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Found $99 SSD for boot drive

M

mangrove

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 10, 2010
440
0
FL, USA
:D OK so it is small at 40GB, but if you follow Lloyd's Mac Performance Guide parameters for a backup/boot drive all should fit into this.

Hey, since OWC makes about the best out there this is your chance to try an SSD with very little outlay which IMHO seems to be the biggest stumbling block to buying SSD's. I noticed it is an August sale.:cool:

P.S.-Sure this does not give speed of access to data which should be kept separate from boot/applications, but if you're going to use a dual drive system this might work, forcing you to keep things lean and mean. Just the sounds for GarageBand take up about 2GB. As you can tell I do not use GarageBand. How about getting rid of 100 printer drivers for printers you do not own. And then there are foreign languages, etc., etc.
 
dolphin842 said:
Newegg has a Kingston 64GB ssd for under $100 as well.
Click to expand...
But they are 2/3 as fast as the SandForce-based OWC ones.
I'd get one of these instead of the OWC ones though. Basically the same, but with an unlocked Firmware and some $10 cheaper. As the Mini only has SATA 3GBit/s, a Crucial RealSSD C300 wouldn't make sense anyways - it's too fast for the interface.
 
Giuly said:
But they are 2/3 as fast as the SandForce-based OWC ones.
I'd get one of these instead of the OWC ones though. Basically the same, but with an unlocked Firmware and some $10 cheaper.
Click to expand...

Went to Newegg site you referenced, but the only 40GB SSD I could bring up was the Intel X-25V for the same price of $99.99. From what I read that does not come close to the OWC SSD's overall performance

Were you pointing to a different SSD?:confused:
 
mangrove said:
Went to Newegg site you referenced, but the only 40GB SSD I could bring up was the Intel X-25V for the same price of $99.99. From what I read that does not come close to the OWC SSD's overall performance

Were you pointing to a different SSD?:confused:
Click to expand...
The 40GB SSD for $99 is a limited offer, they go up to $139.99 on September 1st.
I showed you G.Skill Phoenix Pro 60/120/240GB SSDs, which are the same (Both have SandForce-1200 controller) but better (firmware unlocked to 50k IOPS instead of 25k) then the OWC ones and cheaper as the 60/120/240GB SSDs from OWC.

If you consider the 40GB SSD for $140 next month, the 60GB G.Skill is +$24.
bildschirmfoto20100819u.png
 
Giuly said:
The 40GB SSD for $99 is a limited offer, they go up to $139.99 on September 1st.
I showed you G.Skill Phoenix Pro 60/120/240GB SSDs, which are the same (Both have SandForce-1200 controller) but better (firmware unlocked to 50k IOPS instead of 25k) then the OWC ones and cheaper as the 60/120/240GB SSDs from OWC.

If you consider the 40GB SSD for $140 next month, the 60GB G.Skill is +$24.
bildschirmfoto20100819u.png
Click to expand...

Is this 40GB offer still valid because I have spent all kinds of time trying to find it on Newegg and no where to be found. Only for another hour they are offering an OCZ SSD 60GB for $139 after $10 mail in rebate.
 
Giuly said:
But they are 2/3 as fast as the SandForce-based OWC ones.
Click to expand...

True, but if one is upgrading from a disk drive, 2/3 as fast as Sandforce is still a big boost in performance ;). The Kingston's 2/3 the cost of the OWC Agility 2 (also on sale), so it all works out I guess.

EDIT: Mangrove, the OCZ drive on newegg should remain on sale all day (assuming it doesn't sell out). The time gimmick they use for their 'shell shocker' deals only determines when the item next-in-line starts to go on sale.
 
Giuly said:
As I stated, until August 31th.
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That I know since I started this thread mentioning it was an August sale. I was only trying to help anyone who thought a 40GB SSD could help them.

As regards the Newegg 40GB drive you pointed me to-that price must not exist any longer-since it does not appear on the Newegg site any longer.:confused:

Sure the OWC price goes up in September, but I was trying to point out that NOW today it is a decent value for an OWC SSD which even the article you pointed me to gave the OWC SSD their highest rating of all the SSD's I viewed on that link. :)
 
If you only have one drive slot, then it'll just replace the hard drive in it now, so they can boot way fast. For everything else, they'd have an external hard drive. In my opinion, you guys should try something called a hybrid drive. It has a few gigs of Solid State memory (for the OS itself?) and then the rest is 7200 RPM SATA. It seems pretty legit to me, plus it's a lot cheaper than going full on solid state right from the get-go

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/DDMB7K5HSG/
 
Blondie :) said:
If you only have one drive slot, then it'll just replace the hard drive in it now, so they can boot way fast. For everything else, they'd have an external hard drive. In my opinion, you guys should try something called a hybrid drive. It has a few gigs of Solid State memory (for the OS itself?) and then the rest is 7200 RPM SATA. It seems pretty legit to me, plus it's a lot cheaper than going full on solid state right from the get-go

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/DDMB7K5HSG/
Click to expand...
Well, most people here use SSDs with external hard drives, which is a large scale hybrid drive. I'd use the Momentus XT only on short budget or a MacBook with high portability and disk space needs.

