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Is an SSD drive a good option for the Mac Pro?

petvas

petvas

macrumors 603
Original poster
Jul 20, 2006
5,479
1,808
Munich, Germany
I am considering buying an SSD drive to use as boot device on my Mac Pro. I have been reading a lot of articles about SSDs, how they work and TRIM Support. I also read about performance degradation issues, and also various tips about disabling Spotlight on the SSD drive.
I am considering this model from OCZ: http://www.amazon.de/OCZ-Technology...1IMW/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1298648638&sr=1-4

The question is: Do I have to worry about performance degradation? Are SSD drives as reliable as Hard drives?
I also have a Macbook Air and I am impressed by the start times. What worries me is the fact that the drive will get slower with time, and that I cannot easily update it with native Mac tools (Linux Boot CDs have to be used).
I am not entirely sure that SSDs are mature enough. What do you think?
 
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I felt that they have evolved enough to run 2 ssd's I'm my Mac pro. I feel the performane has been well worth it and have been quite happy with their speed. As for the degradation over time we will just have to see. I really do not expect to see any problems as the way I see it in 2-3 years there be a much better option to swing to and I most likely will. I think the concerns of speed fall off are beyond the life expectancy of a drive in this ever evolving market. I ma expect to see the drive slow down in 5 years but by then I imagine we wil have a whole different set up by then.

Buy when you need the system and upgrade later. You will never have the best because better is always being built now!

I'm short. My opinion- yes they are safe, stable and worth the money for the smaller ones. Maybe not the 512gb model$ quite yet!
 
rmitchell248 said:
I felt that they have evolved enough to run 2 ssd's I'm my Mac pro. I feel the performane has been well worth it and have been quite happy with their speed. As for the degradation over time we will just have to see. I really do not expect to see any problems as the way I see it in 2-3 years there be a much better option to swing to and I most likely will. I think the concerns of speed fall off are beyond the life expectancy of a drive in this ever evolving market. I ma expect to see the drive slow down in 5 years but by then I imagine we wil have a whole different set up by then.

Buy when you need the system and upgrade later. You will never have the best because better is always being built now!

I'm short. My opinion- yes they are safe, stable and worth the money for the smaller ones. Maybe not the 512gb model$ quite yet!
Click to expand...

512GB costs a fortune :)

I am considering the OCZ Vertex 2 240GB drive. Do you have Spotlight disabled? Have you done any of the tips and tricks that are mentioned in the various forums? I would rather leave the system at its default and I don't want to keep worrying about things like that.

I want to use the SSD drive only for boot and applications. Everything else will be stored on normal HDDs.
 
petvas said:
512GB costs a fortune :)

I am considering the OCZ Vertex 2 240GB drive. Do you have Spotlight disabled? Have you done any of the tips and tricks that are mentioned in the various forums? I would rather leave the system at its default and I don't want to keep worrying about things like that.

I want to use the SSD drive only for boot and applications. Everything else will be stored on normal HDDs.
Click to expand...

I have left my system 100% at default in terms that you speak of. I have my one SSD as boot drive and the second as scratch disc for cs5 and lr3 all data and my home folder is then on 3 separate internal hard drives for a total of 5 drives. I think that is much what you are looking for with your boot and it wil work very well and is easy to set up.
 
I have the OCZ Vertex2 120GB as boot and it is great. Because it is already 3.5", it fits directly into the caddies with no need for adapters.

Yes, I disabled Spotlight but that is all.
 
I just went and ordered the 180GB model. I somehow thought that 120GB isn't that much and the 240GB model is simply too expensive. I am now preparing my Mac Pro for the upgrade. I am moving the home directory to a normal HDD, because otherwise I won't have enough space. My home directory is 180GB (iTunes DB plus Aperture...).
Do you suggest I copy the boot drive to the new SSD by using Carbon Copy Cloner? I do not want to reiinstall everything. The other option would be Time Machine and the migration assistant.
 
rmitchell248 said:
i think you will be happy with the upgrade! Did you get the ssd from amazon?
Click to expand...

Yes, they offer overnight delivery.

