SSD Boot Drive: Have you yet? When will you?

[zephonic]

This doesn't make sense How often to you re-write your boot drive, it is pretty much always reading, so read-speed is what you want for booting and for application loading. Writing to a SSD is slower than reading from a SSD, but both are better than a mechanical drive.

If I am not mistaken, OSX uses the boot drive for virtual memory and file swaps. I am no expert, but I figure that is a fair amount of read/write activity.

As the Wiki points out (and this was corroborated by testing on some tech sites, albeit one year ago) SSD does not perform better with mixed read/write and sometimes worse than a HDD.

Maybe that has been addressed by now.

For disk streaming (read-only) as necessitated by large sample libraries, SSD should be far superior.

I imagine an SSD should feel a lot snappier, especially when new. I just wonder why Apple does not advertise with SSD's superior performance and only touts reliability as an advantage?

 

[scottsjack]

No SSDs here yet, waiting for much larger capacity and affordable costS. My MP boots from a WD 2TB Black drive. My BMP uses a 750GB Caviar Black 7200 RPM drive. Anything less than 750GB on the laptop and 1TB on the desktop won't cut it for me.

It looks like I'll be waiting a while. The speed difference between HDDs and SDDs would be really cool to have but is not essential to me at this point. When filled to less than 2/3 the WD 2TB drives are plenty fast and easily hold the stupid amounts of data that on the MP.

 

[xgman]

A fast SSD is the single most noticeable speed and performance upgrade I have ever done. I couldn't go back at this point. And yes they are expensive and capacity is small and you need to keep clones etc. . . . . . but still . . .

 

[Consultant]

Got it in MBP. 512GB due to my laziness tax.

If I am not mistaken, OSX uses the boot drive for virtual memory and file swaps. I am no expert, but I figure that is a fair amount of read/write activity.

As the Wiki points out (and this was corroborated by testing on some tech sites, albeit one year ago) SSD does not perform better with mixed read/write and sometimes worse than a HDD.

Maybe that has been addressed by now.

For disk streaming (read-only) as necessitated by large sample libraries, SSD should be far superior.

I imagine an SSD should feel a lot snappier, especially when new. I just wonder why Apple does not advertise with SSD's superior performance and only touts reliability as an advantage?

Completely and utterly wrong. A good SSD is faster than HD in every single way.

 

[VirtualRain]

If I am not mistaken, OSX uses the boot drive for virtual memory and file swaps. I am no expert, but I figure that is a fair amount of read/write activity.

As the Wiki points out (and this was corroborated by testing on some tech sites, albeit one year ago) SSD does not perform better with mixed read/write and sometimes worse than a HDD.

Maybe that has been addressed by now.

For disk streaming (read-only) as necessitated by large sample libraries, SSD should be far superior.

That entry in Wikipedia is in reference to a white paper by STEC that talks about how to benchmark SSD's for enterprise applications. It's worth noting that they don't actually benchmark any drives. They merely suggest that reviewers benchmark a mixed read/write workload to assess performance under these conditions. They then theorize that SSDs perform less well under high read/write loads without actually benchmarking any drives to prove it.

Keep in mind that desktop workloads are significantly different from enterprise workloads. The storage system on a transactional database that's processing thousands of I/O requests simultaneously is under much different stress than someone working in Logic, Photoshop, or FCP.

Typical desktop usage is low queue depth and primarily reads. Write caching at the OS level and at the drive cache or controller level also work to reduce the burden of small random writes. Another important performance factor with SSD's, and probably the one with the most impact, is the latency. SSD's have orders of magnitude better access times.

The net effect is that adding an SSD to your system is the single biggest upgrade you can make to a system.

 

[telequest]

OWC 120GB Mercury Extreme Pro in 2nd optical bay

I've got my system, apps and a stripped-down home folder on the SSD. Main apps are Final Cut Studio and Adobe CS5, which together put tens of gigabytes of data in their application support folders (audio samples, Motion media, various templates) ... which I moved to a regular mechanical (the old system drive) and put symbolic links in their place. All large media files (iTunes, project archives) are on mechanicals.

