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Intel 320 vs Samsung 470

J

jcgraphics77

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 7, 2007
5
0
Hello everyone,

I have a 2009 Mac Pro, 2.66 processor, 6 Gigs of Ram. Looking to put a SSD drive for a speed increase. I'm considering an Intel 320 128mb or a Samsung 470 128mb for my boot/apps drive. And keep my files on my 640mb stock HDD. Is one better than the other regarding speed and reliability? Is there another model I should consider? I've done a lot of research but still can't decide

I'm a graphic designer/photographer running Adobe CS5.

Any help is most appreciated. Thanks.

John
 
Intel has the best reliability of all SSD brands on the market today. This has been proven in numerous statistics about the rate of failure. So I would definitly recommend the 320 series, it has a pretty good garbage collection for steady performance even without trim and has advanced power loss protection via capacitors.

I have the 120GB version in my white Macbook, it's very fast for SATA 3gb/s and works like a charm.
 
Shattentor said:
Intel has the best reliability of all SSD brands on the market today. This has been proven in numerous statistics about the rate of failure. So I would definitly recommend the 320 series, it has a pretty good garbage collection for steady performance even without trim and has advanced power loss protection via capacitors.

I have the 120GB version in my white Macbook, it's very fast for SATA 3gb/s and works like a charm.
Click to expand...

intel has a .59 percent failure rate for 1 year or about 6 in 1000

ocz has a 2.79 percent failure rate or about 28 in 1000 there has been posted charts of failure rates on this site. I will look for it.

http://forums.storagereview.com/index.php/topic/29329-ssd-failure-rates-compared-to-hard-drives/


the link above has the correct info but is not the direct link


this are industry stats that are not argued by ocz or intel. if my info is on the line I want the one that is the least likely to fail. For mac pro this is more important because the mac pro has sata II interface so the exotic top speed ssd's are not fully used and they break more.


the full link is to a french site.

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/810-6/taux-pannes-composants.html

if someone could translate to eng please help on this. I have read 2 or 3 usa references to this article and it they involves thousands of sales of drives and is not in dispute by builders of hdds or ssds.
 
Last edited:
No one ever got banned from a forum for recommending Intel SSDs. :p :D

The odd review I've found on the 470, seems to rank it competitively if not higher than other last gen drives, which is about where the Intel places most of the time as well.

It's perhaps worth pointing out that this particular review noted an odd reduction in performance after heavy use, perhaps indicating less than stellar garbage collection in extreme use cases. However, these tests that absolutely crush an SSD before running a benchmark are not all that realistic. No one runs "IOMeter's workstation access pattern with 256 concurrent I/O requests for 30 minutes" before using their drive. :rolleyes:

From what I've seen, the way I would sum it up is that the Samsung 470 offers the best value, while the Intel offers the best brand reputation and 5 year warranty, albeit at a slightly higher cost.

At any rate, I would definitely stay away from SandForce based drives for now... OCZ, Corsair, and OWC, until the problems with current gen drives/firmware get fully sorted. See this other thread for more details.
 
Last edited:
VirtualRain said:
No one ever got banned from a forum for recommending Intel SSDs. :p :D

The odd review I've found on the 470, seems to rank it competitively if not higher than other last gen drives, which is about where the Intel places most of the time as well.

It's perhaps worth pointing out that this particular review noted an odd reduction in performance after heavy use, perhaps indicating less than stellar garbage collection in extreme use cases. However, these tests that absolutely crush an SSD before running a benchmark are not all that realistic. No one runs "IOMeter's workstation access pattern with 256 concurrent I/O requests for 30 minutes" before using their drive. :rolleyes:

From what I've seen, the way I would sum it up is that the Samsung 470 offers the best value, while the Intel offers the best brand reputation and 5 year warranty, albeit at a slightly higher cost.

At any rate, I would definitely stay away from SandForce based drives for now... OCZ, Corsair, and OWC, until the problems with current gen drives/firmware get fully sorted. See this other thread for more details.
Click to expand...


http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1618/1/

This is what I like... Someone who wrote the review and actually used the product!

