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Advice on SSD 3.5"

cpnotebook80

cpnotebook80

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Feb 4, 2007
1,230
557
Toronto
I currently have this in my mp 3,1 OCZ-VERTEX2 3.5"
Along with other normal HDD. I use the ssd for my main OS and other apps.

It has been a while and wanted to upgrade to a new SSD but I see many 2.5" sizes and not sure how I would go about getting that installed (mounting bracket)?. When I got the Vertex, it just fit it the bay like a normal drive as it was 3.5"

What is the best ssd out there around 256gb. i see samsung and intel mostly talked about and how easy is it to install it with bracket or not.

I found this http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147249

and bracket http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817994085

Is that good
 
Last edited:
That bracket will mount a 2.5" drive in a drive bay on your Mac Pro, but you won't get anywhere near the speeds that the Samsung EVO is capable of. Just today I picked up an Apricorn Velocity Solo and an 840 EVO myself, and the 440mb/s reads outperform anything SATA2 ports in the drive bays are capable of. The four drive bays on the Mac Pro should be used for hard drives and mass storage, honestly. Invest in a Velocity Solo for a PCIe SSD. It's well worth the extra cost, since you won't be wasting any performance from your solid state drive, and you don't need to spend another $25 dollars on an adapter bracket.

If you're looking into getting an adapter bracket, that's not the one to get. OWC makes a Mac Pro 2.5" adapter bracket that works wonders. A generic adapter will not work in the Mac Pro due to the unique drive bay design. This is what you should look at if you're looking to add a 2.5" drive in one of the drive bays, but for sure get a Velocity card if you want to add a high performance SSD, such as the 840 EVO you linked.

As far as "The Best" SSD goes, the 840 EVO is pretty nice. I'm sure it's not the best, but Velocity cards top off at certain read/write speeds (there are a ton of threads in this forum that describe this in more depth) but if you've got that OCZ Vertex now, even though that is most likely outperforming your hard drive, any newer, modern SSD will run circles around that thing when given a proper PCIe slot with SATA3 speeds.
 
Thanks very much. It's been so long since I upgraded the machine and so much has changed. Will check out items you mentioned
 
I can vouch for the owc sled - i have two.

The samsung evo is also great in my opinion. I got the 1TB version and put it on a velocity solo x2 pcie card and it flies! 500mb/s read and write.
 
The OWC sled does not work in the 3,1 - I know as I bought one in error! It's going onto eBay shortly!

For the 3,1 by far the best fit into a sled is the NWT AdaptaDrive. Had icy box kits too, both of which fell to bits and I had to return them for a refund.

I use the Solo X2 for booting anyway.

840 Evo or Pro you can't go wrong.
 
Gav Mack said:
The OWC sled does not work in the 3,1 - I know as I bought one in error! It's going onto eBay shortly!

For the 3,1 by far the best fit into a sled is the NWT AdaptaDrive. Had icy box kits too, both of which fell to bits and I had to return them for a refund.

I use the Solo X2 for booting anyway.

840 Evo or Pro you can't go wrong.
Click to expand...

Oops i didn't realise the 3.1 is a different sled to the 4.1+ - never had mine at the same time to notice the different.
 
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