This still leaves plenty of room on the SSD for whatever project I'm currently working on ... involving Photoshop, Flash, Illustrator, and even most of my FCP video projects (often with under 20GB of video source files ... if larger, I use my internal RAID0 array). When I'm done, I move the project over to mechanicals.

Backup strategy includes hourly Time Machine backups and regular redundant copies to both internal and external mech drives.

Very happy with the resulting speed, stability and responsiveness.

 

[bluesteel]

How are you getting updates done, then?(

well, its been quite a fiasco.

1. to update the OCZ 120GB Vertex 2 with Mac OS on it in my Mac Pro: first i had to clone the SSD drive over to another hard drive. then i booted from the cloned Mac OS, and formatted the SSD to exFat with Apple disk utility so it would be recognized by Windows 7. then i booted into Windows 7 Boot Camp and formatted the exFat SSD to NTFS. then i downloaded the firmware upgrade utility v1.32 from OCZ's website. i ran the utility and upgraded that SSD to firmware v1.32. then i boot back into my cloned Mac OS, and clone that back over the SSD with the new firmware v1.32.

2. to update the OCZ 80GB Vertex 2 in my Macbook Pro: first i cloned the Mac OS from that SSD over to another hard drive (external USB hard drive), then i removed that SSD and installed it into one of the empty SATA drive bays in my Mac Pro. then i booted my Mac Pro into Mac OS and formatted the SSD to exFat. then i booted into Windows 7 Boot Camp and used the OCZ firmware update utility to upgrade the firmware on that to v1.32. then i just shutdown the Mac Pro and removed that 80GB SSD and installed it back into my Macbook Pro, and cloned the Mac OS back onto the SSD, and i was ready to go.

3. to update the 120GB Vertex 2 that is my dedicated Windows 7 Boot Camp partition in my Mac Pro: i booted up into the Mac OS, and very stupidly used Winclone to clone my Windows 7 Boot Camp partition (it did not restore correctly). in the Mac OS i formatted this SSD to exFat also. then i created a new Boot Camp partition on another hard drive and installed windows 7 (did not activate it). then i booted into that Boot Camp partition, downloaded the OCZ firmware upgrade utility and updated that SSD to firmware v1.32. then i booted back into Mac OS, erased the new Boot Camp partition i had created, and tried to restore my old Boot Camp partition through Winclone, but it did not work...i got errors...i was really pissed off. since that did not work, i just created new Boot Camp partition on the updated SSD.

all this just to update the firmware on these OCZ SSDs???!!! if i were you, i would not use Winclone to backup your Boot Camp partition if your running OSX Snow Leopard..its not supported. someone please make an application that will successfully backup and restore a Boot Camp partition

just so you know, i started having problems with one of my OCZ 120GB SSDs yesterday evening. i called OCZ technical support today and they told me one of the SSDs was package and labeled wrong. it was 80GB even though it was labeled as 120GB....what a terrible mistake on the part of OCZ. they wanted to do an RMA where I paid for shipping....i wasn't going to pay anything extra for OCZs mistake, so i decided to return those two 120GB OCZ SSDs back to my local Micro Center, and i ordered two new OWC SSDs this afternoon.

don't get me wrong...i don't think there is anything wrong with OCZ SSDs in general (i have one 80GB Vertex 2 running for months with no problems at all),f but for the amount of money these SSDs cost me, i just feel more comfortable with OWC SSDs. OCZ doesn't officially support the Mac OS, but OWC does.

 

[IceMacMac]

Best upgrade ive EVER done!

120GB vertex

80GB free (user folders on 2TB Samsung drive)

I don't think I could squeeze it down so efficiently.

