One or Two SSDs in cMBP?

[MacInTO]

I've just purchased a 2012 cMBP (15" i7 2.6MHz/16GB/750GB) to replace my 2012 rMBP (15" i7 2.7/16/768). I did it because I've been using an external HD and found it sometimes slow and and inconvenient. The cMBP came with a 750GB HD but I'm going to replace it with a SSD. However, I may also put one in the optical bay.

I'm wondering if I should go for one giant SSD or have two in the machine. Are there any pros/cons to either configuration?

I'm using it to edit photos and videos.

 

[duervo]

You could stripe two equal sized SSDs together to get read speeds close to 1 GBps. Write speed would depend on the SSDs used, but is generally less than reads.

I was thinking about doing this with my 2012 cMBP just a little while ago. I decided to put the cost toward some disks for the extra IBM ServeRaid m5015 adapter I had laying around (it's a rebranded LSI 9260-8i). Stuck it in my PC and put it to work for some VMs.

 

[Hitrate]

I've just purchased a 2012 cMBP (15" i7 2.6MHz/16GB/750GB) to replace my 2012 rMBP (15" i7 2.7/16/768). I did it because I've been using an external HD and found it sometimes slow and and inconvenient. The cMBP came with a 750GB HD but I'm going to replace it with a SSD. However, I may also put one in the optical bay.

I'm wondering if I should go for one giant SSD or have two in the machine. Are there any pros/cons to either configuration?

I'm using it to edit photos and videos.

well its popular to say put ur video/audio/project files on the other hdd so the system drive handles only the system..that still applies to ssd but I guess its personal preference..

 

[Spudlicious]

What I do with my Thinkpad, although it's not an option with my 2015 Mac, is have two SSD's, one in the optical bay. Using a Paragon utility aptly named Migrate OS to SSD, I clone the in-use SSD to the other at regular intervals, so I'm covered if one of them bites the dust. I spread the write load by switching the boot drive in BIOS after every clone, and thus far all has worked well, even though they are different makes and capacities, a 1TB Samsung and a 500GB Crucial.

 

[duervo]

What I do with my Thinkpad, although it's not an option with my 2015 Mac, is have two SSD's, one in the optical bay. Using a Paragon utility aptly named Migrate OS to SSD, I clone the in-use SSD to the other at regular intervals, so I'm covered if one of them bites the dust. I spread the write load by switching the boot drive in BIOS after every clone, and thus far all has worked well, even though they are different makes and capacities, a 1TB Samsung and a 500GB Crucial.

I'm a fan of Paragon's software. I used to use something called Partition Magic a long time ago, they got bought out by I think Symantec, who aptly killed the product for some reason (most likely because people were using the much cheaper PM for things that Symantec's Ghost product was marketed to be able to do.) When I saw Paragon's software in action one time at customer site during a large VMware implementation, I was sold. (I think it was the enterprise version of Hard Disk Manager.)

They could do better on the progress status when a long-running migration is happening though. Don't really like the vague "Don't worry, we're still working on it..." blurbs.

 

[treekram]

According to the recent Google SSD study (involving SSD's they use in their data centers), age plays a bigger role in SSD failure than usage. So, according to the study, rotating usage won't add to the SSD's lives. Besides, with current SSD's, technological obsolescence will probably happen before SSD failure. But backup is still important as SSD's can fail. I think the study said backup is even more important for SSD's vs. HDD's but I may be thinking of another study. You can search for "Google SSD study" if you want more information.

I use a RAID0 setup (what duervo described in post #2) in my 2012 MBP. I think that unless you have specific applications that can take advantage of RAID0, there's not going to be a noticeable performance improvement. (The Blackmagic benchmark numbers are impressive, but if look on the web, it'll backup my assessment.) I use EyeTV for DVR recording and when I need to edit a large number of shows (mega-marathons), because there's a lot of file reading/writing of large files with little processing, the performance gains were substantial (I tested it RAID0 vs non-RAID0 with the same SSD's). So I'll continue to use the 2012 MBP for this. On the other hand, I do monthly processing using a MySQL database and in some of the operations, my 2012 MBP with 2 Samsung 850 Evo's using RAID0 was faster, in others, my 2012 Mini with a single, older OCZ SSD was faster. In the end, the trouble of moving the data from one computer to the other was more work than any overall performance gains so I still use the 2012 Mini for the monthly processing. There maybe database tuning that would make RAID0 faster, but unless you have such an application and the expertise/time to do tuning, it's not a factor for most people.

Getting an SSD twice the size is slightly cheaper than two drives (depends on the price du jour).

