First SSD in MBP?

[Sopranino]

maybe you should consider using punchcards...

- 0% chance of crashing, just don't get them out of order.
- expandable: need more space, buy more cards.
- price: cheap as paper.

No thanks. I used punch cards back in the 70's, I'm very happy that we've moved on...... One program I wrote for the labs PDP 8 used something like 200 cards.

But then again I also stored programs on punch tape (ticker tape) from the teletype terminals that were connected to the PDP, so maybe at that stage cards were high technology.

Sopranino

 

[maxp1]

Alls I am interested in is enough space for OS X and my applications which would be under 20 gigs. How expensive are those?

Maybe the "morons" dont realize how expensive they are....A simple "do you know what the price of those are" would of been suffice.

SanDisk is making a 32MB SSD but I can't find anywhere to buy it. I think Dell has it as an option on some of it's models. I think Samsung just introduced a 64MB 1.8" drive, but once again it doesn't seem to be available retail.

I'm fairly sure that the price of these drives will be in the $500-$600 range when they're available to end users, but I have no idea when that will be. For that price I'd spring for it.

 

[maxp1]

I take it back... You can buy one of these at newegg. http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16820147015

$529. But I think a 64mb version is right around the corner for abou the same price.

 

[lag1090]

SanDisk is making a 32MB SSD but I can't find anywhere to buy it. I think Dell has it as an option on some of it's models. I think Samsung just introduced a 64MB 1.8" drive, but once again it doesn't seem to be available retail.

I'm fairly sure that the price of these drives will be in the $500-$600 range when they're available to end users, but I have no idea when that will be. For that price I'd spring for it.

I think you mean 32GB and 64GB, respectively.

 

[lag1090]

I am interested in this as well. I'd love to intsall the OS on a SSD in my express slot.

Good luck with that. At present, an eSATA hard drive cannot be used to boot OS X via ExpressCard since the drivers are not loaded until during the actual boot sequence. As such, drivers for an SSD would require the card's drivers to be loaded during the initial startup of the computer.

Perhaps low-level drivers in the Firmware would solve the problem?

 

[lag1090]

Has anyone put a Solid State Drive inside a MB or MBP? \
I go off to college fall of 2008 and I am determinded to have a Solid State drive in my (future) laptop then instead of the dangerous, slow, loud, and hot hardrive I have now.

Anyway, has anyone put one in? When someone does they better post it!!

First of all, how old is your current hard drive? Depending on the type and date of manufacture, there could be a very obvious reason as to why you are unhappy with your current drive.

Secondly, a SSD is unlikely to solve those issues within the timeframe you mentioned. Although great progress is being made, I honestly doubt the availability of high-quality, affordable, SSD drives in the Fall of 2008.

Lastly, if you're so determined to use a SSD in a MacBook/Pro at that time, then you would probably be better off doing your own research on the subject.

 

[aliquis-]

- price: cheap as paper.

Which is an awful lot per GB of data.

 

[deanj]

Good luck with that. At present, an eSATA hard drive cannot be used to boot OS X via ExpressCard since the drivers are not loaded until during the actual boot sequence. As such, drivers for an SSD would require the card's drivers to be loaded during the initial startup of the computer.

Perhaps low-level drivers in the Firmware would solve the problem?

Are you sure, i have an 8gb lexar expresscard ssd and was chatting to one of the mac geniuses just as the store was about to close when he asked me what it was in my expresscard slot. He got all excited and asked to have a play and went off to see if it would be posible to install OSX on it as he said it would with a bit of playing about. I know mine isn't an eSATA hard drive but i dont think thats what the poster you quoted was refering to.

 

[applekid]

So, these SSD ExpressCards are compatible with the Mac (and hopefully in Windows when using BootCamp)? I was eying a 4 GB Lexar SSD (the prices certainly have dropped), but I haven't seen any to suggest they were Mac compatible.

But, I guess the real question is how good the performance is.

 

[deanj]

So, these SSD ExpressCards are compatible with the Mac (and hopefully in Windows when using BootCamp)? I was eying a 4 GB Lexar SSD (the prices certainly have dropped), but I haven't seen any to suggest they were Mac compatible.

But, I guess the real question is how good the performance is.

yes they are. they basically just show up as a usb drive and works great on my macbook pro. I did a few speed tests and it was definatly quicker than my 4gb usb sandisk cruzer u3. can't remember the exact figures but if you're interested i'll run the tests againg and post them

 

[iToaster]

Hmm... I'd like to get my hands on one of those 16 Gb express card ones and use it as a boot drive in my MBP . If anything I'd put a SSD in a MB and use it like an ultraportable... but it'd be a slow write, so until tech gets better, no way.

