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Best SSD Boot drive

Im looking to buy a Solid State Drive and it will only be used to boot and run my programs and applications. I want to get a very fast one and i only have 24gb worth of applications so im thinking about 60GB when it comes to size, I dont think i will need more than that would it be better to get a larger one? But im looking for something very quick, i read online that OCZ vertex is the best solid state drive when it comes to using them as boot drives since it has a high read rate which is all that you really need when it comes to Boot drives. i was also looking at that OWC mercury electra 6g and extreme pro 6g

Thanks for all your help,

john

Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.2)

Posted on Nov 6, 2012 12:04 AM

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18 replies

Nov 6, 2012 6:12 AM in response to Goodredroad

You can read a lot of conflicting things. But I would avoid OCZ.


Even Crucial while good you HAVE to first update the firmware. Goes for any SSD.


Samsung (Apple uses theirs) and Intel will have high marks.


You are not going to see 500MB/sec - your SATA2 but still good.


128GB are $100 and sweet size and price, and even 180GB are $160 or less (and more) from Intel and Corsair (I have 2 x Intel and 7 Corsair myself, on 3-4 systems).


SSD have a lot to know if you want but never cut it short on size. Room for BCG and TRIM, overhead, and helps to have 50% free or more. 60GB will format to 54GB probably at best. How much I/O writes in a month? plan to have that much free cell space.


Larger means more SSD channels and performance too so there are other advantages and most reviews are done with a 240GB model. Which sell for around $200-240.


OWC is just SandForce controller and that is all though they tend to be behind on testing or updatiing firmware they also now have Mac utility to do so probably, which can be a plus. But then Corsair I really do trust and their firmware is current.


Even as of June this year all the SSD vendors had to work through firmware bugs and issues, incl. Intel so SSDs are not your plug and play piece of cake like mechanical drive. And speaking of which a WD 10K 250GB $100 also is a nice solid boot drive, 180MB/sec read and writes. Or 1TB WD Black is $89.


Moving your media library and such off the boot drive is going to help no matter what you do.

Nov 6, 2012 10:39 AM in response to The hatter

Thank you so much you helped me greatly. But if you dont mind i have a few more questions.

I should tell you that Im using my Mac pro for pretty much mass storage and for the heavier processing programs and applications. I also already moved my media library (itunes) onto a second 2TB drive since i have a large library.

My boot drive is a WD black 1TB would i see a good increasing in performance upgrading to a SSD?

I think i might go with a Samsung 830, 840 or 840 pro, would you recommend any of those? i mean yeah the newest ones are probably the fastest but for the money is it worth it? because I want to get the best performing one but there is a point where the difference is so small. or would you recommend Intel over Samsung?

I have decided to go for one thats about 120GB or in that area, but you mentioned that the larger the drive capacity the faster it will be, will there be that great of performance difference?

And i have to admit that im really not sure about how to set up the SSD so that the computer will only run stuff off the SSD but will automatically store and save data (like the document folder, music folder, Downloads folder etc..) on a seperate drive, how will i set this up? and how would i upgrade the firmware for it?

And one last thing you said that you cant get 500mb/sec from sata2 but im just curious than why would someone want to upgrade their Hard drive in like the Macbook pro retina with OWC's SSD for the Macbook pro retina? (http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/OWC/Aura_Pro_Retina_2012)

Thanks for all your help,

John

Nov 11, 2012 11:52 AM in response to Steven Moore

I was surprised at how long it takes them to get the models out in the marketplace and refresh their line.


Every SSD maker had trouble back in May era (Intel, Corsair, both use SF but their own firmware) as well as Crucial, and others (think Samgsung too, and OCZ).


So even as recently as say up to first half of October they did not have current latest version.


Data loss, unmounting all of a sudden (or ejecting) and directory of course, plagued.


I have one SSD that I thought was safe but apparently not and needs to be updated. Very strange. Very odd to me, but with each new generation of models in SSD we go through this, and early 2011, after solving all the SSD using SATA2, started over for half the year only to be repeated in 2012?!!

Nov 20, 2012 12:49 PM in response to Goodredroad

In my opinion, when you use an SSD you need to do extra steps to make sure it does not fill up with the remnants of deleted files.


Disks of all types have always gotten in trouble when you get them nearly full. SSDs running as if they were magnetic drives do not understand when files have been deleted, and still have all that deleted data hanging around to cause congestions, slow response, and crashes.


What I have done for a while is to consolidate free space (which has NO speedup value on its own) and then immediately ERASE free space to Zeroes, giving the drive controller back all the blocks that had been tied up with old stale deleted data.


The other alternative available now is to use a popular third-party Utility to enable TRIM, so that the drive can be notified when blocks are freed. This has been well received, but Apple has not tested it, and if you have a problem, you are on your own for support.

Best SSD Boot drive

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