Crucial M500 vs Samsung 840 EVO

Hey Lex, it's all fine.

Your information were really handy.

Am actually on a Mac Pro 2,1, Intel Xeon 2,66, running Mavericks, 2 PC GT610 graphics cards, 14GB RAM...

So you were right with your description of the Activity Monitor app.

I may want to upgrade some RAM but ******, the 4GB modules are not that cheap!

Also, am wondering whether I should not upgrade the processors...

I had a look at some forums and that sounds (relatively) pretty doable...

The migration to the SSDs is also quite expensive, so at first the system and then the datas (videos at first)...

For the documents, photos I will still use an external USB disk...

What you think about this strategic plan ?

I am really not an expert on the MacPro hardware. In the Mavericks Activity Monitor you can find a lot of information about actual and average use of the several components: this information is very helpful to decide which components are the'bottleneck' in your system. As an example: if in the memory window of AM left bottom it says (almost) 0 for "swaps used", you have enough ram, look at that figure after heavy use of your memory hungry apps. if you find GB's of swaps, time to add ram. Add 8GB as a minimum to have noticeable difference.

I guess that the upgrade of the CPU's will not achieve much in terms of speed (again: I am a novice here); it may however help lower the cpu load to have cpu's with more cores (I am not sure whether that is possible at all in your macpro). In general cpu's with higher speed don't deliver unless you change the 'bus' also, and that would be quite an operation.

About the SSD: there should be remarkeable more speed when you use it for System and Apps, for data access I am sure you will have no noticeable speed improvement.

I hope someone comes in here that has more knowledge of the MacPro.

If nobody comes, start a new thread in the macpro discussions.

Lex

Lex,

Once again, that's really handy info you deliver here...

I understand better how the architecture works...

Did not know that the bus is as important to deliver power as the CPU... but sounds quite logic...

Well, I know I could replace the CPUs by maybe 2x4 cores so I get 8 cores instead of 4...

Might increase the performance but very little probably, as you mentioned.

Once again, you gave me really useful information.

I may open a new thread or check the forum regarding the upgrade...

Thx.

Phil

Excellent thread! I was having a very hard time distinguishing the difference between the two. I bought mine off Amazon as it was the best price (thanks for the advice Clint). I'm sure if I have isues with the install I can find help here!

Samsung 840 EVO

Can wait to give my Macbook new life!!! 🙂

Hi guys,

First off, this thread has been a great source of info so thanks for that.

I'm looking to upgrade my 2012 Macbook Pro with a 500gb SSD.

It's worth mentioning that I will be using music production software frequently so it will need to handle more than your average-consumer workload (though I understand that most of the audio editing etc will be taken care of by the RAM and only written to the SSD upon saving the project). Initially I was sold on the Evo but having read through this thread I not so sure it has the compatibility or the reliability I'm looking for.

Nonetheless, my options remain:

1) Samsung 850 Evo - 500gb (£160)

2) Crucial M550 - 512gb (£180)

3) Crucial MX100 - 512gb (£145)

4) Intel 530 - 480gb (£210) - Only considering this one if someone can convince me it's genuinely worth the extra money

Hope someone can help me on this.

Cheers.

to kkd_ldn and m3adi3c:

Do not buy a used SSD.

All four mentioned here are very good and you will probably never notice the difference in performance. All have good Garbage Collection. All are supporting Trim.

There is only one difference though (for techies): the controller: There are two controller types Marvell and Sandforce, and their derivates: the Marvell controller is the best, it handles the compressable and uncompressable files, the Sandforce only compressables. But you will not notice the difference in normal practice.

Crucial has Marvell, Samsung is Sandforce based, Intel I am not sure.

One more thing (ha) do not use performance measuring apps. They do a lot of writing before reading, and writing is causing the wear.

Lex

Hi Lex,

Thank you for your response.

I'm leaning towards the Crucial SSDs, would you recommend the MX100 or M550? Are there different features, better firmware, is one newer, is one generally prefered over the other for Macs or for heavier workloads?

From your experience are Crucial's SSDs more reliable than Samsungs? Is it possible that the Samsung EVO's Turbowrite feature may make it marginally more unreliable than the relatively straightforward Crucial SSDs?

Finally, is it still that case that the Samsung SSDs are not as compatible with Mac's than the other SSDs I listed?