 

[zephonic]

That entry in Wikipedia is in reference to a white paper by STEC that talks about how to benchmark SSD's for enterprise applications.

etc.etc.etc.

The net effect is that adding an SSD to your system is the single biggest upgrade you can make to a system.

edited for brevity

That was clear and informative. Thanks for your reply.

 

[Riot Nrrrd]

well, its been quite a fiasco.

[horror story elided]

All this just to update the firmware on these OCZ SSDs???!!! If I were you, I would not use Winclone to backup your Boot Camp partition if you're running OS X Snow Leopard ... it's not supported. Someone please make an application that will successfully backup and restore a Boot Camp partition

Wow, that was quite the horror story. Sorry you had to jump through so many hoops just to do firmware upgrades. If the firmware is in such a state of flux, I'll probably follow your lead and just skip it - with clenched teeth, because OCZ SSDs from Amazon are much cheaper than OWC's offerings.

I don't quite understand your Winclone comment, though. I had to replace my original 120 GB drive in my old MacBook Pro a while back when it died, and I replaced it with a 320 GB drive and used Winclone to back up what was at the time my only Boot Camp partition (for XP SP3). I had a bit of trouble restoring it on the fresh new drive/partition but I got it to work. I don't recall it being "unsupported"?

 

[Lava Lamp Freak]

I just put a 115GB OWC in my Mac Pro today. Boot time and app launch is very fast. I'm thrilled with the addition. Spinning drives are so annoying! For now I have my pictures, music, and movies on the old drive. Hopefully SSDs will be cheaper in a few years and I can get rid of the old drive.

I wasn't even concerned with SSD until after I got my MacBook Air and realized that day to day stuff is actually faster on the Air than my Mac Pro.

 

[hfg]

I just put a 115GB OWC in my Mac Pro today. Boot time and app launch is very fast. I'm thrilled with the addition. Spinning drives are so annoying! For now I have my pictures, music, and movies on the old drive. Hopefully SSDs will be cheaper in a few years and I can get rid of the old drive.

I wasn't even concerned with SSD until after I got my MacBook Air and realized that day to day stuff is actually faster on the Air than my Mac Pro.

Yeah ... the Macbook Airs are phenomenal ... they really show off the potential for SSD they are so fast!

I wonder what the interface to the SSD is in these Air machines? Perhaps they use something faster than common SATA as in the packaged SSD standard drive replacement units.

-howard

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Recently picked up 2 Vertex 2 120's and have set up Raid-0 with the two, OS, apps, etc.

It's stunningly fast.

 

[IceMacMac]

Recently picked up 2 Vertex 2 120's and have set up Raid-0 with the two, OS, apps, etc.

It's stunningly fast.

How many HD bays does that occupy? (Can you fit two in one bay?)

 

[fairbanx]

I installed one OCZ Vertex 2 60 GB for the System to boot. Never want go back. It's definitively worth it.

I'm not sure: I noticed some slow down with the SSD in SL (launching Apps). But when I boot in Lion (another HDD), do some couple things and boot in SL again, the SSD seems faster. Does TRIM works this automatically?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

How many HD bays does that occupy? (Can you fit two in one bay?)

Since I only have 2 other HD's (2 1tb's striped) I just put one in each bay. There is a device from Icy Dock that will put two SSD's in one SATA 3.5" enclosure and stripe them, but you would have the SATA 2 bottleneck at that point. I"m getting over 500mb/sec read/write with these two drives which is more than a sata 2 port can reach. Max Upgrades also have some devices that will allow you to put multiple drives in the optical bay FWIW.

 

[irishgrizzly]

well, its been quite a fiasco.

snip

I just got a headache reading that. If I had to go through that for a firmware update I think I'd just skip it if my drive was working OK.

Which other SSD brands are Mac friendly?

 

[layte]

As the Wiki points out (and this was corroborated by testing on some tech sites, albeit one year ago) SSD does not perform better with mixed read/write and sometimes worse than a HDD.