I migrated my home folder now to another HDD but it didn't work perfect. I had to manually reassign permissions to many subfolders of the Library folder, even if I did copy everything. Mail, MobileMe Sync, Safari extensions and the keychain weren't copied. Anyway, I copied everything manually and then assigned permissions using Path Finder, and everything seems ok now. Now I am reorganizing the iTunes library...That should take an hour or two (the library is 350GB).
 
petvas said:
Yes, they offer overnight delivery.

I migrated my home folder now to another HDD but it didn't work perfect. I had to manually reassign permissions to many subfolders of the Library folder, even if I did copy everything. Mail, MobileMe Sync, Safari extensions and the keychain weren't copied. Anyway, I copied everything manually and then assigned permissions using Path Finder, and everything seems ok now. Now I am reorganizing the iTunes library...That should take an hour or two (the library is 350GB).
Click to expand...


Hmm its a very straight up process you should not have to reassign folders. Is the home icon now showing on your new drive?
 
rmitchell248 said:
Hmm its a very straight up process you should not have to reassign folders. Is the home icon now showing on your new drive?
Click to expand...

Yes of course. Somehow copying the files didn't also copy permissions for specific folders. Most folders were succesfully migrated, but others didn't retain permissions. My account is admin and what I did was to copy the home directory to another disk, then change the home dir path for my user account and reboot. Normally I shouldn't have to reassign any permissions. Now I have solved all issues but I still need to test that everything works ok. The apps I tested so far were ok.
 
i've got two Microcenter 64GB G2 SSDs in RAID-0 for apps/system in my 2010 Mac Pro, and one OCZ Vertex 2 80GB SSD for apps/system in my 2010 Macbook Pro. i have had these SSDs for several months now, with no problems at all, and they are both still as fast as when i first installed them. i'm completely sold on SSDs. they are blazing fast and run much colder than my HDDs, and also seem very reliable so far.
 
petvas said:
Yes of course. Somehow copying the files didn't also copy permissions for specific folders. Most folders were succesfully migrated, but others didn't retain permissions. My account is admin and what I did was to copy the home directory to another disk, then change the home dir path for my user account and reboot. Normally I shouldn't have to reassign any permissions. Now I have solved all issues but I still need to test that everything works ok. The apps I tested so far were ok.
Click to expand...


Very good! Your post should be here anytime now. I also use CCC for setting everything up and running the back ups nightly. I think you will be pleased with your speed.
 
So I just finished copying the OS with CCC to the new SSD disk. I just booted the system and I am amazed by the difference an SSD makes. I hope it retains its speed over time.
 
The drive came with firmware v1.28 and since there was a newer version available, I created a Linux boot CD and updated the firmware to v1.29.

here is a screenshot from the system profiler:
 

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petvas said:
The drive came with firmware v1.28 and since there was a newer version available, I created a Linux boot CD and updated the firmware to v1.29.

here is a screenshot from the system profiler:
Click to expand...

I wish I knew if my drive has later firmware available I will have to look later today here is my screen shot of the boot drive. I have it very slim, only using 20GB! I may even switch to smaller one and use the 120 elsewhere.

I am glad to hear it all is working and quickly for you.
 

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rmitchell248 said:
I wish I knew if my drive has later firmware available I will have to look later today here is my screen shot of the boot drive. I have it very slim, only using 20GB! I may even switch to smaller one and use the 120 elsewhere.

I am glad to hear it all is working and quickly for you.
Click to expand...

I am also using only 27GB but it is always good to have some space. You never know what will come.
 
petvas said:
So I just finished copying the OS with CCC to the new SSD disk. I just booted the system and I am amazed by the difference an SSD makes. I hope it retains its speed over time.
Click to expand...

Don't worry. Sandforce and Intel drives do not really degrade over time.
Performance degradation with modern drives is completely overrated.
But for all people who still worry, 10.7 supports TRIM.

Just for the record, my Intel G2 runs for 18 months now in my Pro and the performance is the same since day one.
 
petvas said:
So I just finished copying the OS with CCC to the new SSD disk. I just booted the system and I am amazed by the difference an SSD makes. I hope it retains its speed over time.
Click to expand...

Just keep the overall fill-capacity ratio < 50% and the drive should not "degrade". :cool:

Congrats on the new HW
JohnG
 
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