SSD Drives

[mjonesjr]

I just put a OWC 6G 120GB SSD in my late 2010 Macbook Pro and man does it scoot. I doubt I'll ever have another computer (PC or Mac) that will have a spinning hard drive in it.

My boot time went from about 120 seconds with the stock 5400 RPM drive to about 80 seconds with the 7200 RPM drive I upgraded to last year. Now with the SSD I'm fully booted and doing whatever I want in about 18 seconds. Programs open 1,000 times faster than even the 7200 RPM drive.

I'm considering getting an OWC data doubler kit (120GB SSD for a total of 240GB) and removing my DVD drive from the MacBook Pro just for the added data. I can always get a MacBook Air USB drive if I need an optical drive.

I'd recommend a SSD for anyone looking to upgrade their hard drive.

 

[5speedin2.3]

I have a 120gb ocz vertex 2 in my MBP and a 750gb 7200rpm seagate momentus in place of the superdrive.

I used one of these.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/300668134085

 

[5speedin2.3]

Also, just about any external usb drive will work.
I wouldn't pay out the nose for the apple external drive seeing as it will get used maybe a hand full of times a year.

 

[dankhimself]

I have had a couple, and I'm just here to say, get a very high quality one. I always backup all of my files, and install my OS with the appropriate bios settings and all that. I have had two fail within a year, actually both failed at about 9 1/2 months. I went back to Microcenter where I got them, one a micro center branded 64 gb, the other an ocz model. They told me sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't, each guy at the store has seen them fail for no apparent reason. They do have a finite amount of writes before failure, so just make sure you leave drive indexing off and if you are installing your OS fresh on it, turn ahci on in your bios so you are able to control how information is written to it and how often it is done, as operating systems sometimes move files around automatically. There is also never a need to ever defragment the drive, its a needless process with an ssd and it will decrease the lifespan of the drive.

I love them too, the performance increase is the #1 crowd pleaser among customers and friends, but make sure you do some research before you switch to one so you can do it correctly, as you cannot just switch to ahci in bios unless you wipe the drive first. And always backup your shit!

As I was saying with quality, I've heard from many people that intel has amazing ssd drives. They are pricey, but I will buy one for my newer main gaming/editing rig after im done pouring my wallet into this ranger, at least pouring it into the truck this time.

 

[Captain Ledd]

Yeah, they're nice. Once they figured out how to "cheat" the speed cutoff it opened the gates. Basically they use separate, smaller units linked together as one big drive, each unit maintains it's own speed, but since it's spread out over several drives, the volume of data transfer is limited (or could be limited, we're talking FAST and $$$ here) by the motherboard and CPU. (as I understand it)

As for the limited # of writes? It's not much of an issue.

Say it only has 2000 maximum writes. Which is on the real low side. A few are up in the 5,000-10,000 writes.

It would still take roughly 5.4 YEARS to reach those writes... That's filling up your drive and clearing it completely, Every. Single. Day. Or at least using a drives worth of data every single day. They've come with programming since the beginning to make sure that the writes are evenly distributed so usually one section doesn't fail a long time before another, and also it knows when a particular section stops working. Of course that is average lifespan, it could fail quicker or last longer.

Backing things up is always best though, regardless of much touted reliability.

My next HD will be a SSD, I can keep the terabyte standard drives for external storage that isn't used all the time.

 

[mjonesjr]

I backup my MacBook ever week via Time Machine.

You can always get a SSD for your OS and then a standard drive for your storage if you wanted to do that Ledd.

 

[Captain Ledd]

You can always get a SSD for your OS and then a standard drive for your storage if you wanted to do that Ledd.

Exactly my plan!

 

[mjonesjr]

I can tell you this much so far about the SSD, my battery life has improved a HUGE amount.

I unplugged my computer at 19:45 EST and have been browsing the internet and playing poker online since then and have only got down to 35% battery left (been a really quiet day at the firehouse). With the old 7200 RPM drive I would have had to plug the computer in to charge in about 2 with about 5-10% battery left.

The heat that the computer used to put out has dramatically decreased as well. It used to get hot setting on my lap and the fan ran continuously. Now it is cool and can't hardly hear the fan running.

 

[5speedin2.3]

Download/buy iStat Menus 3. I love it.
You can adjust the speed of the fan on top of the cool factor. Not to mention all of the other options.

http://bjango.com/mac/istatmenus/

 

[mjonesjr]

I'll give that a try and see how it works.

 

[5speedin2.3]

I took my MacBook Pro apart again just so I could get a picture of the setup.
The old 750GB 7200rpm drive is where the SuperDrive was.

 

[dankhimself]

I took my MacBook Pro apart again just so I could get a picture of the setup.
The old 750GB 7200rpm drive is where the SuperDrive was.

I bet that thing is like a different computer with that drive. Just a question: Did you use the laptop a lot without the charger? I wonder how much better the battery life is without having to spool up a mechanical hard drive. Hopefully you're a nut like me and test things like this.

 

[5speedin2.3]

I bet that thing is like a different computer with that drive. Just a question: Did you use the laptop a lot without the charger? I wonder how much better the battery life is without having to spool up a mechanical hard drive. Hopefully you're a nut like me and test things like this.

Everything opens as soon as I click it vs having to wait a second or two with the 7200rpm drive.

As far as the battery life goes, it only went up by +/- 30minutes.
I leave the 750GB drive unmounted so it doesn't spin.

 

[mjonesjr]

Mine opens programs the same way, within 1-2 seconds. I can go from being completely off to running Chrome and Outlook in about 15-20 seconds.

My battery life improved dramatically. I went from about 2 hours on the 7200 RPM drive to about 4 hours on the SSD. That is normal internet surfing.

FYI, it is VERY hard on laptop batteries to be plugged in all the time.

 

[dankhimself]

Mine opens programs the same way, within 1-2 seconds. I can go from being completely off to running Chrome and Outlook in about 15-20 seconds.

My battery life improved dramatically. I went from about 2 hours on the 7200 RPM drive to about 4 hours on the SSD. That is normal internet surfing.

FYI, it is VERY hard on laptop batteries to be plugged in all the time.

That's a huge improvement, awesome. My desktop is about the same to google with the ssd.

Without any cooling the batteries get smoked, absolutely. Mine has dual fans and I put taller rubber feet on the bottom, I do leave it plugged in since its an xps with 3 speakers and a graphics card. With the fans on full, while gaming, it'll kill a fresh battery within 30 minutes. I'm basically running off of the 150 watt charger (most newer chargers are 60 watts, or less. This one wont even boot if it recognizes a charger under 150 watts), but she's 5 years old, and needs a ton of juice. As long as I keep the battery cool it's fine. On other laptops, its totally true.