Edit/minor update: Actually 32 Gb expresscard 34 ($500 geez), use it as my boot drive, if not, a fast other HD.

 

[applekid]

yes they are. they basically just show up as a usb drive and works great on my macbook pro. I did a few speed tests and it was definatly quicker than my 4gb usb sandisk cruzer u3. can't remember the exact figures but if you're interested i'll run the tests againg and post them

I was only looking into getting an SSD of some kind to backup small amounts of data, so it sounds like an SSD is a good option.

Considering people are interested in looking at SSD's, if you don't mind, you should post some benchmarks.

 

[lag1090]

Are you sure, i have an 8gb lexar expresscard ssd and was chatting to one of the mac geniuses just as the store was about to close when he asked me what it was in my expresscard slot. He got all excited and asked to have a play and went off to see if it would be posible to install OSX on it as he said it would with a bit of playing about. I know mine isn't an eSATA hard drive but i dont think thats what the poster you quoted was refering to.

Let's put it this way: any drivers that you install via the OS for an ExpressCard will not enable that to be used to boot that OS. If the OS hasn't loaded yet, and the drivers are included in that OS, then how can you possibly boot off of it without first loading those drivers? The simple answer is that it's simply not possible. You can boot OS X, etc. off of USB and IEEE 1394/FireWire drives because those drivers are included within the EFI or BIOS (depending on the machine). This isn't the case with 3rd-party ExpressCards, as those drivers aren't included in EFI. Only the drivers for the actual ExpressCard interface are provided for.

Unless the "Genius" has access to privileged information regarding the possibility of adding third-party drivers to a Mac's EFI, then he doesn't know what he's talking about. Remember, just because Apple claims someone to be a "genius," doesn't mean that they actually are one.

 

[deanj]

Considering people are interested in looking at SSD's, if you don't mind, you should post some benchmarks.

I'll get on the case tomorrow. If you have any specific tests you'd like me to do let me know. i'll run the standard test from xbench and show you those results unless you want something specific.

Let's put it this way: any drivers that you install via the OS for an ExpressCard will not enable that to be used to boot that OS. If the OS hasn't loaded yet, and the drivers are included in that OS, then how can you possibly boot off of it without first loading those drivers? The simple answer is that it's simply not possible. You can boot OS X, etc. off of USB and IEEE 1394/FireWire drives because those drivers are included within the EFI or BIOS (depending on the machine). This isn't the case with 3rd-party ExpressCards, as those drivers aren't included in EFI. Only the drivers for the actual ExpressCard interface are provided for.

The 8gb expess card shows up as a 480mb/s usb device though.

 

[applekid]

I'll get on the case tomorrow. If you have any specific tests you'd like me to do let me know. i'll run the standard test from xbench and show you those results unless you want something specific.

If you can post some results on read/write speeds vs. a USB flash drive or an internal HD, that'd be great.

 

[deanj]

If you can post some results on read/write speeds vs. a USB flash drive or an internal HD, that'd be great.

Sorry been away for a while. I'll get on the case tomorrow and post the results

 

[applekid]

Sorry been away for a while. I'll get on the case tomorrow and post the results

Ha. It's okay. Take your time.

 

[deanj]

These are xbench tests for a sandisk cruzer 4gb usb drive, my lexar 8gb express card and the standard sata drive. will run a few tests tomorrow of actually coping data.

 

[Butthead]

Has anyone put a Solid State Drive inside a MB or MBP? \
I go off to college fall of 2008 and I am determinded to have a Solid State drive in my (future) laptop then instead of the dangerous, slow, loud, and hot hardrive I have now.

Anyway, has anyone put one in? When someone does they better post it!!

I would expect Apple to offer an SSD option by the time Penryn ships, or at least when the revised chipset is incorporated (Monteviña) by summer of 2008. So no problem, it will be there, just a matter of price and how much of a compromise you're willing to accept on capacity. Currently Hitachi is shipping a 200GB 7.2k laptop drive that is the class leader (see this thread for links: Hitachi 7K200. But summer 2008 they should have gone up to 250-300GB with even greater performance. The fastest consumer SSD's, which are likely to be offered as OEM to Dell and others, currently are slower in sustained transer rates (but not hugely so, still faster than most 5.4k drives), but have much faster average seek times.

Samsung did announce, and that's the key, they did not say shipping as they claimed they were ramping up production for late spring 2007, lol; a 64GG 1.8 drive based on early last year's improved 50nm process NAND. So far, no one has seen these, even as beta tester sites. Last fall Samsung annouced the development, but not commercial manufacturing, of a new type of memory called Charge Trap, which is initially to be produced at the smaller 40nm process, but will scale down (so they say/predict) to 32nm, and then even to 20nm. They have annouced last year the prediction of shipping a 128GB drive by late 2007, not that is supposedly early 2008 (is it based on the new 40nm process?).

