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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

MBP Unibody and MAc Pro on STEROIDS

Ketch Rossi

Ketch Rossi

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Okay,

what I want to try and do, is put both my MBP 17" Unibody on STEROIDS, utilizing TWO SSD's internally,
by removing the DVD Drive, which I use only to load Programs any way, and create a "0" RAID,
and then do the same on the Mac Pro with TWO SDD"s also on "0" Raid and the rest of the Drives for storage.

My intent is to create the fastest possible work station and portable solution,
were the MBP will be utilized with the Mobile Rocket and the Mac Pro Tower with TWO RR inside the Big Foot DIT Cart.

Your tough and suggestions, to create the best work stations in this two machines are most welcome,
including best and fastest available SSD's that you know to be reliable.

Thanks
 
dvd is 2001...not 2005 - blu ray is 2005.
 
At the speeds the single drives go do you really get that much advantage from striping? Don't you also effectively double the chance of catastrophic failure?

We try to always do two drive backups (verified) with r3d data manager. Wouldn't you be better to keep them separate and do a double backup?
 
Michael Hastings said:
At the speeds the single drives go do you really get that much advantage from striping? Don't you also effectively double the chance of catastrophic failure?

We try to always do two drive backups (verified) with r3d data manager. Wouldn't you be better to keep them separate and do a double backup?
Click to expand...

Well..

this is the reason I posted, I want to rump up the systems as much as possible, but not sure if this is the best thing to do, so hopefully we get this answered by some one that know more then I do, and like to get this down before I put the money in to it, and find out it was not such a good idea to begin with, but back ups is not an issue you can always do back up to external drives, Speed and performance is, off course failure is something we also like to avoid. ;)
 
The OCZ HSDL (Ibis) spec is not something you want to put into any critical system at this point. It's unproven and is in limited release. Not only that, if your drive or controller takes a dive, then what? How soon can you get a replacement? How will you get support if you're in the field / on location somewhere? Some of us will play with the technology, no doubt about that. That is a good thing and will help these products become more widely used and accepted. But Ketch, I know you don't like to dig around inside systems yourself, so I would definitely play it safe in that regard. Besides that, OCZ HSDL drives require their proprietary interface (it's an open spec, but still proprietary), so even though they operate off of SATA cabling, you can't run them on a SATA host that I'm aware of. Even if they're downward compatible with SATA, you still won't get any benefits of the HSDL interface when running in SATA mode. For what it's worth, HSDL looks like OCZ jumped to market with a proprietary spin on the upcoming SATA 18Gbps specification that a lot of people are calling SATA4 4.0.

Also as Trevor mentions, there's currently no Mac drivers available for the controllers or PCIe host/SSD hybrid units. So it's pretty well moot in terms of a Mac at this point. And requiring a proprietary host means they're a no-go for Macbook Pro systems anyway.

Inside a Macbook Pro unibody system, your best performance option is to pull both the HDD and Optical drive and replace both with SSDs. Honestly, the second SSD in the optical bay is not that big of deal. The only way to get RAID within an MBP is via software, which is at the OS kernel level and even can be accessed via the boot loader. It's not advisable to operate your OS off of an OS-controlled software RAID. It can be done, but once again, not something I recommend for any system that you want to be as reliable as possible. If I were going to pull the optical drive from a MBP, I would replace it with a slimline Blu-Ray writer. However, as of the last time I looked at doing that, no one offered a slimline BD writer at the right thickness. DVD writer w/ BD reading ability was available, but that's pointless unless you're going to be booting into Windows on the same system and just want to watch movies.

The OWC SSD's seem to be very fast and reliable. But the larger capacity ones are rarely in-stock. Other than that, the latest OCZ ones are good, and so are the Corsair 256GB models. Samsung SSDs are not as fast, but seem to be very reliable and don't degrade as fast over time as most others. I believe Apple is currently shipping Samsung SSD's if you order the SSD drives from them directly. Although, they have been known to use other brands in the past. I don't know for sure which ones are in the currently shipping MBP systems.

If you do go the route of dual SSD's in your MBP. There are several mounting brackets on the market to fit a 2.5" storage device into a slimline optical bay. OWC makes a pretty good one and they also sell a nice aluminum enclosure to turn your optical drive into an external if you want. For now, I would consider the single SSD in a Macbook Pro, if the budget were there and if it were at least a 320GB capacity. Anything smaller and I wouldn't have room for everything I keep on my primary MBP and any additional workspace for files. I'm running 500GB 7200rpm HDDs. Sure they're slower -- about 30% slower for sustained writes and 60% slower for sustained reads. But I can buy a 20 pack for the same price as one 480GB SSD. Not that the 20 pack makes any logical sense... Just saying that I think with all the various equipment out there and tools and accessories available to buy, I can think of better places to utilize the money than what amounts to making the system drive in my MBP twice as fast. I would probably be more likely to consider dual 240~256GB SSDs by way of removing the optical drive. Use one for OS/apps, the other for files and scratch space. That would be the same amount of storage and $500 cheaper.

Other than all those considerations, I recommend the 17" with matte anti-glare screen and an i7 CPU (2.66GHz is fine if you want to save a few bucks). 4GB RAM is OK, 8GB is better -- buy the RAM upgrade through OWC, it will currently save you over $200.
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
The OCZ HSDL (Ibis) spec is not something you want to put into any critical system at this point. It's unproven and is in limited release. Not only that, if your drive or controller takes a dive, then what? How soon can you get a replacement? How will you get support if you're in the field / on location somewhere? Some of us will play with the technology, no doubt about that. That is a good thing and will help these products become more widely used and accepted. But Ketch, I know you don't like to dig around inside systems yourself, so I would definitely play it safe in that regard. Besides that, OCZ HSDL drives require their proprietary interface (it's an open spec, but still proprietary), so even though they operate off of SATA cabling, you can't run them on a SATA host that I'm aware of. Even if they're downward compatible with SATA, you still won't get any benefits of the HSDL interface when running in SATA mode. For what it's worth, HSDL looks like OCZ jumped to market with a proprietary spin on the upcoming SATA 18Gbps specification that a lot of people are calling SATA4 4.0.

