To SSD or not SSD

[ManilaVice]

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I dont mind spending the money if it is a huge performance increase.

The home folder is the users profile folder? On my MacBook Pro I copies this once by logging in as root, copying and then editing the location in the user settings.... Is that what we're talking about?

im in the same boat but i've been researching about the advantages and disadvantages of having ssd and so far i found a few PROS and CONS

PROS:

1. 5-10 sec faster than HDD when booting up
2. if you open different apps at once then SSD is for you
3. no noise


CONS:

1. Its to expensive
2. life span is shorter than HDD (according to the other forum)
3. you have to wait 4-6 weeks.


i decided not to go for the ssd coz i dont really use more than 5 apps at once.

 

[iamthedudeman]

im in the same boat but i've been researching about the advantages and disadvantages of having ssd and so far i found a few PROS and CONS

PROS:

1. 5-10 sec faster than HDD when booting up
2. if you open different apps at once then SSD is for you
3. no noise


CONS:

1. Its to expensive
2. life span is shorter than HDD (according to the other forum)
3. you have to wait 4-6 weeks.


i decided not to go for the ssd coz i dont really use more than 5 apps at once.

1. Try 5 to 10 sec boot ups over sata 3 period, as opposed to 60 seconds for a HD. Much bigger difference than 10 seconds between the two. If you got alot of apps at start up, even longer for the HD. Not so for a SSD, doesn't matter how many apps you have running.
2. SSD speeds just about everything up. A base 27 2.7 i5 with a SSD will be faster in most tasks than a 3.4 i7 with a HD.
3. Life span is longer, not shorter. And more reliable, less heat and less power.
4. yes you have to wait four weeks, but that is most likely to change. I doubt that a four week time span is accurate.

A SSD has to really be experienced. It is shocking coming from a HD to a SSD to most people. It is the single most important upgrade you can do right now for a imac. More important than the processor. Don't kid your self.

That being said. Wait it out if you are not sure.

 

[theSeb]

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why can you only have one hard drive?, last years model had option for two hard drives or ssd+hard drive: http://www.cultofmac.com/new-27-imac-offers-optional-speedy-solid-state-drive/52695

What? Did you even bother checking the online store to find out what multiple drive options are offered? Clearly you didn't.

 

[theSeb]

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It's a non-issue. Even if you write 10 GB a day, the drive will work for about 3-4 years if I recall correctly. Even then it will still be readable.

I think it is more like writing 100 GB a day and the drive lasting for 10 years. I don't recall the numbers, but I do recall that someone worked it out and it really is a non-issue in practice.

I am pretty sure that anandtech did the calculation, but I am too lazy to check what the numbers are.

 

[BigBeast]

I had the same question and was struggling with this when I was ordering my BTO iMac. I read online that SSDs only have a limited number of writes (if it's NAND which I believe Apple uses). Anyone know if this is true? I ended up just ordering 2 x 1TB HDs.

I wrote this a while back. It's assuming there aren't any bit failures of course and good wear leveling- but you can still get a good idea of how overestimated the claim is that SSDs have a "finite" life.


While SSDs DO have a finite number of write available, an SSD that's 256 GB (a modest drive size) with 10,000 writes = 2,560,000 GB of writing capacity (or 2.56 * 10^6 )

That means you could write 100 GB of data PER DAY for slightly over 70 YEARS!

Feel free to be amazed.

I should also note- 10,000 writes for an SSD is INCREDIBLY small. !0,000 writes was the endurance of very early SSD's. A normal SSD today will have 1-5 MILLION writes. Even IF a small percentage of cells lasted only 10,000 writes, over 90% of cells will have an endurance of at least 1mil cycles. Try this on for size:

256GB x 1,000,000 writes = 256 million GB of writing!!

And in 5 years, 256GB of SSD space will be laughable.

MY POINT: Don't worry about the life of an SSD. It'll out live YOU!

 

[theSeb]

I wrote this a while back. It's assuming there aren't any bit failures of course and good wear leveling- but you can still get a good idea of how overestimated the claim is that SSDs have a "finite" life.


While SSDs DO have a finite number of write available, an SSD that's 256 GB (a modest drive size) with 10,000 writes = 2,560,000 GB of writing capacity (or 2.56 * 10^6 )

That means you could write 100 GB of data PER DAY for slightly over 70 YEARS!

Feel free to be amazed.

I should also note- 10,000 writes for an SSD is INCREDIBLY small. !0,000 writes was the endurance of very early SSD's. A normal SSD today will have 1-5 MILLION writes. Even IF a small percentage of cells lasted only 10,000 writes, over 90% of cells will have an endurance of at least 1mil cycles. Try this on for size:

256GB x 1,000,000 writes = 256 million GB of writing!!

