair is the better bet since it seems faster for barely any more money than the Samsung.

Still, I'd rather spend less if possible. Any more info on Vertex 2 incompatibilities? These are SF-1200 chipsets aren't they? What are the Samsung and Corsair? I guess any SF-1200 chipset will be exactly the same, or is it more complex than that?
 
I have a Vertex 3(I got my 120GB for $190 shipped) in my mid 2010 and it's a beast and a half; I would say get the Agility 3(same controller as the Vertex 3). I've had zero issues with mine, just like 97%+ of people with them...
 
So you reckon the SATA III drive on the SATA II bus is worth it?

I might read the small print of the returns policy on the drive and try it, as it's less money. Is yours the 17" or 15" (i.e. same brand SATA and chipset on the MoBo)? Are you running Lion? Is TRIM on or off?

Once the drive's in should you do an SMC and PRAM reset, before doing a full fresh install of the OS? Or does it not matter?
 
i just bought the samsung 470 256gb for £323 off amazon, they had the crucial m4 256gb for £280

I went with the samsung due to its reliability & enabled TRIM & its running very fast. I reinstalled Lion OS as my mbp is new & I didnt have anything to backup from the old hard drive
 
Oooh, just relised I said Corsair above, meant Crucial. Found the M4 on deal for £290 today! Any more user experience on that?
 
I feel it's worth it getting the 3 to get the current generation drive; with a big factor being having a SandForce 2xxx controller, vs. the 1xxx in the OCZ 2.

I have a 2010 13"(even the 15" is too big for me, maybe if there was a 14"? Lols), running 10.6.8(I keep trying Lion, from the first dev preview, to the retail release, and now 10.7.2; I HATE it, I wish there was a word stronger than hate, because that's how I feel about 10.7. I do have a VM of 10.7.2 though, just to have), with the TRIM hack(I didn't notice any difference when I enabled the hack, bench marks the same, same performance, no beach balls or anything like that).

I installed the Vertex 3, popped in the OS X install DVD that came with my laptop, installed 10.6, booted up into OS X, ran the system updated and installed everything it found, then started installing all my apps and started setting up all my settings.
 
DWBurke811 said:
I keep trying Lion, from the first dev preview, to the retail release, and now 10.7.2; I HATE it, I wish there was a word stronger than hate, because that's how I feel about 10.7.
Click to expand...

Don't want to go too OT, but what's wrong with Lion other than no pinch to zoom in finder, and dull grey Finder icons (for which there's a hack)? Everything else is basically the same for me (after some trackpad setting changes to get the back swipe like SL) except more useful additional gestures and better spaces/expose handling. One-corner window resize now drives me nuts when I go back to SL, especially with the Lion alt/^ modifiers!

(And you need to burn your Lion download image to DVD if you have any sense in case of total reinstall required)
 
I recommend the Intel 320. Pretty stable, good warranty, many perks. I own one of these and the M4 (upgraded to it after the beach ball issues) and I honestly can't tell a difference between the speed in day-to-day usage.

Of course, my buying decision was based on size cause I didn't want to compromise there but in the end, love this drive.
 
I like SL spaces/expose much better than Lion, but what it mainly is is Lion just feels "dumbed down"/"crossed with iOS" to me; finder seems like they want OS X to eventually not have individual files and be like iOS where you can't go into things. And BetterTouchTool gives me all the gestures/track-pad goodies I could ever want.


edited: Sorry if that doesn't make a ton of sense or no sense sorry if my post doesnt make sense, my back and shoulder was killing me all night and when I "woke-up" this morning a few hours ago I almost fell over in pain when intried walking getting out of bed to get up, so I took an extra 8mg dilaudid with my morning 80mg oxycontin and 30mg roxi this morning and just took my second roxi and dilaudid of the day a few min ago and am laying in bed praying the pain dies down so I can start my day
 
dwburke811 said:
edited: Sorry if that doesn't make a ton of sense or no sense sorry if my post doesnt make sense, my back and shoulder was killing me all night and when i "woke-up" this morning a few hours ago i almost fell over in pain when intried walking getting out of bed to get up, so i took an extra 8mg dilaudid with my morning 80mg oxycontin and 30mg roxi this morning and just took my second roxi and dilaudid of the day a few min ago and am laying in bed praying the pain dies down so i can start my day
Click to expand...

tmi
 
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