"The performance loss over the course of three months of normal use is minimal at best, with no real discernible difference observed by the user. Windows boot time is still under 15 seconds where we see most of the newer drives performing out of the box. "
 
handheldgames said:
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1618/1/

This is what I like... Someone who wrote the review and actually used the product!

"The performance loss over the course of three months of normal use is minimal at best, with no real discernible difference observed by the user. Windows boot time is still under 15 seconds where we see most of the newer drives performing out of the box. "
Click to expand...

That is a good review... and a good endorsement for that drive. I'm liking it more and more all the time. ;)
 
Real World Performance

Thanks for the replies guys. I'm leaning toward the Intel 320 for reliability sake. But I'm guessing the Samsung 470 is pretty good too if Apple is using them. The specs look very similar.

It seems I would be happy with either in terms of boot up and app launch speed. But I'm wondering how much I will gain in overall system snappiness. Applying filters in Photoshop, opening and saving large files, etc... Any thoughts? Thanks.
 
jcgraphics77 said:
Thanks for the replies guys. I'm leaning toward the Intel 320 for reliability sake. But I'm guessing the Samsung 470 is pretty good too if Apple is using them. The specs look very similar.

It seems I would be happy with either in terms of boot up and app launch speed. But I'm wondering how much I will gain in overall system snappiness. Applying filters in Photoshop, opening and saving large files, etc... Any thoughts? Thanks.
Click to expand...

If you are using an HDD today, the difference will be night and day! It will be the single biggest improvement you have likely ever made to any computer you've ever owned. ;) Put some padding on the floor before you fire it up for the first time... because there is a high risk you will fall off your chair :p :D
 
philipma1957 said:
intel has a .59 percent failure rate for 1 year or about 6 in 1000

ocz has a 2.79 percent failure rate or about 28 in 1000 there has been posted charts of failure rates on this site. I will look for it.

http://forums.storagereview.com/index.php/topic/29329-ssd-failure-rates-compared-to-hard-drives/
Click to expand...
I wouldn't put much into that, as it clearly states:
This is less than scientific or a complete data set...
Click to expand...
Unfortunately I couldn't get my browser to translate the source site either, so I can't see how/what they did to generate that data. So I'm hesitant to trust those figures (particularly if the sample data came from the manufacturers, as data manipulation in statistics tends to be a way of life these days - "oh, well we don't like those samples, so we'll just delete them..." = changes the statistical results to something they do like; the simple way to translate this is: published end result = total BS).

Granted, newegg's reviews aren't the most scientific way to go about things, but when I look at them for say OCZ, the failure % is much higher (I do read through to see if a failed/DOA unit got more eggs due to newegg's return policy). But I've found this a very useful way to evaluate the reliability of recent products (way to soon for any sort of long-term study, such as what would be performed from places like Data Recovery companies).

VirtualRain said:
No one ever got banned from a forum for recommending Intel SSDs. :p :D
Click to expand...
:D

VirtualRain said:
At any rate, I would definitely stay away from SandForce based drives for now... OCZ, Corsair, and OWC, until the problems with current gen drives/firmware get fully sorted. See this other thread for more details.
Click to expand...
This is definitely the safe bet IMO as well (history of this doesn't hurt either). :D Samsung seems to make a good drive as well (actually more Samsung 470 reviews than Intel 320; 140 vs. 110 respectively). Haven't done any calculations based off of those reviews yet (me brain's feeling like oatmeal ATM). :eek:

handheldgames said:
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1618/1/
Click to expand...
I'll give that one a read (seen so many lately, my head's swimming a bit - but I've been putting more time into researching out SSD controllers than the actual drive performance between brands/models).
 
nanofrog said:
I'll give that one a read (seen so many lately, my head's swimming a bit - but I've been putting more time into researching out SSD controllers than the actual drive performance between brands/models).
Click to expand...