That was only a problem with some of the earlier controllers. The JMcron controller at the time was particularly bad for this. Then Intel came along with their first SSD's and forever blew mechanical HDD performance out of the window.

 

[layte]

I just got a headache reading that. If I had to go through that for a firmware update I think I'd just skip it if my drive was working OK.

Which other SSD brands are Mac friendly?

I've had an Intel X25-M G2 160GB SSD in my MBP since late 2009. While testing shows that the performance has dropped a little (about 5%) due to the continued lack of Trim support in OSX for anything other than Apple supplied parts, the performance is still incredibly snappy. (Firmware updates involve downloading an ISO from Intel, burning it and then rebooting)

 

[bluesteel]

I just got a headache reading that.

i got a headache writing that post...lol

Which other SSD brands are Mac friendly?

the only brand that i know for sure is Mac friendly is OWC. i had two Micro Center 64GB G2 SSDs in RAID-0 as a system/apps drive for my Mac Pro, but those gave me problems too. they were very fast (SandForce 1222)...500+MB/s read/write, and ran good for about a month, then my Mac Pro started hanging on shutdown. the screen would stay blue and the spinning gear would just keep going. i broke the RAID-0 because i thought that might be causing the problem, and tried to use just one of the SSDs as my system/apps drive, but i was having the same problem. one night i shutdown the computer and walked away....when i woke up in the morning 6 hours later, the Mac Pro was still trying to shutdown. when i got rid of the Micro Center SSDs, all the problems went away.

 

[FluJunkie]

The new machine has a 120 gig SSD drive from OWC as its boot.

I'm thrilled with it, and it was easy enough to relocate Home drive stuff to a Caviar Black.

As a random anecdote on speed: It loads Dragon Age 2 stuff so fast its near impossible to read the loading screen fluff.

 

[NicoleRichie]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8G4 Safari/6533.18.5)

I'm waiting for a big price drop. Like a buck a gig.

 

[DeeEss]

I have 2 100GB OWC Mercury Extreme Pro RE's in Raid 0 in my Mac Pro.

It's the best upgrade I've ever made in my history of owning computers and I would never return to mechanical disks for a boot drive ever again.

I'm currently out of the country on a job and don't have my Mac Pro with me. I'm working on a mechanical drive and it really is like the dark ages - It's horrendous and so frustrating I wanna check it out the window!

If you haven't already done it, just do it, or seriously consider it. Especialy with the new crop of drives being talked about at the moment.

Can't wait to get my hands on one of the OWC PCIe SSD's.

 

[Riot Nrrrd]

The only brand that i know for sure is Mac friendly is OWC.

I've been meaning to ask - what exactly is it about OWC's SSDs that make them "Mac friendly"?

I mean, I know the company is a Mac/Apple reseller so obviously they know what fits well with Macs.

What I mean is, aren't their SSDs just some other manufacturer's SSD, rebadged? Like how we know that LaCie's "Big Disk" drives aren't made by them, they just take Seagate/WD/whatever and package them up in their own custom packaging?

I'm seeing that the Micron PureSSD C400/Crucial M4 is starting to hit the streets, and that seems to be the latest tech in SSDs. Am I stupid to think about buying one of those from SuperBiiz instead of one of OWC's SSDs?

 

[Transporteur]

I've been meaning to ask - what exactly is it about OWC's SSDs that make them "Mac friendly"?

I mean, I know the company is a Mac/Apple reseller so obviously they know what fits well with Macs.

What I mean is, aren't their SSDs just some other manufacturer's SSD, rebadged?

OWC make their own firmware for the Sandforce controller. Hardware wise, the drives are exactly the same as other Sandforce drives.

However, Intel is (or was) the drive to buy if you want compatibility and reliability, not OWC or anything else. The G2 drives are rock solid. We'll see if the 320/510 drives can keep up with that.