 

[Spudlicious]

I'm a fan of Paragon's software. I used to use something called Partition Magic a long time ago, they got bought out by I think Symantec, who aptly killed the product for some reason (most likely because people were using the much cheaper PM for things that Symantec's Ghost product was marketed to be able to do.) When I saw Paragon's software in action one time at customer site during a large VMware implementation, I was sold. (I think it was the enterprise version of Hard Disk Manager.)

They could do better on the progress status when a long-running migration is happening though. Don't really like the vague "Don't worry, we're still working on it..." blurbs.

Yes, the 'friendly' messages seem amateurish, but I've used it often enough to know it's reliable even if it's not as professional looking as the similar (but more versatile) CCC for Mac.

 

[MacInTO]

You could stripe two equal sized SSDs together to get read speeds close to 1 GBps. Write speed would depend on the SSDs used, but is generally less than reads.

I was thinking about doing this with my 2012 cMBP just a little while ago. I decided to put the cost toward some disks for the extra IBM ServeRaid m5015 adapter I had laying around (it's a rebranded LSI 9260-8i). Stuck it in my PC and put it to work for some VMs.

Thanks for the suggestion! Will two SSDs striped give us real world performance considering how fast SSDs are already?

 

[duervo]

It will give you increased bandwidth. Increased IOPS should be noticed too, but probably not to the degree as the bandwidth would be.

Keep in mind that until the software raid has been activated on boot, any boot process prior to that point will still be running off a single drive. Time spent doing that would be marginal at best, and since it would probably be an SSD too, chances are the difference in time for those milliseconds won't be noticed at all.

There is also the increased risk of drive failure. Double the risk since you are accessing two drives as if they were one, and there is no protection against that with RAID0. People that usually use RAID0 already know those risks and are comfortable with them (or should be anyway.)

At any rate, still need to make sure that you do regular backups. So, configuring Time Machine should be the first thing you do once you get it setup.

 

[simon lefisch]

I've just purchased a 2012 cMBP (15" i7 2.6MHz/16GB/750GB) to replace my 2012 rMBP (15" i7 2.7/16/768). I did it because I've been using an external HD and found it sometimes slow and and inconvenient. The cMBP came with a 750GB HD but I'm going to replace it with a SSD. However, I may also put one in the optical bay.

I'm wondering if I should go for one giant SSD or have two in the machine. Are there any pros/cons to either configuration?

I'm using it to edit photos and videos.

I was just discussing this with someone else on another thread.....

Take in mind that you could run into issues if you replace the optical drive for an SSD. Not saying you will run into issues, but it is possible. Also note that the optical connection does not run at sata 3 speeds.

Edit: just noticed you have a 2012. Can't remember what the optical bay connection speed on that. If it is sata 3 then you should be ok.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

I was just discussing this with someone else on another thread.....

Take in mind that you could run into issues if you replace the optical drive for an SSD. Not saying you will run into issues, but it is possible. Also note that the optical connection does not run at sata 3 speeds.

Edit: just noticed you have a 2012. Can't remember what the optical bay connection speed on that. If it is sata 3 then you should be ok.

It is SATA 3 on the 2012 but some of the 2011 had issues....

 

[simon lefisch]

It is SATA 3 on the 2012 but some of the 2011 had issues....

Yea that's what I thought. I have a 2011. Nice that the 2012 is sata 3.

 

[MacInTO]

According to the recent Google SSD study (involving SSD's they use in their data centers), age plays a bigger role in SSD failure than usage. So, according to the study, rotating usage won't add to the SSD's lives. Besides, with current SSD's, technological obsolescence will probably happen before SSD failure. But backup is still important as SSD's can fail. I think the study said backup is even more important for SSD's vs. HDD's but I may be thinking of another study. You can search for "Google SSD study" if you want more information.

This is good to know thanks! I just read it! I've got a 10-year old (maybe older) SSD in one of my other machines. I should probably replace it!

I use a RAID0 setup (what duervo described in post #2) in my 2012 MBP. I think that unless you have specific applications that can take advantage of RAID0, there's not going to be a noticeable performance improvement. (The Blackmagic benchmark numbers are impressive, but if look on the web, it'll backup my assessment.)

This is what I thought. I'll probably just go with two drives and keep it simple!

Getting an SSD twice the size is slightly cheaper than two drives (depends on the price du jour).

Drive sizes are getting bigger! I see that Samsung has a 2TB SSD, but prices are still high! Having 4TB of storage would be insane!
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Yea that's what I thought. I have a 2011. Nice that the 2012 is sata 3.

Yes, that's why I went with the 2012.

 

[treekram]

There are those that say if you use RAID0, you have to back up more often. My opinion is that your data is what drives your backup strategy, not the drive technology you use. Otherwise, somebody may think that because they're not using RAID0 or because they're using an SSD vs. an HDD, they can be less diligent in their backup strategy and then boom ... the unexpected happens and their digital world comes to an end.