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SSD Advice

C

chockymonster

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 9, 2008
45
0
Having just received the shipment notification on my Hex Mac Pro I thought I should get around to sorting out hard drive space.


I currently have 2 1.5tb drives to use in a Raid 1 mirror for working space, user folder etc. I want to get 2 SSD drives, one for OS boot and Apps, the other for photoshop/lightroom scratch but I'm struggling to decide on which drive to go for being based in the UK.

I've ordered 24gb of ram from OWC but I don't know how much I'm going to get stung on import duty, it's tempting to get the SSDs from them but with the higher likelyhood of failure of the SSD drive I'm undecided as the shipping back to the US would wipe out any saving.

Then there's the which drive to go for.

With the Mac Pro only having a sata 2 connector, is there much point going for the sata 3 drives? I need an esata port for my drobo but there doesn't seem to be a reliable and affordable sata 3 card that allows boot.

I think there's a question or two in there somewhere, at least there might be the inference of one!
 
chockymonster said:
I've ordered 24gb of ram from OWC but I don't know how much I'm going to get stung on import duty, it's tempting to get the SSDs from them but with the higher likelyhood of failure of the SSD drive I'm undecided as the shipping back to the US would wipe out any saving.
Click to expand...

I have the OWC 240GB's 6G. I think so far they are great. No problems for the few months I've had them. It may be better for you to get a drive from more of an international or local presence though. All SSD's, like HDD's, can have issue and what good is a warranty if by the time it is used you give them another 25% of purchase price just to get a working unit. No arguments there.
But on the other hand. I just configured a brand new 2.2GHz quad MBP with Apples 256GB SSD in it. The user wanted to know how fast the drive was so I installed Aja System Test and ran the 3840x2160 10-bit test reading and writing 1.0GB. The new MBP got 192MB/s read and 165MB/s write. My 2008 2.8GHz core2Duo with new OWC 6G got 220MB/s write and 265MB/s read. so I felt good on my little SATA 3Gb/s link.
 
Samsung 470 Series and Crucial M4 seem to be pretty good at the moment. Crucial's new firmware fixed the issues and Samsung hasn't had any at all.
 
Hellhammer said:
Samsung 470 Series and Crucial M4 seem to be pretty good at the moment. Crucial's new firmware fixed the issues and Samsung hasn't had any at all.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that, Samsung sounds like the way to go for me.
More interested in reliable than scorching.
 
VirtualRain said:
I would add Intel 320s to the list of recommendations.
Click to expand...

The current firmware bug is unfortunate and thus I would avoid Intel until they fix it (they said July but still no fix...). Otherwise Intel and especially 320 Series is on my list of recommendations.
 
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