SSD in my Mac Pro *updated with performance figures* (and video)

I cant believe how much planning goes into installing a new hard drive, especially a SSD with only 60GB capacity.
I've currently moved my Home folder to a 2nd partition, does anyone know if I move it back to the System partition the Library will automatically move straight across??
 
Was having a look last night on the subject of caddy's for the superdrive and someone on a forum mentioned about just putting it away and just buying an external dvd writer which when thinking about it aint a bad option really. It'll only cost an extra tenner or so and your superdrive stays tucked away just in case. Was looking at this one.
 
My numbers aren't as impressive as feek's. I'm using an Intel X-25M 80GB SSD, technically not a fresh install as I installed using a time machine backup. I'm still well pleased with the speeds compared to the Hitachi 320Gb 5200rpm that was in my MBP before (didn't bench the hitachi so I can't do a comparison).

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icedbullet said:
My numbers aren't as impressive as feek's. I'm using an Intel X-25M 80GB SSD, technically not a fresh install as I installed using a time machine backup. I'm still well pleased with the speeds compared to the Hitachi 320Gb 5200rpm that was in my MBP before (didn't bench the hitachi so I can't do a comparison).

44213515.jpg
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Im in the same boat after putting in my Vertex 2E. Was still pretty impressive but didn't seem as impressive as feek's. When I get my Optibay through I'm gonna do a complete fresh install of my whole system and take things from there.
 
icedbullet said:
My numbers aren't as impressive as feek's. I'm using an Intel X-25M 80GB SSD, technically not a fresh install as I installed using a time machine backup. I'm still well pleased with the speeds compared to the Hitachi 320Gb 5200rpm that was in my MBP before (didn't bench the hitachi so I can't do a comparison).

44213515.jpg
Click to expand...

That drive will do 300, but only for a few days after a secure erase and reinstall.

The best i've got out of my Intel 80Gb SSD is 305, the 160Gb coming next week should do 310-320.

Either way my X25-M is scoring around 195 atm. Thats why i've got a 160Gb partition on another disk so I can wipe, format and copy back things regularly to keep the SSD in good shape :)
 
I didn't do a secure erase, all I did was run SuperDuper! to clone my existing drive over.

The test above was taken directly after a reboot with nothing running. I've got almost a week uptime and shedloads open.

comparison-20101008-172629.png


Not too much difference overall.
 
Mine went up to 230 today. Yay :P

I'm well impressed with my current speeds, whats more impressive is the extension to my battery life. I was getting 7-8 hours standard browsing, today I got around 10 hours doing various low intensity task (itunes, yahoo, msn, safari browsing etc), screen was on 6 notches from zero (fairly dim).
 
After reading this thread, I'm pretty much sold on a Vertex 2e for my MacBook. Just now have to decide if I could fit a Mac OS X install with a XP virtual machine as well as a Windows 7 partition for Boot Camp onto a 60gb. Or would I be better spending double the money on a 120gb? All of my media would be on a NAS/Spotify. What would people reckon?
 
Rossmac said:
After reading this thread, I'm pretty much sold on a Vertex 2e for my MacBook. Just now have to decide if I could fit a Mac OS X install with a XP virtual machine as well as a Windows 7 partition for Boot Camp onto a 60gb. Or would I be better spending double the money on a 120gb? All of my media would be on a NAS/Spotify. What would people reckon?
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Well OSX needs around 5GB for a fresh install, Windows 7 needs 20GB free according to Wikipedia (not sure it actually uses all that space) and around 3GB for XP. Then you need to think about applications you need to install.
 
mr.sly said:
Well OSX needs around 5GB for a fresh install, Windows 7 needs 20GB free according to Wikipedia (not sure it actually uses all that space) and around 3GB for XP. Then you need to think about applications you need to install.
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Yeah at the minute, I'm using about 23gb for Mac OS alone and about 40gb with Windows 7 and 20gb for my XP VM.

120gb, here I come! :D
 
I upgraded my MBP 13" a few months ago to SSD. I now have OSX on a 60gb 2E and a 640gb 5200rpm Samsung fitted into an Optibay. I've got the superdrive in an external usb enclosure that came with the Optibay, but not really had cause to use it much.

Prices have dropped quite a bit since I bought mine, but I do wish I'd gone for the 120gb version. I have about 20gb free on the 2E which drops to around 17gb when Win7 is running in Parallels.

Here are my test results;

diskresults.png


Jack
 
intelSSDcomparison.jpg


Intel G2 160Gb beats the Vertex 2 :D

The 80Gb fairs abit worse thanks to the 20Mb/sec worse writes.

Both of them were secure erased using Intel SSD Toolbox v2.

Edit: This SSD just keeps giving, with OS X Installed, Updated and all the Apps installed plus Lightroom making Previews it's managed this 3 times!:

intel160gbssd.jpg
 
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I installed a Vertex 2E in my Win7 desktop a few months before putting one in my Mac. Win7 put a 100mb partition at the start of the drive and did the rest automatically (stopped defrag etc).

Whilst I know OSX doesn't support TRIM, I just installed it without any preparation, I didn't realise doing a secure erase first would have helped. Is there anything else I missed?

Cheers

Jack
 
allosunshine said:
I take it when I do a fresh install next I should Secure Erase my Vertex before hand. Does anyone know roughly how long it will take??
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JackRegan said:
I installed a Vertex 2E in my Win7 desktop a few months before putting one in my Mac. Win7 put a 100mb partition at the start of the drive and did the rest automatically (stopped defrag etc).

Whilst I know OSX doesn't support TRIM, I just installed it without any preparation, I didn't realise doing a secure erase first would have helped. Is there anything else I missed?

Cheers

Jack
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If it's fresh out of the box then it should be fine, but I had to go into Windows to secure erase my 80Gb so I did it anyway.

Secure Erase shouldn't take long at all, it takes seconds using Intel's SSD Toolbox, but for Vertex 2s I don't think you need to bother as it does it itself when idle.
 
Concorde Rules said:
If it's fresh out of the box then it should be fine, but I had to go into Windows to secure erase my 80Gb so I did it anyway.

Secure Erase shouldn't take long at all, it takes seconds using Intel's SSD Toolbox, but for Vertex 2s I don't think you need to bother as it does it itself when idle.
Click to expand...

I take it doing a secure erase using disk utility in OS X would be the same.
 
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