Also as Trevor mentions, there's currently no Mac drivers available for the controllers or PCIe host/SSD hybrid units. So it's pretty well moot in terms of a Mac at this point. And requiring a proprietary host means they're a no-go for Macbook Pro systems anyway.

Inside a Macbook Pro unibody system, your best performance option is to pull both the HDD and Optical drive and replace both with SSDs. Honestly, the second SSD in the optical bay is not that big of deal. The only way to get RAID within an MBP is via software, which is at the OS kernel level and even can be accessed via the boot loader. It's not advisable to operate your OS off of an OS-controlled software RAID. It can be done, but once again, not something I recommend for any system that you want to be as reliable as possible. If I were going to pull the optical drive from a MBP, I would replace it with a slimline Blu-Ray writer. However, as of the last time I looked at doing that, no one offered a slimline BD writer at the right thickness. DVD writer w/ BD reading ability was available, but that's pointless unless you're going to be booting into Windows on the same system and just want to watch movies.

The OWC SSD's seem to be very fast and reliable. But the larger capacity ones are rarely in-stock. Other than that, the latest OCZ ones are good, and so are the Corsair 256GB models. Samsung SSDs are not as fast, but seem to be very reliable and don't degrade as fast over time as most others. I believe Apple is currently shipping Samsung SSD's if you order the SSD drives from them directly. Although, they have been known to use other brands in the past. I don't know for sure which ones are in the currently shipping MBP systems.

If you do go the route of dual SSD's in your MBP. There are several mounting brackets on the market to fit a 2.5" storage device into a slimline optical bay. OWC makes a pretty good one and they also sell a nice aluminum enclosure to turn your optical drive into an external if you want. For now, I would consider the single SSD in a Macbook Pro, if the budget were there and if it were at least a 320GB capacity. Anything smaller and I wouldn't have room for everything I keep on my primary MBP and any additional workspace for files. I'm running 500GB 7200rpm HDDs. Sure they're slower -- about 30% slower for sustained writes and 60% slower for sustained reads. But I can buy a 20 pack for the same price as one 480GB SSD. Not that the 20 pack makes any logical sense... Just saying that I think with all the various equipment out there and tools and accessories available to buy, I can think of better places to utilize the money than what amounts to making the system drive in my MBP twice as fast. I would probably be more likely to consider dual 240~256GB SSDs by way of removing the optical drive. Use one for OS/apps, the other for files and scratch space. That would be the same amount of storage and $500 cheaper.

Other than all those considerations, I recommend the 17" with matte anti-glare screen and an i7 CPU (2.66GHz is fine if you want to save a few bucks). 4GB RAM is OK, 8GB is better -- buy the RAM upgrade through OWC, it will currently save you over $200.
Click to expand...


Thanks Jeff,

as always very specific in your answers, much appreciated ;)

At this point after the initial excitement I grasp the point,
and will only remove the Optical drive to replace it with an other SSD, for the much needed added capacity.

Then I'll worry about really getting a Tower on Steroids rather then taking chances with my MBP.

At the end I will bring the Mac Pro tower on set either way.

Now I just have to decide which SSD to buy, and were to take the MBP to do the install ;)
 
I know I'm late here Ketch, but I too have considered the same thing
you are. I have a 3.06gz MBP (though I here from those like Jeff
that the i7 is faster) ...

There is a company in Orange County that will do the installation for
you (same day, in less than an hour):

http://www.mcetech.com/optibay/

As Jeff said, it probably won't make a quantum leap in your editing
performance, but seeing the difference I've experience in overall
computing speed/performance/startup time with just my 128gb SSD
leads me to believe that having two 400gb (raid) or 480gb drives
from OWC would make it pretty powerful and faster in many ways.

I will probably do it once the drives are back in stock, and if I do, I
will let you know.

Anthony
 
Just to revisit the PCIe SSD thing in a Mac Pro, came across this via engadget recently. Someone has finally written mac drivers for their product, hats off to them. They do a preconfigured mac version:

http://www.apricorn.com/product_detail.php?type=family&id=71

And also, have been selling for some time an empty board that will take 4 hdd's or ssd's if you want to roll your own. Which looks like fun:

http://www.apricorn.com/product_detail.php?type=family&id=59

Looks like an elegant solution for those who aren't a fan of external raids and have room left over to add another card.

If you have the cash, 4x 480gb ssd's on this thing reading at speeds above 700MB/sec could be handy.

Alternatively, 4x 1tb or even 1.5tb 2.5'' HDD's (they do those now in 2.5'', don't they?) gets you to a decent sized volume still reading at 200 MB/sec plus right there inside your Mac Pro.

If you can raid these things together in disk utility, which is a possibility, then if you are chasing after speed the SSD route could scale to 2000MB/sec plus for up to 5TB.. or if you'd be happy with a mere 600MB/sec and want capacity you could scale spinning media to about 15TB or so.

In theory, you could fit put in 3 of these arrays alongside your 4 standard and 2 optical bay and have up to 18 drives inside your mac. crazy

I say in theory because issues like power draw, thermal output and the sheer inadvisability of stringing 12 drives together in 2 levels of raid 0 might deter one from pushing the boundaries too far. But none the less, good to know it can be done. Adds another dimension to configuration options in the often neglected world of Mac
 
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