macbook ssd

raceway99

raceway99

raceway99

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Joined
30 Oct 2009
Posts
67
wanting to put a ssd in unibody macbook

current specs:
2 ghz core 2 duo
2gb ddr3
5400rpm hdd (not sure which make)
nvidia 9400m
running windows 7

what kind of speed increase can i expect? will office 2010/ visual studio 2010 load instantly?

thanks for your help,
raceway99
 
You should see the same sort of increase I saw on my Macbook pro 2010. I went from a 5400rpm 320GB Hitachi HDD to an 80GB intel X25-M and my boot times are now 10 seconds from pressing on to a fully active desktop, word and pretty much every other app (even the big ones like aperture and photoshop) load after 2 bounces of the icon on the dock. For numerical comparisons you can check out this thread for more details.
 
thanks also do u know if trim will work under windows? also i was thinking getting an ocz vertex 120gb (indilinx cotroller i think), but just seen corsair sandforce for only £15 more. Would the corsair be worth the extra?

cheers,
raceway99
 
From reading around it seems that TRIM will only work on the part of the ssd that has windows 7 installed to it. See here

As for the ocz vs the corsair, I can't really give an opinion as I don't know much about either drive. I have heard good things about sandforce though. Hopefully someone more informed then I am will see this and help out.
 
If you think everything is going to load instantly then you might want to adjust your expectations slightly. A lot of things do, but some of the bigger applications still make you wait - just a lot less then you're used to.
 
SSD's do dramatically improve the load times of everything, in osx for me applications like firefox and itunes load after a bounce and are usable straight away. Bigger applications like football manager or a few other games do load a lot quicker but tend to (finally) be limited to the hardware (which I think is a good thing as it shows progress for hardware).

The processor and hardware controller wont be a bottleneck to performance in a dramatic or traditional way so I wouldnt worry about it!
 
I put an SSD into my 13" unibody and rate it is a spectacular success.
Booting takes next to no time, and my desktop is ready to go almost immediately - far far quicker than the internal HD previously was.

I'm just using an el-cheapo Kingston SSD-Now, which cost £100 for a 32gb - I'm sure you'll get even better results with a faster SSD.

p.s - it's easy to install too!
 
raceway99 said:
oh so do u think its still worth getting? also would the slow processor bottleneck it? sorry for all the questions

thanks,
raceway99
Click to expand...

No don't get me wrong, the improvement is very nice. Absolutely worth getting if you don't mind paying the money. I'll probably never buy a spinning disk ever again unless I suddenly need oceans of storage. It's just games, large applications that still have a loading time - albeit a lot shorter with an SSD.
 
ok not sure bout these results what do you think?

sequential:
uncached write 4k - 154.41 MB/s
uncached write 256k - 145.03 MB/s
uncached read 4k - 21.37 MB/s
uncached read 256k - 179.34 MB/s

random:
uncached write 4k - 120.45 MB/s
uncached write 256k - 144.79 MB/s
uncached read 4k - 12.27 MB/s
uncached read 256k - 173.21 MB/s
 
They seem a tad slow for a new drive. Heres what I got with my Intel X25-M, and these are subpar too tbh. I didn't secure erase properly when moving the drive from my win7 pc into my MBP.

44213515.jpg
 
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