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Fastest ssd drive?

T

Tim Whitcomb

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What are people using in their 17" Macbook Pros?

Looking for the fastest 128GB or larger SSD drive.

Thanks!
 
Hey Tim, I am using a 240GB Mercury Extreme Pro SSD 2.5 from OWC that cost 600 and its currently the fastest one out there. I run it also in my Mac Pro tower in the 2nd empty optical bay for my boot drive and its blazing! Good luck.
 
I'll put my Photofast G-Monster V5 256GB SSD up against anything out there. This drive can consistently both read and write at the SATA II bus limit. If you watch the YouTube, you'll see that inside this 2.5" SSD are 2 128GB SSD drives and a RAID0 controller.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00a21yD4Zow

I have personally own 4 SSD drives and I've personally tested and worked with twice that many. No drive I've tested was as fast writing COMPRESSED DATA as the Photofast. Especially ones that use controller gimmicks to quote better write rates than the drive can actually do.
 
another vote for the Mercury extreme. You could also consider crucial real ssd 300 256GB ssd next on the list.
 
killer advice Aaron. thanks guys. I've already ordered OWC Mercury and will order the Photofast as well - thanks!
 
OWC Mercury is based on the Sandforce chipset, which is both good and bad. It's arguably the most awesome SSD chipset out there right now. But the bad part of it is that it compresses data on the fly as it moves data about and that's how it gets a lot of its performance numbers. It tends to choke if you start moving a lot of large compressed files such as big zip, R3D or H264 files that can't take further compression. That said, the OWC SSD's are some of the best out there... The Samsung ones and OCZ are great too -- Samsung being slower, but no compression and rather stable performance across the entire SSD volume. FWIW, I think the Photofast mentioned above is a re-branded Samsung, as are many SSDs on the market. I also like the current offerings from OCZ.

Going back to the Sandforce thing... I wouldn't recommend them for bulk storage use if you're working with video/R3D, etc.. But for an OS/application drive they're great. I have 2x200GB OWC RE SSDs in a Patriot XL housing RAID-0 for an OS/apps drive in a Mac Pro -- smokin' !!!
 
Paul Hazlett said:
another vote for the Mercury extreme. You could also consider crucial real ssd 300 256GB ssd next on the list.
Click to expand...

At the time when I tested Crucial drives, they definitely had the best price/performance ratio. However since I use my SSD to capture video, the crucial did not pass the test.

Since it's not likely that installing it into a laptop means capturing video, I think the crucial would be a fine choice. Actually, all of the recommended solutions sound pretty good.
 
The Crucial SSD's are good and so are Corsair. Both very similar in performance to the Samsung. Apple is using both the Crucial and the Samsung as SSD options for the Macbook/ Macbook Pro when you order the SSD upgrade.

As for the Seagate 500GB 7200rpm. They're awesome too. That's what I have in my 17" MBP -- just couldn't justify the SSD price for the capacity I need. With two OSX partitions to fit my iOS development needs as well as a Windows image for VMWare, all my apps, etc.. I'm pushing 300GB. And 360GB and larger SSDs are hard to come by and rather expensive. The 500GB HDD is nice and snappy. No complaints here. I can replace it 15X over before I could pay for one 480GB OWC SSD.
 
does anybody know if either the crucial, corsair, or samsung suffer from loss in speed as it gets filled up? I know sandforce drives are supposed to eliminate that, but just curious about which drive gives consistant performance without the compressed file limitation, even when near full in capacity.
 
Yes Tom. I know what you mean. I have an SSD that does get slower as it fills up but not the Photofast. Rock solid consistent performance until the last byte.
 
the photofast looks great, but aside from cost, the capacity isn't quite there yet for me. Since it has a internal raid, can you raid them again? will that cause any problems?

anybody else have any experience with more over the shelf brand SSD's and slowdown as they fill up? OCZ, Corsair, Samsung?
 
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