So yeah, I'd expect by late summer 2008 either 128 or 256GB SSD at a significant cost premium, probably ~$500 or double the fastest shipping magnetic recording HD, that will outperform and use less energy than any available HD.

Reading about early adopters now, has no relevance to what will be available in late summer 2008, don't stress

 

[wako]

Why are there always these morons who want a certain technology just because it is new? Nevermind the fact that a 160GB SSD drive probably costs more than a Macbook Pro and Mac Pro put together?

because he was probably banking on how prices are always going down?


Afterall, not too long ago flash drives use to cost a few hundred just for a gigabyte.

 

[lag1090]

The 8gb expess card shows up as a 480mb/s usb device though.

ExpressCards either use the PCIe bus, or the USB 2 bus in the underlying connection to the computer's motherboard. The physical connection of an ExpressCard is similar, but depending on the way the particular card was designed, it can use either bus. As such, the speed will be limited by the bus used. As you mentioned earlier, USB 2 is a max of 480Mbps, while PCIe is much faster. I'm not sure about you, but I've always had latency issues while using USB 2 for hard drives.

Regardless of speed limitations, cards which use the PCIe interface may still show up as USB 2 devices in OS X, depending on how it was implemented into the system design. Aside from that, you may have luck booting from the ExpressCard if it doesn't require any additional drivers, i.e. it connects without any extra effort under OS X. There's a possibility it'll boot OS X, but there is no possibility of booting Windows using it, as Windows does not support booting from USB 2 devices without a little tweaking.

On the other hand, booting may still not work at all just because of the fact that it is an ExpressCard, and those devices seem to be initialized after the OS has begun booting. You can test this yourself if the drive has an activity LED. See at which point the LED starts to show the drive being accessed. If it's before the Apple on the white background show, then there is a good chance of it being able to boot OS X. If the activity LED starts flashing while the Apple with white background screen is up, then it's highly unlikely of being able to boot. It's just a simple matter of the order which the computer discovers devices connected to it.

 

[applekid]

These are xbench tests for a sandisk cruzer 4gb usb drive, my lexar 8gb express card and the standard sata drive. will run a few tests tomorrow of actually coping data.

So, it sounds like the Express Card is marginally faster than a USB flash drive. Just as I had suspected. I wasn't looking for hard drive-like speeds (unlike some of the posters here), but I believe this works fine, although price may still be an issue.

Thank you for the benchmarks.

 

[Butthead]

So, it sounds like the Express Card is marginally faster than a USB flash drive. Just as I had suspected. I wasn't looking for hard drive-like speeds (unlike some of the posters here), but I believe this works fine, although price may still be an issue.

Thank you for the benchmarks.

Huh, Express Card is limited to much less than theoretical bandwidth with current chipsets, but it's still should be much faster than any USB bus, I kind of doubt your EC bandwidth is the limiting factor here as no current SSD can do STR's even at that limited bandwidth, maybe Raid 0 when the 64GB drives become available:

From barefeats.com

quick takes:

http://www.barefeats.com/quick.html

December 23rd, 2006 (Corrected) -- ExpressCard SATA bandwidth woes -- A reader wrote me about his frustration when connecting a four drive Port-Multiplication (PM) enclosure to an ExpressCard/34 SATA adapter installed on his MacBook Pro. Four drive RAID 0 benchmarked at 120MB/s. That was only slightly faster than two drives (90MB/s).

Though the theoretical bandwidth of an ExpressCard is 256MB/s, the current speed limit of all ExpressCards is about HALF of that when used with a RAID set no matter how many drives are connected. This is due to the fact that all current ExpressCard products use the Silicon Image 3132 chip set and, for some reason, that's as fast as it can go. Actually, the same is true of when the 3132 chipset is used in a PCIe SATA host adapter for the Mac Pro.

We ran a five bay PM enclosure (filled with Hitachi 7K500s) on our Mac Pro with a using the Sonnet E4P host adapter (based on a Marvell chipset). We got 240MB/s READ, 216MB/s WRITE. We moved the same enclosure to a MacBook Pro with an ExpressCard SATA host adapter (based on the Silicon Image 3132 chipset): 125MB/s READ, 111MB/s WRITE. Hopefully future improvements in the chipset and/or firmware will overcome this speed limit and MacBook Pro owners can experience true joy when they connect a four or five drive array to their ExpressCard.