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dsa420

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Feb 23, 2007
440
14
So I just purchased the new MBP and replaced the HDD with a Patriot Torqx 256Gb SSD. Wow is about all that I can say....

Every application is speedier than I have ever experienced, especially PowerPoint. I am blown away and can never go back to a standard HDD ever again..
 
Is it fast out of the box with the SSD, or did you also apply the firmware update that allows the drive bus to run at the higher speed?
 
How much did it cost? This is the only reason why I havent upgraded, it's not worth the price right now. I have never heard of Patriot SSD, hows it compare to the Apple stock installed SSD or Intel?
 
which model Patriot is it?? EDIT: Just saw its the Torqx,

Do you know if it has any cache?

How much did you pay for it?
 
Did I just get lucky picking a good brand or do these drives have a good reputation? I kinda went into Fry's blindly without researching much and feeling the need for instant gratification.

I am not sure what model or specs are on this drive, there was little to no packaging. They did have the older model, the Warp I think for $100 less.
 
Did I just get lucky picking a good brand or do these drives have a good reputation? I kinda went into Fry's blindly without researching much and feeling the need for instant gratification.

I am not sure what model or specs are on this drive, there was little to no packaging. They did have the older model, the Warp I think for $100 less.

I think its a fairly good model. Not top of the line but definitely not bottom either. I think this drive falls somewhere in the top of the middle. If that makes any sense lol.
 
i am ordering another tomorrow for my Mac Pro, maybe not 256gb but I cant imagine going back to stanard HDD
 
Did I just get lucky picking a good brand or do these drives have a good reputation? I kinda went into Fry's blindly without researching much and feeling the need for instant gratification.

I am not sure what model or specs are on this drive, there was little to no packaging. They did have the older model, the Warp I think for $100 less.

That is a good SSD. Very good sequential read/write speeds. By looking at the review by the previous poster the random read/write speeds were decent at around what it looked like 4mb/s write and I think 10mb/s read. That is good.

One thing to note about that review there is it had somewhat odd competition. There was no intel or OCZ drive in there to compare it with.

For reference purposes these are the comparisons for the Patriot vs the intel X25-M. (The Extreme (E) series is roughly the same, with better write performance).

IOPS (I/O per sec): Patriot = 11000+ | Intel = 33000+
Sequential Write Speeds: Patriot = 212mb/s | Intel = 70mb/s
Sequential Read Speeds: Patriot = 219mb/s | Intel = 250mb/s

Random Write Speeds: Patriot = 4+mb/s | Intel = 30+mb/s
Random Read Speeds: Patriot = 10+mb/s | Intel =56+mb/s

To put this in perspective the OCZ vertex got around 2mb/s random write and 5-8mb/s random read (I think that was right, someone correct me if wrong). The patriot blows that away, and random write/read is VERY important, more so than sequential in most cases.

IMHO that is a very good drive you got. At a massive size of 256GB and having that kind of performance is real good for a SSD. Better than the vertex from what I'm seeing. It doesn't quite compete with the Intel X25 drives in terms of random read/write or sequential read, but keep in mind the intel drives have much smaller capacity and cost alot more (32GB - 160GB) ($400 - $900).

Congrats :D
 
I would like to know aswell, because I plan on purchasing this if the Intel X-25M 120GB isn't cheaper when it gets changed soon.
 
I would buy it today if I didn't listen to the stupid Intel rumor
and didn't wait for a new 320GB model... I really can't wait that much longer...
What do you guys think, when?
Is it gonna be that much cheaper than the current line? I mean the 320GB model
will be obviously more expensive, but will Intel cut prices with the new line
introduction? I guess the competition would have to follow...
 
Where this technology will most certainly get cheaper in the future (just like everything else), I wouldn't hesistate to buy now. Honestly, given the price of the Intel drives now, I highly doubt they are going to become any more affordable.
 
I would buy it today if I didn't listen to the stupid Intel rumor
and didn't wait for a new 320GB model... I really can't wait that much longer...
What do you guys think, when?
Is it gonna be that much cheaper than the current line? I mean the 320GB model
will be obviously more expensive, but will Intel cut prices with the new line
introduction? I guess the competition would have to follow...


given the pre-order prices at some greek e-shops, I think the 34nm drives will be around 20 percent cheaper for the same capacities
 
As good as SSD's are, you won't ever see me paying over $300/320GB for storage. I can wait for better prices :cool:
 
As good as SSD's are, you won't ever see me paying over $300/320GB for storage. I can wait for better prices :cool:

It's not just storage. The bottleneck with the speed of your computer is your hard drive. No one buys an SSD for storage. They buy it because it speeds up their system. If anything, SSD is worse than HDD for storage at the moment because the affordable ones come in smaller capacities.
 
I've been following the eSata SSD boot drive threads. Stick a 48 GB in there for boot and applications and keep everything else on the internal. Seems like a great hybrid option at a much more palatable price.

eV
 
It's not just storage. The bottleneck with the speed of your computer is your hard drive. No one buys an SSD for storage. They buy it because it speeds up their system. If anything, SSD is worse than HDD for storage at the moment because the affordable ones come in smaller capacities.
For my MBP, I don't want to lug anything else around, but I still want to have everything I need, so I opt for more storage. I need at least 250GB to store everything that I may need at a moment's notice.
My Mac Mini has all my large storage hooked up to it, so the internal drive isn't as important. This is where my first SSD will likely find its home.
 
I'm just happy to see 256gig SSD's for $699, the 128's were $800+ just 6 months ago. I've used SSD's in the MBA and on a buddies MBP, they are impressive but until I can find a 500gig drive for under $500 it won't replace my 7200rpm drive. Plus I'm curious how these drives will hold up over a coupel of years as the MLC technology in the consumer drives will wear out 10x faster than the SLC drives.

@OP Congrats on the SSD!
 
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