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Best SSD for Mac Pro?

Thanks mate!

The icy box caddy fits perfectly into the pro and I've just updated the firmware! Will do Osx tomorrow now as it's 9pm an I'm knackered :(

It very slickly packaged too! Looks great!

Thanks for the help all those who did! Especially phillip :)
 
I am currently torn between ordering the OWC 60 GB Mercury Extreme Pro from the US and the OCZ 60GB Vertex 2E from eBuyer here in the UK. The two are roughly the same price, when adjusting for import tax and shipping. I am currently looking at getting the OCW SSD since I am purchasing the OWC Multi-Mount kit to stick the SSD in the optical drive bay at the same time.

My question is; does anyone have any recommendations, for or against, based on experience or an article I have missed?
 
OWC - Published Amount of Over Provisioning and an Excellent Warranty - Five Years

I went with the OWC Mercury Extreme Pro RE drives...

I think most of the Sandforce drives offer similar performance, and I almost went for the OCZ Vertex drives as they were a bit cheaper than the OWC.

What made me pay a bit more for the OWC drives was because they published how much over provisioning they do and that the RE series drives are really over provisioned (which is what I ended up choosing) and even more importantly they come with a Five Year Warranty, whereas the OCZ only comes with a 3 year warranty.
 
OracleRedux said:
I am currently torn between ordering the OWC 60 GB Mercury Extreme Pro from the US and the OCZ 60GB Vertex 2E from eBuyer here in the UK. The two are roughly the same price, when adjusting for import tax and shipping. I am currently looking at getting the OCW SSD since I am purchasing the OWC Multi-Mount kit to stick the SSD in the optical drive bay at the same time.

My question is; does anyone have any recommendations, for or against, based on experience or an article I have missed?
Click to expand...

I got an OWC SSD and multimount and love them both.
 
fensterbme said:
I went with the OWC Mercury Extreme Pro RE drives...

I think most of the Sandforce drives offer similar performance, and I almost went for the OCZ Vertex drives as they were a bit cheaper than the OWC.

What made me pay a bit more for the OWC drives was because they published how much over provisioning they do and that the RE series drives are really over provisioned (which is what I ended up choosing) and even more importantly they come with a Five Year Warranty, whereas the OCZ only comes with a 3 year warranty.
Click to expand...

The similarity in performance metrics is something I have also noticed. However, obviously being in the UK, any in-warranty repairs / replacement, will be expensive, the only saving grace being that SSDs are relatively light and cheap to ship. Also, I can't really justify the increased premium for an RE edition, although I might suffer the consequences in the long run.

The one difference which I haven't seen discussed explicitly is OWC's mention, understandably as a Mac-centric seller, of so called "garbage collection" tech which attempts to overcome the shortcomings of OSX, specifically lack of TRIM support which seems set to be the de-facto standard for maintaining performance of SSDs over their lifetime.
 
OracleRedux said:
The one difference which I haven't seen discussed explicitly is OWC's mention, understandably as a Mac-centric seller, of so called "garbage collection" tech which attempts to overcome the shortcomings of OSX, specifically lack of TRIM support which seems set to be the de-facto standard for maintaining performance of SSDs over their lifetime.
Click to expand...

Well OWC knows they have a primary Mac user base, and I've noticed that in their marketing speak they call out features that Mac users will care about more than say a MS-Windows centric reseller. Specifically I don't think the OWC SSD's have any specific garbage collection features beyond what the SandForce controller already provides, and those features would help any OS that doesn't support TRIM not just OS-X (I could be wrong). But OWC calls these features out a bit more in the marketing than other SSD manufactures.

I do think OWC does a fantastic job implementing a SandForce based SSD and as I stated earlier the fact that they sell two product lines with different levels of over-provisioning is really great, I'm surprised other SSD companies don't do the same. But if I'm living over the pond and the OWC drive costs notably more than the OCZ drive I'd probably just buy the OCZ drive, unless you were wanting the more over-provisioned RE series drives as I think the OCZ and OWC drives are similar enough in performance and design.
 
Corsair

I just put in a Corsair Force 120. It uses the Sandforce and has basically the same specs as the OWC and OCZ, plus it comes with a 3.5 adapter in the box. Bought it for $229 at Frys (with rebate).
 
I just received the ocz vertex 2 360gb drive today after a long wait. Seems the parts for the larger size drives are much more scarce and so there has been a long wait. I ordered this drive for a couple reasons. One is that it has the highest speed specs of any of the drives. The same as the vertex pro. (see below). Also it is the highest capacity drive outside the overly expensive "pro" line that you can still get these higher speeds. After 360gb the specs fall off for the next higher capacity 480gb version, especially the iops rating. Lastly the fact that it is already a 3.5" drives save the trouble of using an adapter. I knew the 360 would be a lot more expensive than the smaller sizes, but I didn't want to skimp on size for the future if I was going to spend any amount for a quality, fast ssd, and I didn't want to have to worry about running short on space in the future, or moving my home directory etc. So I decided to bite the bullet, go for it, and do it right the first time.

