SSD for the new Macbook Pros

[Miguel "Macgregor" De Olaso]

Hi all, I keep reading on forums that some highly scored SSDs don´t work well with video editing and that it´s better to ask for real life experiences.

I´m looking forward replacing the optical bay of my new macbook pro with a SSD drive and I want something that makes sense regarding performance/price/size. I don´t want to spend a fortune on it basically but it should be able to play uncompressed 1080p.

Any recommendations?

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

If you need one NOW, the Apple SSD is one of the best deals going for performance and capacity at 512GB. If you can live with 256GB, then go for the Crucial C300. The Intel 510 looks good, but I'm seeing reports popping up that it's not compatible with the new MBP's at the moment!

Hitachi and OCZ both have the best looking SSD products coming out, but they're not quite available yet. The OCZ Vertex 3 Pro looks like a winner at the 400GB mark. Hitachi will have a 480GB that should be even better, but it's going to cost a lot more. All I have listed have 6Gbps SATA interfaces, with the exception of the Apple one. It's still 3Gbps SATA, but puts up respectable numbers and doesn't suffer from most of the issues plaguing the current crop of SandForce SSDs relating to compression and large, already-compressed files. The OCZ Vertex 2 and the OWC Mercury SSDs are great options and perform admirably until you start moving large H264 or R3D files with them.

Playback of uncompressed 1080p is a lot to ask of a single storage device, even an SSD. 1080p/2K 10bit DPX usually needs a sustained 250MB/s or better for playback. Lots of SSDs out there can put up read numbers in that range, but few can actually sustain them. The 6Gbps SSDs are going to be your best bet... No guarantees though, not with that sustained thing...

SSD performance also tends to really degrade as the units fill up. Regardless of whether they or the OS supports TRIM functionality. OSX 10.7 Lion will support TRIM, but only for devices that do it in a specific way. TRIM is a temporary band-aid of a solution until SSD and FLASH memory makers can work out some other issues with current technology.

6 months from now, there will be several more options at lower prices. At this time next year, those $1500 500GB SSD's will be twice as fast and will probably be around $600~700.