Also, I wouldn't want to pay $80 for a plastic bracket, nor you need it when you replace the original hard drive. If you put 2 drives inside a laptop/mini, I'd put in one SSD and replace the stock hard drive with a 5400RPM 750GB drive, that would make more sense - and is a larger scale hybrid drive, as well.
 
Blondie :) said:
If you only have one drive slot, then it'll just replace the hard drive in it now, so they can boot way fast. For everything else, they'd have an external hard drive. In my opinion, you guys should try something called a hybrid drive. It has a few gigs of Solid State memory (for the OS itself?) and then the rest is 7200 RPM SATA. It seems pretty legit to me, plus it's a lot cheaper than going full on solid state right from the get-go

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/DDMB7K5HSG/
Click to expand...

I haven't gone this route yet, but it will most likely be my next upgrade on my mini. Newegg has the drive for around $130.

If you are interested, search for it here, there are lots of positive reviews about it.

Nabby
 
BigCanoe said:
Does this replace the Mini's hard drive, or is it a second drive?
Click to expand...

In my case this drive would replace the main drive, but only as a boot drive plus applications. Then in the second drive, which I plan to install in the SD bay, I would keep my data, iTunes, iPhoto, etc.. The second drive can even be in a hybrid like the Seagate Momentus XT7200 rpm 500GB, which is what I plan to use as my second internal drive, not external drive, but it could just as well be used as an external drive too, with enclosure. For my Sd replacement I got a OBHC from modeus.com for like $45. which is a plug n play item.

The XT sells for around $130 and with this $100 SSD, I don't think that's too bad a combo combined with 8GB RAM I got too. At least I will have cleared out of my system the slowest part of it--the 5200 rpm HDD.:cool:
 
You could use the SD card slot for extra storage instead of losing the optical drive -- SDs are a great convenience, but the cards are pricey.
 
Baby Mac said:
You could use the SD card slot for extra storage instead of losing the optical drive -- SDs are a great convenience, but the cards are pricey.
Click to expand...

That's actually a great idea. I happen to have an Air SD, so I will use that for SD use. But maybe I can use the SD slot in my 2010 for a third drive use in some way. Right now I am working on my 2009 3,1 Mini, first.

Oh, as a update I was able to get OSX (4.24GB), all Applications (3.84GB), Users (9.89GB), Library (10.95GB) plus other small stuff on a 40GB SSD drive with 10GB to spare. I am sure someone will criticize those numbers, but that's what I got at this point. I have to admit I do not know why Users and Library total about 20GB out of the 29GB put on the drive! Just did the latest updates and now it totals 28.18 GB-actually dropped a bit.

I tried to follow Lloyd's suggestions in his long paper "Mac Performance Guide". Didn't want to try everything he suggested like getting email, Safari and Downloads (they are 3GB alone) off the boot drive, but still it fit. Actually, I am using that small boot drive right now testing it to make sure all works OK before cloning it to other 40GB SSD's.
 
Baby Mac said:
My Mac side of my Boot Camp is the minimum 4.24GB plus the extra 5GB minimum OS X requires the Mac partition to have.
Click to expand...

I guess you could squeeze Windows on the 40GB, but I'd probably opt for a 60GB SSD to be safe, but then it's over $100 this month.

Keep in mind I was trying to go bare bones with what I mention above with a hybrid/clean install.:)
 
Giuly said:
I recently saw that flash memory will to under $1 per GB, so I'll wait what SSDs Q1 2011 brings - as $200 for 120GB is the price point for me.

With DDR3, the technology of the Gigabyte i-RAM will be interesting, too. With DDR and a PCI-Interface it's slow, but with DDR3 this will get interesting but costs 16x the price of SSDs per GB, plus the controller.
Click to expand...

Hope you're right. Heck, that's only 6 months to wait. If the world's economy continues to head south, then maybe prices will come down as supply availability goes up. IMHO that supply side of it is what's keeping the prices up right now.
 
dolphin842 said:
Keep an eye on the Western Digital 128GB ssd... it's gone on sale for $200 twice already over the summer.
Click to expand...

However, all SSD's are not created equal. I wonder if that has a SanForce in it-no mention of it in the specs of Newegg.

So far I have NOT read one article when comparing the OWC SSD with other SSD's, that did not give the edge to the OWC (some more of an edge than others), even when pitted against other SanForce 1200 series SSD.
 
Well, you didn't specify that you wanted a 120GB Sandforce SSD for under $200 :p. The Western Digital uses a modified JMicron controller. Its speed and IOps/sec are lacking compared to the Sandforce crew.
 
dolphin842 said:
Well, you didn't specify that you wanted a 120GB Sandforce SSD for under $200 :p. The Western Digital uses a modified JMicron controller. Its speed and IOps/sec are lacking compared to the Sandforce crew.
Click to expand...

I just prefer when comparing especially prices than we are comparing (sounds stupid to say, but here goes) apples to apples, not apples to oranges. That's all, since the OWC SSD's use SandForce 1200 controllers. They put some 1500 controllers in their more expensive enterprise SSD's and they apparently had some kind of problem (see Lloyd's Mac Performance Guide for details) and now use the 1200 in those expensive SSD's too, for now.

You know for $100 I wanted to see if I could use an SSD for boot, OSX, etc. Totally happy all fit in with 12GB to spare.:)
 
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