Vertex 2 3.5" drives 90-360GB Max Performance
Max Read: up to 285MB/s
Max Write: up to 275MB/s
Sustained Write: up to 250MB/s
Random Write 4KB (Aligned): 50,000 IOPS

90GB - OCZSSD3-2VTX90G
120GB - OCZSSD3-2VTX120G
180GB - OCZSSD3-2VTX180G
240GB - OCZSSD3-2VTX240G
360GB - OCZSSD3-2VTX360
 
Many thanks for all the replies.
The long and the short of my inability to make a decision is that I am drawn to OWC's excellent reputation for customer service. In addition, I plan to order their multi-mount regardless of which drive I choose - so the postage is a non-issue and even with import tax, VAT etc, the OCZ from ebuyer and the OWC end up being the same price.
Furthermore, I have seen reports of problems with the OCZ drives on Mac systems and the only reviews of the OWC drives I can find are so glowing that they are quite possibly slightly biased - on macperformanceguide.com for example. Also, the Vertex 2 is not available in the UK, only the Vertex 2 Extended edition, which would appear to be the inferior drive. Comparative performance metrics on sites such as Anandtech are unfortunately only done with slightly different versions of the respective drives, such as the 100GB Vertex 2, and the 50GB RE of the OWC Mercury Extreme.
I would be happy to pay a slight premium for either if they stood out from one another.
 
johnnymg said:
Excellent. Please post some benchmarks after you get this badboy up and running.

cheers
JohnG
Click to expand...


Seems that the 360gb vertex 2 drives have some issues and there are problems with large file transfers, so I sent the 360 back and a 250GB ocz colossul SSD works perfectly albeit maybe just a hair slower on some specs than the vertex 2.
 
Just installed the 3.5" version of the OCZ 2VTX120G. Currently offered with a rebate that puts the 120GB into the low $200's. Doesn't get much better for Oct 2010.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227590

This drive is VERY easy to install in the MP as it mounts right up to the standard drive sled.

I used super duper to clone the boot drive over to the SSD. Took a total of ~15 minutes from opening the package to booting from it. Took me almost as much time figuring out how to remove the sled as the rest of the install. :eek:

AJA reports 230 MB/sec for read/writes. :p

FWIW: the stock WD Black is very fast for a spinner. AJA reports 130 MB/sec read/write.

regards
JohnG
 
Greetings folks -

This is my first time posting here.

I'm upgrading to snow leopard server my late 2006/7? mac pro.
(I forget when I bought the system, but it's three years old and running....)

I believe the backplane is SATA v1, which is the 1.5Gb/sec.

So, two questions: has anyone upgraded this version successfully to an SSD (it appears so, having read the entire thread, but I wanted to be sure):

And is the speed increase really worth the cost (considering I can get a velociraptor 300gb 10,000 rpm drive for $100 from newegg)?

Thanks much!

Update - i went with the velociraptor. I did some more research around here and confirmed that the OCZ Vertex 3.5" would work fine, but I need more space, and can't afford $400 and above for a reasonable sized boot drive. I'll upgrade in a couple of years if need be.
 
Last edited:
I just installed a new 120g OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD and Icydock for a boot drive. I also upped my stock 2g to 8g from OWC. Could be happier!!! I can't believe I waited this long to upgrade my beloved early 2008 Mac Pro.
 
johnnymg said:
Just installed the 3.5" version of the OCZ 2VTX120G. Currently offered with a rebate that puts the 120GB into the low $200's. Doesn't get much better for Oct 2010.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227590

This drive is VERY easy to install in the MP as it mounts right up to the standard drive sled.

I used super duper to clone the boot drive over to the SSD. Took a total of ~15 minutes from opening the package to booting from it. Took me almost as much time figuring out how to remove the sled as the rest of the install. :eek:

AJA reports 230 MB/sec for read/writes. :p

FWIW: the stock WD Black is very fast for a spinner. AJA reports 130 MB/sec read/write.

regards
JohnG
Click to expand...

Got the exact SSD (except I opted for the 2.5" model as to place it behind my optical drives). I cannot believe the difference, not just in boot time but in applications and overall system performance. Newegg had a sale that ended on 11/28 that got me $20 off, so it was just under $200! The only issue is losing 880GBs on my main drive, so I've had to place all my personal documents, etc on one of my internal SATA HDD bays. Good thing that doing so doesn't impact performance (I've read, and experienced, that OS X write times on SSD aren't great).

I spent a lot of time researching and learned that OCZ supplies the best SSD's on the market today.
 
Copying Boot volume without User folder

bedifferent said:
Got the exact SSD (except I opted for the 2.5" model as to place it behind my optical drives). I cannot believe the difference, not just in boot time but in applications and overall system performance. Newegg had a sale that ended on 11/28 that got me $20 off, so it was just under $200! The only issue is losing 880GBs on my main drive, so I've had to place all my personal documents, etc on one of my internal SATA HDD bays. Good thing that doing so doesn't impact performance (I've read, and experienced, that OS X write times on SSD aren't great).