And in 5 years, 256GB of SSD space will be laughable.

MY POINT: Don't worry about the life of an SSD. It'll out live YOU!

Sorry but I don't believe that's correct so I looked for the anandtech numbers. These are for the 25 nm NAND so it's a bit lower than 32 nm NAND.

Let's quickly do the math again. If you have a 100GB drive and you write 7GB per day you'll program every MLC NAND cell in the drive in just over 14 days—that's one cycle out of three thousand. Outside of SandForce controllers, most SSD controllers will have a write amplification factor greater than 1 in any workload. If we assume a constant write amplification of 20x (and perfect wear leveling) we're still talking about a useful NAND lifespan of almost 6 years. In practice, write amplification for desktop workloads is significantly lower than that.

Now,if you use windows and you hibernate, it will write however much ram you have into the HDD. So if you have 8 GB of ram and you hibernate every day, that's 8 GB by itself already never mind the actual system use

However, even with all of that a SSD is more reliable than a mechanical drive.

 

[BigBeast]

Sorry but I don't believe that's correct so I looked for the anandtech numbers. These are for the 25 nm NAND so it's a bit lower than 32 nm NAND.

With more research, I see you are correct. Thanks for the heads up. The main point is still valid though- SSDs will last quite a long time- even with large amounts or reads/writes per day. So much so that it's not necessary to worry about.

 

[pcypert]

Also I'm curious how OSX Lion will play out with SSD. I feel like (though I haven't experienced Lion so this is just from reading) that it will make the experience that much more enjoyable with a SSD. They're promoting killing apps and having them restart with the previous session in place...seems quicker with the SSD.

I know on the air it's amazing. It starts and behaves like an ipad on steroids. I pull it from my bag and show someone something within a second or two of opening from sleep. Pretty impressive. I think they should be mandatory moving forward for laptops...for desktops I'm still not so sure. I tend to leave PS and Indesign and others running while working on a desktop so the boot times are not as obvious.

They are special, but the imac is plenty special as is and for me it doesn't justify the price...yet.

 

[theSeb]

With more research, I see you are correct. Thanks for the heads up. The main point is still valid though- SSDs will last quite a long time- even with large amounts or reads/writes per day. So much so that it's not necessary to worry about.

Agreed.

 

[Shivetya]

O thanks for correcting, I was mistaken by last year´s model. But still, unacceptable :lol:

EDIT: Oh wait !! I wasn´t mistaken. It is $600 if you´d like to keep your 1Tb HDD .. NO WAY I´m gonna waste my HDD for SSD as the only iMac storage .. I think nobody will either, huh?

Actually I am leaning that direction. I don't need a TB of internal storage. If Thunderbolt (sorry all I get are images of cats and back Saturday morning cartoons) pans out then who cares where the data is.

 

[DucktapeFanboy]

I already posted this in another SSD thread earlier this day but i thought you might be interested as well.

I ordered my 27" HDD+SSD on the phone and asked the apple employe about the long delivery time. He told what we are waiting for so long are not the SSDs themself to arrive but some new controllers for them. The benefit of waiting for those will be that the new generation iMac SSDs will be faster than the previous generation. He went on explaining that apple decided to release the new iMacs ahead of the arrival of the new controllers so only a few customers (those ordering SSDs) have to wait longer. I can't garantee that the explaination he offered me is correct. But this is what he told me.

One thing on the bright side though: I asked him about the "Back to school" promotion and those free iPodtouchs that were given away last year because some people on this forum are expecting this promotion to start again this year in late may. Well, he couldn't comment on when this promo is going to start this year (i think he doesn't know either). But he told me if the promo starts before my iMac gets delivered i should give him a call and he'll see what he can do. Of course thats not a promise but he really sounded optimistic about it.

Keep in mind this is just what a low level apple salesmen told me. But i put my confidence in it.

 

[iamthedudeman]

I already posted this in another SSD thread earlier this day but i thought you might be interested as well.

I ordered my 27" HDD+SSD on the phone and asked the apple employe about the long delivery time. He told what we are waiting for so long are not the SSDs themself to arrive but some new controllers for them. The benefit of waiting for those will be that the new generation iMac SSDs will be faster than the previous generation. He went on explaining that apple decided to release the new iMacs ahead of the arrival of the new controllers so only a few customers (those ordering SSDs) have to wait longer. I can't garantee that the explaination he offered me is correct. But this is what he told me.

