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Advantages of SSD in IMAC
- Thread starter bushman4
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no to the last question.in apple online store, if we want a bto imac, with ssd preinstalled, its very expensive.and a 256 or 512 GB ssd seems a totally high end option, in fact, 32GB or maximum 60GB SSD for the system and 1TB HDD for file storage is the best option. we have a lower price and the best performance. the ssd is still very expensive , compared to the traditional HDD, price/GB is a little hard to accepte,particularly the big vollumes ones.
so I d say , between a single 1TB HDD and a 512GB SSD+1TB HDD, a smaller vollum of SSD coupled with HDD should be involved.or maybe apple can reinvente the imac ,that means with 2 drive slots. so we can buy an Imac with just a HDD, and add a third render SSD as we want. the reason why i want to say this ,thats if we want to build a second slot in an imac with only HDD, it s very difficult and seems impossible even for those who are already good at hardwares. many people find it awkward when they had purchased a 60GB SSD ,and wanted to add to their imac.after replacing the previous HDD with the ssd, they want a second slot for the hdd but they find only one, building the second slot is a lot work.the HDD seems nowhere but in an external box. so an imac with only 60GB???really awkward.
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Hi everyone.
Bushman4, I have SSD in my mac, but I didn't buy SSD from Apple.
Apple's SSD's are very slow comparing to those you can choose in a other stores.
Advice is to check the manufacturer for Apple SSD (probably Samsung) and model and then check benchmarks.
You will be very disappointed when You see for the same price 3x faster SSD...for example OCZ, Kingston, MachExtreme etc.
Advantages of most SSD's are much faster performance. Highest performance will be visible while working with OS because SSD has much lower Access time and works much faster with smaller files then HDD.
My mac mini is booting within 12 seconds with MachExtreme 120 Gb SSD.
Yes, SSD's are too expensive comparing to Hard Drives, but it's new technology and trust me if you buy one, you will not suffer from a "sorry"...but don't buy it from Apple.
Check benchmarks at Anandtech.
Bushman4, I have SSD in my mac, but I didn't buy SSD from Apple.
Apple's SSD's are very slow comparing to those you can choose in a other stores.
Advice is to check the manufacturer for Apple SSD (probably Samsung) and model and then check benchmarks.
You will be very disappointed when You see for the same price 3x faster SSD...for example OCZ, Kingston, MachExtreme etc.
Advantages of most SSD's are much faster performance. Highest performance will be visible while working with OS because SSD has much lower Access time and works much faster with smaller files then HDD.
My mac mini is booting within 12 seconds with MachExtreme 120 Gb SSD.
Yes, SSD's are too expensive comparing to Hard Drives, but it's new technology and trust me if you buy one, you will not suffer from a "sorry"...but don't buy it from Apple.
Check benchmarks at Anandtech.
This is more subjective and only you can answer this question.
Is it worth 300+ bucks for a 160GB (intel 320 ssd) drive? I'm leaning towards getting this drive myself but in the end, I struggle to determine if I'm willing to part with 300 bucks.
The advantages of an SSD is that they are quieter, do not have any moving parts and are much much faster but is it worth spending 300 bucks? Some will say yes and some will say no but what's important is what you say
You might want to consider a seagate momentus drive. It's a hybrid ssd + hard disk, whereby the most commonly accessed bits reside on the ssd and everything else remains on the spinning platters.
They typically come in 320GB & 500GB sizes with a 4 GB slice of flash. The drive determines over time the blocks of data you access most often ie. OS files during bootup, application binaries and makes copies into the flash memory.
Then on a subsequent read attempt it's delivered from flash rather than disk.
The nice thing about this solution is you don't have to decide what to keep on the flash, as programs get old and you don't use them so often they'll drop off the flash to be replaced by your newest toys. The disadvantage is that this flash is only a read cache, it will not speed up disk writes. I'd say the majority of benefit from an ssd for most people is boot and application load times.
Cheers M.
edit: some linkies.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Seagate-Momentus-XT-ST93205620AS-SATA-300/dp/B003V6G784
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Seagate-Momentus-ST95005620AS-7200rpm-Internal/dp/B003V6AIWU/ref=pd_cp_ce_1
Anandtech review
They typically come in 320GB & 500GB sizes with a 4 GB slice of flash. The drive determines over time the blocks of data you access most often ie. OS files during bootup, application binaries and makes copies into the flash memory.
Then on a subsequent read attempt it's delivered from flash rather than disk.
The nice thing about this solution is you don't have to decide what to keep on the flash, as programs get old and you don't use them so often they'll drop off the flash to be replaced by your newest toys. The disadvantage is that this flash is only a read cache, it will not speed up disk writes. I'd say the majority of benefit from an ssd for most people is boot and application load times.
Cheers M.
edit: some linkies.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Seagate-Momentus-XT-ST93205620AS-SATA-300/dp/B003V6G784
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Seagate-Momentus-ST95005620AS-7200rpm-Internal/dp/B003V6AIWU/ref=pd_cp_ce_1
Anandtech review
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
I'm considering selling my iMac and upgrading to (the not yet announced) new iMac, simply because my current model doesn't have an SSD and it's a pain in the a** to get inside it to swap one in.
And TB will be sweet too.
And TB will be sweet too.
I've also bought my 27" 2.8 quadcore 3 months ago but i'm waiting for the new model for see the price/model/etc.. of the new model with SSD (upgrade this iMac to SSD in warranty is a lot expensive, and i've got another 10 months of warranty
)
The SSD is noticeable silent than the WD Caviar Black 7200rpm that i've in my iMac? The sound from the hard disk (the disk/platters rotation that cause the "mmmmhhhhh") is my first trouble
thanks!
