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1. mboy - Member

   Just got an i7 13" MacBook Pro, and lovely bit of kit as it is, a 5400rpm drive just does not cut it... Bearing in mind that my main use of a Mac is for running Logic Pro, which when it's accessing lots of audio files simultaneously as it often does, is sometimes too demanding of a 7200rpm drive even let alone a 5400, I'm planning on putting an SSD in it ASAP.

   But I know very little about them! Is it all just about the max read and write speeds, or is there more to it than that? I know the machine has a SATA III connection for the HD so will be buying SATA III drive to suit, but even then it seems there's a lot of disparity between the quoted speeds. And is there any makes to go for, or any to avoid? On ebuyer right now there's a couple of 120GB OCZ drives for £130 which doesn't seem too bad a deal (would like 240 but that's £300 still!), and I don't mind keeping all non essential files (mp3's, films, downloads) on my desktop anyway as that has a 1TB drive with 800GB still free...

   So what should I get?

   Posted 5 months ago #
2. juanking - Member

   Crucial M4 is where it's at. With the latest firmware upgrade they really fly. I have one in my desktop for OS and BF3 only and the boot/load time is phenomenal.

   Posted 5 months ago #
3. esselgruntfuttock - Member

   I can speak fluent Swahili but I haven't a clue what your'e on about!!

   Posted 5 months ago #
4. mrblobby - Member

   Most folk seem to be recommending the OWC and Intel drives right now. A friend has just put a OWC one in his MacBook and it's very impressive.

   Posted 5 months ago #
5. couldashouldawoulda - Member

   I can speak fluent Swahili but I haven't a clue what your'e on about!!

   Harddisks are now the equivalent of CRT TVs. SSDs are the trailing edge replacement - better (faster) and also worse (tech so far fails - or more likely fades- eventually, but possibly catastrophically).

   Dont worry about it. Unless you buy one. Then get to grips blistering performance - along with backups etc.

   Posted 5 months ago #
6. MrSmith - Member

   you need to do your research as to which drives work with trim in OSX, which drives don't and which drives don't but have an inbuilt firmware that means there are no issues with not having trim enabled.

   i'm using a crucial sataIII drive in my MBP but i have it in the media bay using a kit from ebay, i use it as a working back-up and a scratch disk for big photoshop files.
   the bottleneck is the main 5200rpm drive though and i want to swap this for a trim enabled SSD drive soon.
   the 16gb ram kits are coming down in price so will upgrade that too, the jump from 4 to 8gb is worth doing if you haven't already.

   Posted 5 months ago #
7. mboy - Member

   i'm using a crucial sataIII drive in my MBP but i have it in the media bay using a kit from ebay, i use it as a working back-up and a scratch disk for big photoshop files.

   Seen these kits, but the optical drive is still important to me at the moment, more so than having 2 hard drives with one for storage anyway. Shouldn't you be using the SSD in the original drive's position though, as the SATA connection for the optical drive is only SATA II not SATA III...

   the 16gb ram kits are coming down in price so will upgrade that too, the jump from 4 to 8gb is worth doing if you haven't already.

   Only bought it 2 days ago, just got 4GB currently, will swap out for 8GB soon I imagine though as its so cheap. 16GB is totally pointless, to be fair 8GB is excessive as for compatibility reasons I have to run Logic in 32 bit mode anyway so it can't address more than 4GB. Even then, Logic isn't massively RAM hungry compared to Photoshop say, and neither is it processor intensive, but it's especially unforgiving of slow hard drives.

   Will research which drives work best with OSX as a next step...

   Posted 5 months ago #
8. chewkw - Member

   I have Intel SSD so far so good but other brands have encountered complaints from buyers so watch out. If you have decided on a particular brand of SSD then google for other users experience. Some of them have poor firmware put it this way.

   Posted 5 months ago #
9. cranberry - Member

   2 weeks I would have recommended an OCZ Vertex or the equivalent SATA III drive, but having had one completely die on me coming out of sleep mode on my PC and finding that it is an all too common problem, I would now say Crucial or Intel.

   Posted 5 months ago #
10. samuri - Member

    I have an OCZ too. It's very fast but it does seem to need regular checks for dodgy sectors.

    Posted 5 months ago #
11. bazzer - Member

    Anyone used the Seagate Momentus Hybrid drives ?

    Best of both worlds ?

    http://www.ebuyer.com/222310-seagate-500gb-momentus-xt-2-5-hybrid-ssd-hdd-sata-ii-7200rpm-32mb-cache-st95005620as

    Posted 5 months ago #
12. retro83 - Member

    Sorry to wee on your cornflakes, but there really is no point just saying not to get OCZ or Intel or whoever as they use completely different chipsets between models. Even firmware revisions can have a major effect on reliability.

    Personally I'd be getting an OCZ Vertex 3 (3 yr warranty) and backing up nightly using a Time Machine or external HD.

    Posted 5 months ago #
13. simon_g - Member

    Intel or Crucial all the way for me.

    Lots of failure reports on OCZ, but then they were amongst the first to get good-performing affordable SSDs out there so there's probably a lot more out there.

    Posted 5 months ago #
14. mboy - Member

    Anyone used the Seagate Momentus Hybrid drives ?

    Best of both worlds ?

    Have heard the same, BUT... They have suffered the same price increases as conventional HD's, which is a lot. Also, whilst the 4GB of NAND flash storage is sufficient for the OS and some apps for most people, for me I will need a probably 40GB of audio samples all stored on an SSD also, as otherwise I'll have the same problem I have now where even a fast 7200rpm drive can't respond quick enough quite often.

    Personally I'd be getting an OCZ Vertex 3 (3 yr warranty) and backing up nightly using a Time Machine or external HD.

    Have had my fingers burnt before, will definitely be backing up with Time Machine constantly. With that in mind, with a 3yr warranty, the OCZ Vertex does sound like a good option as it looks very quick on paper and its reasonably priced...

    Posted 5 months ago #

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