Best Budget SSD for Mid-2010 Mac Pro

[dch828]

I would appreciate some recommendations regarding an SSD as a main hard drive from my 2010 Mac Pro. It is a quad core, and I don't do anything heavy, but I've noticed it is really slowing down. I always hear the hard drive churning, and I've noticed my older MacBook Air is quicker for browsing the internet, etc.

I use to follow the SSD market closely, but probably haven't look at it in a year since work has gotten pretty busy. I use the computer mostly for photo editing and occasional light video work. I'm not looking for top of the line speed, just something snappier than what I'm using now.

Also, I've noticed that my system hard drive is using 660 GB. I know I can pare it down smaller for what I would need on the SSD, and I have several external drives. What is the smallest size your would recommend?

Thanks!

 

[flowrider]

Look at the Samsung Series 840 or the new Series 840 EVO. Or the OCG Agility Series. Smallest I would go is 250GB, but 500 GB would be better.

Also, I know of no 2010 Mac Pro coming with a HDD as small as the one you mention. As fas as I know, the all came stock with 1TB HDDs, unless a bigger HDD or an SSD was factory ordered.

Lou

 

[dch828]

Thanks for the response. I was thinking 500 GB. In my original post, I actually meant that I am using 660 gb on the system drive. I believe it is a 1 TB drive.

What is the best way to transfer everything over to the new drive and make the switch?

Thanks!

 

[davidlv]

Thanks for the response. I was thinking 500 GB. In my original post, I actually meant that I am using 660 gb on the system drive. I believe it is a 1 TB drive.

What is the best way to transfer everything over to the new drive and make the switch?

Thanks!

Look into the Plextor M5P Extreme, it has excellent Garbage Collection, it's fast and Trim (I installed Trim using ChameleonSSDOptimizer_094) works well with the firmware (firmware updates are available on the Plextor HP as ISO images to create bootable DVDs that work with a Mac).
You can use Carbon Copy Cloner (Demo mode available) to clone your boot drive to the SSD after you initialize it in Disk Utility, and even tell CCC what to copy and what not to copy, since you need to keep the data transferred under the capacity of the drive. Remember to leave some free space too, some people say 10%, some say at least 20% free, but I am not an expert on that.

 

[dch828]

Look into the Plextor M5P Extreme, it has excellent Garbage Collection, it's fast and Trim (I installed Trim using ChameleonSSDOptimizer_094) works well with the firmware (firmware updates are available on the Plextor HP as ISO images to create bootable DVDs that work with a Mac).
You can use Carbon Copy Cloner (Demo mode available) to clone your boot drive to the SSD after you initialize it in Disk Utility, and even tell CCC what to copy and what not to copy, since you need to keep the data transferred under the capacity of the drive. Remember to leave some free space too, some people say 10%, some say at least 20% free, but I am not an expert on that.

Thanks. That's exactly the information I needed.

 

[Tesselator]

Thanks. That's exactly the information I needed.

Check Tom's Hardware charts.

go here: http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/ssd-charts-2012/benchmarks,129.html
and select a benchmark that matters most for your usage like maybe:
AS-SSD 4K Random Read http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/ssd-charts-2012/AS-SSD-4K-Random-Read,2784.html
or AS SSD 4K Random Write http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/ssd-charts-2012/AS-SSD-4K-Random-Write,2785.html
and see what rates where. Most also have the street prices listed too I think.

 

[Weaselboy]

Thanks for the response. I was thinking 500 GB. In my original post, I actually meant that I am using 660 gb on the system drive. I believe it is a 1 TB drive.

What is the best way to transfer everything over to the new drive and make the switch?

Thanks!

Just install the new drive then put your old drive in a USB enclosure and option key boot to it. Then use Carbon Copy Cloner (free trial version) to move everything over. Then set the new SSD as the boot drive in System Prefs / Startup disk. Now reboot and you are done.

 

[handheldgames]

Just install the new drive then put your old drive in a USB enclosure and option key boot to it. Then use Carbon Copy Cloner (free trial version) to move everything over. Then set the new SSD as the boot drive in System Prefs / Startup disk. Now reboot and you are done.

+1 on Carbon Corp Cloner or SuperDuper.
++1 on the Samsung 840 evo. It's a budget monster!!!

btw.. an internal transfer would be much faster.

 

[flowrider]

.What is the best way to transfer everything over to the new drive and make the switch?

Thanks!

Actually the best way, IMO, is to use Restore function, available in Apple's Disk Utility. I had been using Retrospect, but find Apple's Restore utility works better and is much faster. The only hitch is you would need a third drive. The Source Disk and the Destination Disk both need to be off line, so would need to start from another disk.

Lou

 

[sbarton]

Sandisk Extreme 480gb.

Can be had for around $300 and uses very high quality ram. Not the fastest but it's pretty fast.