The brand/model performance difference almost seems to be negligible, so that makes a lot of sense.

Re: Sandforce - the first batch of sandforce drives seem to be doing well; I would say to the point where it's almost not worth getting the newer ones because not that many macs (and no mac pros) support SATA-6 yet.
 
My early 2011 MBP 2.0 supports 6gbs in both ports. There are threads online that support the fact that recent models (mine is 6 weeks old) support the higher speed in one or both. System profiler on my MBP support this fact.
 
TheStrudel said:
The brand/model performance difference almost seems to be negligible, so that makes a lot of sense.

Re: Sandforce - the first batch of sandforce drives seem to be doing well; I would say to the point where it's almost not worth getting the newer ones because not that many macs (and no mac pros) support SATA-6 yet.
Click to expand...

Head over to newegg and check out the end user reports on ANY sandforce based drive. They are either: this drive is so fast! It rocks!! Or the drive failed. I'm on my 3rd rma, or my favorite: stay away! Kinda scary if u ask me.
 
Intel 320 120GB here. Got it for my MacBook SE but after receiving this A1186 in the siggy, I threw it there. I'm glad I got it for the fact that it's SATA II and the fact that it's a reliable intel makes me warm and cozy inside.

Trim enabled and everything is sweet and blindingly fast.
 
It seems I would be happy with either in terms of boot up and app launch speed. But I'm wondering how much I will gain in overall system snappiness. Applying filters in Photoshop, opening and saving large files, etc... Any thoughts? Thanks.
 
I have an '09 2.66 with the Intel G2 160GB installed since October 2009... It is my primary drive and has everything I need loaded on it... I've been using it ever since without any drop in performance. It is the best purchase I've ever made for the Mac Pro.

It will be nice to see if/when Apple supports TRIM if I notice any performance gains.
 
my 11" macBook Air with it's ssd (flash chip, whatever) is way zippier than my quad core i5 2.8 Ghz imac. Which is why a year later its getting the same treatment :)
 
3587 said:
I have an '09 2.66 with the Intel G2 160GB installed since October 2009... It is my primary drive and has everything I need loaded on it... I've been using it ever since without any drop in performance. It is the best purchase I've ever made for the Mac Pro.

It will be nice to see if/when Apple supports TRIM if I notice any performance gains.
Click to expand...

Will the trim hack not work on this model?
 
VirtualRain said:
No one ever got banned from a forum for recommending Intel SSDs. :p :D

The odd review I've found on the 470, seems to rank it competitively if not higher than other last gen drives, which is about where the Intel places most of the time as well.

It's perhaps worth pointing out that this particular review noted an odd reduction in performance after heavy use, perhaps indicating less than stellar garbage collection in extreme use cases. However, these tests that absolutely crush an SSD before running a benchmark are not all that realistic. No one runs "IOMeter's workstation access pattern with 256 concurrent I/O requests for 30 minutes" before using their drive. :rolleyes:

From what I've seen, the way I would sum it up is that the Samsung 470 offers the best value, while the Intel offers the best brand reputation and 5 year warranty, albeit at a slightly higher cost.

At any rate, I would definitely stay away from SandForce based drives for now... OCZ, Corsair, and OWC, until the problems with current gen drives/firmware get fully sorted. See this other thread for more details.
Click to expand...

well I picked up samsung 470 series some 128gb and 64 gb models. they are working well. If you go to the samsung site and register them they tag on 3 months so the warranty is 39 months. Basically if you have a mac pro intel and samsung seem good for now and of course the oem toshiba if you go to ebay can be purchased for 800.

A 512gb ssd for 800 is decent price.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Toshiba-512-GB-...557?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4aaccbf8cd
 
i have a 120gb intel 320 series, sata II and it is amazing. I have it in my Data Doubler slot, with another 120gb apple ssd in the normal hd slot. I dont run the OS off of the intel one YET! but I will be taking that project on this weekend as the drive seems to have way better performance than the apple ssd. having said that, get the intel. way better product for your money.
 
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