Cheers,

Kieran

kkd_ldn

Concerning the Samsung EVO not working well in Macs - that was true when they were first released but has since been fixed with firmware updates. I just like Crucial - that's all I've ever owned and I have four of them now. Unfortunately, I purchased the M500 960GB just weeks before the M550 1 terabyte series came out!

Crucial SSDs just play nice with Macs out of the box. If firmware updates are made available, it's rather simple to run the update. I know that there are some Samsung fans out there, though, and with the number of users that have contacted me, they're quite happy with their purchases.

Good luck,

Clinton

MacBook Pro (15-inch Late 2011), OS Mavericks 10.9.4, 16GB Crucial RAM, Crucial M500 960GB SSD, 27” Apple Thunderbolt Display

Hi Kieran,

depends on the situation: if you use the SSD in a server, that runs continuously and is accessed a lot and in NAS applications I would look for the one with the most overprovisioning. Otherwise you will ever notice a difference ever, in normal private use they last much longer than the mac normally.

All are about the same as I said. Personally I do not know the Intel, all others I have and had, i different sizes. I think I would buy the newest Crucial.

Hi Clinton old friend,

hdyd? Still fretting about the Crucial 500/550? As you know I bought the 500 in the same time and the 550 was already announced. I never regretted this. I am sure you will never notice the difference: did you ever notice the difference between a cpu 30nm or 20nm?

Happy computing

Lex

Hi Lex,

Thanks for your advice. I went for the Crucial M550 512GB. Is there anything in particular I should know about its installation?

I've read it's recommended to fresh install Mavericks to get the quickest boot up speeds possible etc. However, it would save me a lot of hassle if it wasn't necessary... The 2012 Macbook Pro I'm upgrading arrived with Mavericks already installed so there have been no OS X updates (OS X updates are apparently one of the main reasons why a fresh install is recommended) Do you have any advice on this?

Cheers.

Not much to say, there are so many threads here about what is the best for SSD....

Important is the choice: you made a good choice. SSD has a long lifetime, but most detrimental about lifetime is writing: this means that performance tests should be avoided. Curiosity kills the cat here.

Some say that changing a kext in OSX to introduce the Trim command is important: I think that it will extend the lifetime, but the lifetime is already much longer than the mac. A good SSD has good garbage collection, and certainly the Crucial has that. Trim is beneficial, but as long as you have enough free disk space to allow Garbage Collection to do its work, trim would not be missed. I have trim installed but my OSX is not happy about it (but then I am a hobbyist). You will die before you notice it I guess. Without the trim command OSX will not protest when you update or upgrade.

Erasing free space thus is to be avoided also: on a SSD all free space and deleted files are disappearing also.

Clinton has done a lot of research, he will shine his light on this too, I hope.

Important is also, that you format the SSD before use, and then never install so called "smart utillities" to help the disk or provide "helpful information".

Lex

Hi Lex,

I'm having a bit of trouble with the m550... It just blue screened and crashed just now while I casually browsing the internet, and has crashed a number of times since I've had it.

I'm running Yosemite, I'm pretty sure I downloaded and upgraded on my previous hard drive and then cloned everything to the SSD. So I don't think it's an update issue, something I've read a little about. Is there a way I can check how long the SSD has been operational in my Mac?

I have a recurring issue when I'm making music. If the track I'm working on is playing and I load up a plugin on a channel, the plugin will appear to be missing until I pause the track. It's very odd.

Can you shed any light on what may be the problems or how they can be remedied? I've booked in for 'Genius' appointment next week but I'm unsure how helpful they're going to be since the SSD isn't from Apple.

Hope you can help.

Hi m3adi3c,

I've been experiencing some issues with the Crucial M550 SSD... I have a recurring problem when I'm making music. If the track I'm working on is playing and I load up a plugin on a channel, the plugin will appear to be missing until I pause the track.

Has this ever happened to you?

Cheers.

Did you install the Trim command? If yes, start with CMD+R and restore the OS. This will replace the manipulated kext. Let me know how you did the trim install.

Did you install any Satsmart driver? If yes uninstall it.

I assume you have the SSD inside the Mac, download DriveDx from binaryfruit.com/drivedx

It settles in the menu bar after install, click it and choose "save drive health report", find it in the Documents Folder, copy/paste it here.

You can also then click "open DriveDx Application", it shows you a complete survey of the disk, read it and read the explanation per line.

Lex