I spent a lot of time researching and learned that OCZ supplies the best SSD's on the market today.
Click to expand...

Long time reader, first time poster - this is a great thread. Am looking for some help:

My OCZ Vertex 2 SATA II 3.5" SSD 120 GB is in the post. I am running 2006 MP with 3 mechanical HD, the 4th bay is empty for the SSD. I run the OS X 10.5 from bay 1, and alternately backup to bay 2 and 3 (as well as time machine). How do I restore / copy the boot drive to the new SSD, without copying the User files? Do I move the User dir to the HD in bay 2, amend the boot volume to point to that dir, then remove the original User dir from the boot drive? Any guidance or links to walkthrus appreciated.

2006 dual core 2 x 3 GHz MP, 10GB RAM, 1.25TB mechanical [750GB/250GB/250GB/null], 120GB OCZ SSD, NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT, Apple Display
 
N00biePoster said:
Long time reader, first time poster - this is a great thread. Am looking for some help:

My OCZ Vertex 2 SATA II 3.5" SSD 120 GB is in the post. I am running 2006 MP with 3 mechanical HD, the 4th bay is empty for the SSD. I run the OS X 10.5 from bay 1, and alternately backup to bay 2 and 3 (as well as time machine). How do I restore / copy the boot drive to the new SSD, without copying the User files? Do I move the User dir to the HD in bay 2, amend the boot volume to point to that dir, then remove the original User dir from the boot drive? Any guidance or links to walkthrus appreciated.

2006 dual core 2 x 3 GHz MP, 10GB RAM, 1.25TB mechanical [750GB/250GB/250GB/null], 120GB OCZ SSD, NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT, Apple Display
Click to expand...

If you move it first as you said then you should be fine. Otherwise if you have room, clone the whole thing and then move the user dir after. You could boot to a snow lep dvd and use disk utility to clone the drive to the ssd.
 
xgman said:
If you move it first as you said then you should be fine. Otherwise if you have room, clone the whole thing and then move the user dir after. You could boot to a snow lep dvd and use disk utility to clone the drive to the ssd.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice. /Users is too big to move onto the SSD, at about 200GB. nb am running 10.5.8 (Leopard). I'll erase HD2, copy /Users from HD1 to HD2, point the OS to the /Users dir on HD2, then clone HD1 to the SSD. Simples.
 
xgman said:
If you move it first as you said then you should be fine. Otherwise if you have room, clone the whole thing and then move the user dir after. You could boot to a snow lep dvd and use disk utility to clone the drive to the ssd.
Click to expand...

Works a treat. Thanks for the advice. I have one app that is not in a happy place - Sonos, a music server. I think it hard codes the path of my music files, and so is confused with the new empty /music dir. Will have a play around - any adivce on this greatly received.
 
N00biePoster said:
Works a treat. Thanks for the advice. I have one app that is not in a happy place - Sonos, a music server. I think it hard codes the path of my music files, and so is confused with the new empty /music dir. Will have a play around - any adivce on this greatly received.
Click to expand...
You do see this occasionally with some "stubborn" (badly written) apps. Can you try reinstalling it to re-set the preferences? You have to fiddle with the app settings sometimes or worst case a complete uninstall and reinstall should do it.
 
does anybody know if I can put 2 SSDs on a 3.5" bay on the MacPro?
It seems that OWC have such a bracket for that but I am wondering if there is only one cable/slot to connect to a single drive.

Thanks
 
I recently received my 120GB OWC Mercury Extreme. Very impressed with the performance. I moved the home folder to another drive before cloning with CCC and had no problems.

Also no issues with sleeping. I only restart every 2 weeks or after an update so i just log out and sleep over night. Unless CCC is running (weekly).
 
Gonna bring this baby back from the grave.

This thread has been incredibly helpful so far, thank you guys so much for posting all this info. Now I have a question of my own.

I am interested in adding an SSD to my Mac Pro and have been for a while, but thought I'd read that it wouldn't work for some reason. How silly. My problem is that my home folder is currently ~1TB. If I were to move my Music (and therefore iTunes folder) to another HD in another bay, that'd free up a good 3/4 of that. Would it also be possible - and not detrimental - to do a similar move for my Pictures folder?

I would like to buy the 80-100GB Vertex 2 2.5" and use the Icy Dock, and I don't really have the money sitting around to go much higher right now. My Applications folder is currently just in my Boot Drive's folder and not my Home folder - if I were going to do what you guys are doing, I'm guessing I'd want to move it back to the Home folder. So if I'm calculating how much space I need on my SSD, which folders in my Home folder should I count as needing to go to the SSD and which can simply be put on another drive?

Thanks all!
 
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