iMac 24" WD Caviar Black to Intel X-25 SSD

[zerostar]

Hey Guys,

Since the new iMac's came out with the Dual HD bays I have been more and more tempted to move my boot drive over to an SSD. I had upgraded it to a WD Caviar Black (WD1002FAEX) the new model with the 64MB Cache. This was a nice bump in performance for a sweet price. Newegg has them for like $90 and If you can't do the SSD option, I think the Black is 2nd best

So this weekend, I go the coin together and purchased an Intel X-25 SSD Drive. I just finished the install and if anyone wants I will post some pictures on using the bracket that comes with the Intel drive as it was a bit tricky.

Since I couldn't afford all the room I needed on an SSD and the prices are still way high, I decided to move to a dual drive setup, I now have the SSD running everything except my Home folder, that is on an External Firewire 800 1TB Drive (You guessed it a WD Black I moved to this setup for a few weeks with 2 WD Blacks just to get a feel for it and I can tell you It works great! You can find many guides to moving your home folder online, I followed the TUAW guide.

This setup is SWEET! The boot in performance has been killer and benchmarks aside I wish I would have done this the first day I got this machine... Here are the Specs

iMac 24" Core2Duo 2.93GHz, 4GB DDR3 Ram, Intel X-25 SSD Boot Drive, Geforce GT120 Graphics.


Caviar Black 1TB "Spinner" Drive

Quickbench Test

XBench Test

Intel X-25 Solid State Drive

Quickbench Test

XBench Test

Not sure why write on the SSD is stuck in the 80MB range, I haven't done any "tuning" and I am not sure what is available in OS X.
If anyone has any questions or comments I would love to hear them!

 

[AlphaDogg]

Congratulations on the SSD. It is a very expensive piece of equipment, and I'm sure it is a cheaper than getting a brand-new mac.

 

[Hellhammer]

Not sure why write on the SSD is stuck in the 80MB range,

80GB Intel X-25M has maximum sequential write speed of 70MB/s and 160GB has 100MB/s so the 80MB/s sounds normal.

 

[zerostar]

80GB Intel X-25M has maximum sequential write speed of 70MB/s and 160GB has 100MB/s so the 80MB/s sounds normal.

Ah yeah I forgot the 80 had that... I am going to move to a 160 or hopefully a 256ish one Later this year, the 80GB was a deal since I had some newegg credit so It'll hold me over very nicely for now!! X25 is a very nice drive, blows some of the OCZ's at work away big time!

 

[zerostar]

Here is a little update.... I became a little space-greedy and wanted to move up from the 80GB Intel and was reading some good reviews on SSD's in Mac's

I finally ordered the OCZ Vertex 2 OCZSSD2-2VTXE120G 120GB SSD. Got it in and did a swap out, the drive is very nice, that much is for sure! Did some benchmarks (can post them here if anyone would like) and for sure the Write speed blew the Intel SSD away, and the Reads were on-par. I was stoked to say the least, and with about 80GB of space free on the lil bugger I had room to move my VM-Ware image to it, that really kicked the Win 7 machine in its ass

But.... after now a few days of use and work, It doesn't really feel any faster than the Intel, and in-fact some things seem a bit slower, nothing shattering mind you and when writing a bunch of big files to the drive the speed is appreciated...

So I am wondering, is there something I should/can do to help this drive out, is this all I should expect as the Intel is a very-good drive as it is?

I mean the Intel is what, like 16 months old? When was the Vertex 2 in 120GB launched? pretty recently I think... that says a lot for Intel and unless I am doing something wrong, I really can't wait to be able to get a ~256GB G3 Intel SSD

Any tips or ideas out there? Anyone with similar or different experiences?

 

[pjfan]

Nice post!

Keep the updates coming... wish I could help out with your ailing OCZ, but I'm only familiar with the amazing X-25 (in which 1 year later, I feel it's as fast as ever). Perhaps investigating TRIM options within Windows 7 via bootcamp, but it doesn't seem like you should have to do this with such a freshly installed drive.

I'm going back and forth on my iMac 24". Once I went SSD, I hate using the iMac w/ HDD. I will either sell it, or buy the next gen Intel SSD and install.... your post encourages me to buy some suction cups .

What FW800 Bay do you use?

 

[iDutchman]

I got the 80GB Intel X25-M drive in my iMac and it's been in my MacBook Pro before and I'm nothing but pleased. Speed-wise, it does not slow down. Sure, your boot speed may be delayed by a few seconds, but that's it.

 

[zerostar]

Keep the updates coming... wish I could help out with your ailing OCZ, but I'm only familiar with the amazing X-25 (in which 1 year later, I feel it's as fast as ever). Perhaps investigating TRIM options within Windows 7 via bootcamp, but it doesn't seem like you should have to do this with such a freshly installed drive.

I'm going back and forth on my iMac 24". Once I went SSD, I hate using the iMac w/ HDD. I will either sell it, or buy the next gen Intel SSD and install.... your post encourages me to buy some suction cups .

What FW800 Bay do you use?

Thanks, I'm scrubbing the OCZ Forums for info too...

I love these enclosures: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...m_re=icy_dock_firewire-_-17-198-012-_-Product

But I don't see the Firewire 800 one anymore, so prob. be better off with one from Macsales.com they make some good ones like this one: http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/MEFW924AL1K/

That is actually on special and includes eSata if you have that

 

[pjfan]

Thanks, I'm scrubbing the OCZ Forums for info too...

I love these enclosures: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...m_re=icy_dock_firewire-_-17-198-012-_-Product

But I don't see the Firewire 800 one anymore, so prob. be better off with one from Macsales.com they make some good ones like this one: http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/MEFW924AL1K/

That is actually on special and includes eSata if you have that

The eSATA is another tweak you can do with the 27"... I'm rather certain I'll upgrade to SSD and keep the ole' 24". I don't like dealing with selling things, and I have no desire to have 27" screen (extremely happy with this monitor)... I feel SSD will keep me happy in this imac for quite some time.

Hopefully later today I can skim a few threads regarding your issue... anxious to hear resolve. I really wnat to like the SF drives, but Intel seems to have the best quality SSDs.