The SSD is noticeable silent than the WD Caviar Black 7200rpm that i've in my iMac? The sound from the hard disk (the disk/platters rotation that cause the "mmmmhhhhh") is my first trouble
thanks!
2 questions regarding buying the SSD in the iMac
2 questions regarding buying the SSD in the iMac since I'm buying the 2011 27"iMac as well.
1) Currently the largest SSD is 256GB SDD my current computer has 250 GB Serial ATA Drive. I want to increase the memory so how does the 256GB SSD help me doing that? I assume getting at least the 1TB Serial ATA Drive (7200RPM) + 256GB Solid State Drive is the only way to get the benefit of the SSd as well as the storage increase. Am I wrong?
2) I read here some people saying don't buy Apple's SDD upgrades pre-installed but go to other manufacturers and have it put in afterward purchases. If i did this doesn't that make the AppleCare Warranty void?
2 questions regarding buying the SSD in the iMac since I'm buying the 2011 27"iMac as well.
1) Currently the largest SSD is 256GB SDD my current computer has 250 GB Serial ATA Drive. I want to increase the memory so how does the 256GB SSD help me doing that? I assume getting at least the 1TB Serial ATA Drive (7200RPM) + 256GB Solid State Drive is the only way to get the benefit of the SSd as well as the storage increase. Am I wrong?
2) I read here some people saying don't buy Apple's SDD upgrades pre-installed but go to other manufacturers and have it put in afterward purchases. If i did this doesn't that make the AppleCare Warranty void?
well, apple allows us to replace the hard drive. but apple care don't include the problem caused by the new drive.so ,we can change the hard drive.
well, in my opinion, you got it 100% right...
we don't wanna the ssd preinstalled by apple , which is very expensive and not fast enough. but apple is such a fox, in the mother board of imac both 21.5 and 27 models, there is only one sata slot originally built.how can we have a two slots imac? buying it from apple online store and bto it with a very expensive 256GB SSD+1TB HDD, only in that case,they will get your imac with two sata slots...and since you have already the ssd installed, you don't wanna buy a seconde ssd of other manufacturers.
so we want bothspeed and memory???we have to pay extra expensive.
ps in the following upgrade of imac, i don't think apple would have SSD preinstalled as a basic tech specs, SSDs are very expensive...and a 30GBSSD+1TB HDD seems a dream, downgrade from a 256GBSSD+1TBHDD? apple won't allow that.
There seems to be a lot of crazy talk and half truths in some of these postings.
Adding a SSD to a pre-2009 iMac or any Core2Duo iMac is a complete waste of money. Unless of course you are talking about a $100 or less 40 gig SSD.
Sure, it might give it a speed boost -- but you are just delaying the inevitable -- your real issue is the fact that you have a C2D chip. And that cant be changed.
Sell what you have now and upgrade to an i3/i5.
Then if you want to add a SSD, go ahead.
The largest SSD apple currently includes with a BTO iMac is 256 gigs, but there are SSDs twice that size.
Getting a 256 gig SSD + 1TB or 2TB drive for 99% of people is overkill.
You could easily get away with a 60 gig system drive, and everything else on a larger drive.
Robby -- if you havent already filled the 250 gig drive from your 4+ year old iMac by now -- not sure why you would need even more space?
Adding a SSD to a pre-2009 iMac or any Core2Duo iMac is a complete waste of money. Unless of course you are talking about a $100 or less 40 gig SSD.
Sure, it might give it a speed boost -- but you are just delaying the inevitable -- your real issue is the fact that you have a C2D chip. And that cant be changed.
Sell what you have now and upgrade to an i3/i5.
Then if you want to add a SSD, go ahead.
The largest SSD apple currently includes with a BTO iMac is 256 gigs, but there are SSDs twice that size.
Getting a 256 gig SSD + 1TB or 2TB drive for 99% of people is overkill.
You could easily get away with a 60 gig system drive, and everything else on a larger drive.
Robby -- if you havent already filled the 250 gig drive from your 4+ year old iMac by now -- not sure why you would need even more space?
I currently have a:
2005 Dell Dimension E510
Microsoft Windows XP
Media Center Edition
Version 2002
Service Pack 3
*3.00GHZ Intel (R) Pentium 4
*17-inch (viewable) E173FP Flat Panel Display
*1GB 400MHz DDR2 SDRAM
*250GB Serial ATA Drive (7200RPM) Replacement 3/6/07
*160 GB Serial ATA Drive (7200RPM) Original
*16x DVD+/RW CD-RW Combination DriveATI Radeon X300 SE with 128MB memory
Badger^2- Do you recommend just get the 256 SSD alone from Apple.
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I assume you are referring to Sandy Bridge i3/i5 because the current version (1st gen processors) aren't all that much faster than the C2D. There will be a bigger difference when the Sandy Bridge processors are installed in the new iMacs. However, just as I have stated many times, most people won't notice a difference between a C2D with a high clock speed verses Sandy Bridge unless you are doing heavy video encoding or similar tasks. The C2D processors are still well more than enough to do most peoples daily tasks with NO slowdown.
sorry but this is not true - try to run Crisis 2 on your machine with C2D you will notice the difference!
Bingo! I have a 128GB SSD and a 500GB Scorpio Black HDD in my C2D MBP and enjoy the 16 second cold boot times, 1 sec app load times, etc... What I don't do on my MBP is play games. I have an XBox and Wii for that sort of thing.
IMO, the SSD is not a worthy upgrade until the prices come down. I don't have one in my 2010 iMac 27 with 12GB RAM and have zero issues. The stock HDD is actually very quiet. For me, an SSD installed is not worth it. The 12GB of RAM was. Better money spent IMO.