One thing on the bright side though: I asked him about the "Back to school" promotion and those free iPodtouchs that were given away last year because some people on this forum are expecting this promotion to start again this year in late may. Well, he couldn't comment on when this promo is going to start this year (i think he doesn't know either). But he told me if the promo starts before my iMac gets delivered i should give him a call and he'll see what he can do. Of course thats not a promise but he really sounded optimistic about it.

Keep in mind this is just what a low level apple salesmen told me. But i put my confidence in it.

I ordered my 27" HDD+SSD on the phone and asked the apple employe about the long delivery time. He told what we are waiting for so long are not the SSDs themself to arrive but some new controllers for them. The benefit of waiting for those will be that the new generation iMac SSDs will be faster than the previous generation. He went on explaining that apple decided to release the new iMacs ahead of the arrival of the new controllers so only a few customers (those ordering SSDs) have to wait longer. I can't garantee that the explaination he offered me is correct. But this is what he told me.



I was told pretty much the same thing. Hopefully it is based on this controller if it is indeed Toshiba. A variation would be nice since I doubt it will be a enterprise SSD.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xgez0c_all-toshiba-ssd-hits-90k-iops-and-510mb-s-read_tech

 

[Hellhammer]

MY POINT: Don't worry about the life of an SSD. It'll out live YOU!

NANDs will lose their charge in about 10 years so they are not immortal However, they will most likely lose their charge before you wear it out by writing.

 

[dwmac]

Does anyone know what potential non-enterprise SSD controllers Apple could be waiting on, causing the delay in shipping? Any chance they will be SATA 3?

 

[topmounter]

The 256GB SSD on my 13" MBA is well worth it (especially since it is the only drive and can't be easily upgraded), but I can't say I would spend +$600 for an SSD boot-drive on an iMac. If they offered a 64 or 128GB SSD boot-drive option for <$300, then that would be difficult to pass up.

 

[iMerik]

It's amazing how many times I've changed my mind on this SSD issue since they announced the new iMac. I'm just going to go for it. You only live once right? When will I get another chance in May 2011 to purchase an iMac with SSD? A: Never

I thought about just going the HDD route at first and installing an aftermarket SSD later on, but I think I'll go with Apple's first and only install aftermarket if it does end up breaking down on me.

Since there is a temporary wait, I'm just going to hold off and hopefully get in on both a free Lion upgrade and Back to School special.

 

[DucktapeFanboy]

Does anyone know what potential non-enterprise SSD controllers Apple could be waiting on, causing the delay in shipping? Any chance they will be SATA 3?

Yeah, i wanna know that, too. But i guess nobody knows yet, right? Obviously tha solo HDD configurations that already shiped already support SATA 3 (https://www.macrumors.com/2011/05/05/imac-efi-update-1-6-adds-6-gb-s-sata-capabilities/). But that's not all there is to it. When it comes to SSDs discussions about the controllers become way more difficult. There are soooo many different solutions. So lets hear some opinions! What do you think we are going to get?

@ iMerik: Having the chance of getting into the back to school promo really sweatens the waiting for me, too. But can we really hope to get into the lion upgrade, too? I thought this would take much longer. What's the latest rumor on that again?

 

[qap]

It's amazing how many times I've changed my mind on this SSD issue since they announced the new iMac. I'm just going to go for it. You only live once right? When will I get another chance in May 2011 to purchase an iMac with SSD? A: Never

I thought about just going the HDD route at first and installing an aftermarket SSD later on, but I think I'll go with Apple's first and only install aftermarket if it does end up breaking down on me.

Since there is a temporary wait, I'm just going to hold off and hopefully get in on both a free Lion upgrade and Back to School special.

+1 I wouldn't open the iMac when is in warranty

 

[maxinc]

I bit the bullet and installed the 120G Vertex 3 myself. Not really for the fait hearted and but the results are amazing. I would have gone for the Apple SSD myself if they had the 128G option since the 250 was too big and too expensive.

 

[razor.fish]

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I'm about to order a 27 inch iMac, and I'm agonizing over the SSD option. I'd like re speed, but 256 gb is fairly small. Can I put my iTunes downloads and Bootcamp partition on the regular hard drive (sorry, I'm a Mac newbie) ?

Will the SSD really make that much of a performance difference? I plan on using the computer mostly for work, but also for some games (I play MMOs and RPGs; very rarely play FPS other than the occasional game of Team Fortress 2). I'm planning on maxing out all of the other options (CPU, RAM, etc.)

...since I've installed an OWC SSD in my Macbook Pro I'll never go back
...just want to know whether apple will throw in some SATA III SSDs in the new iMac since it's now enabled?

 

[razor.fish]

Does anyone know what potential non-enterprise SSD controllers Apple could be waiting on, causing the delay in shipping? Any chance they will be SATA 3?

...curious myself, think so...hope so ;-)