Macbook Pro upgrade advice....

peanutismint

peanutismint

peanutismint

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I'm thinking of maxing out my MBP's RAM (to 8GB) and upgrading to an SSD (probably 120GB) - any suggestions which specific models/makes of each I should be considering? Or are all makes of RAM/SSDs basically the same?
 
Cool, so a no-name brand of RAM *should* perform the same as a branded variety of the same spec?

And re. SSDs, can you suggest any winners? Or at least what most people look for, features-wise? I've heard there's something called 'TRIM' that helps tell the system where it can write over so-called 'trashed' sectors, or something?! :D
 
I used Corsair Value RAM in my MBP, worked absolutely perfectly. SSD wise I used a Crucial M225 128GB, which was good at the time. I think people will sing the praises of the OCZ Vertex drives these days though.
 
OS X doesn't support TRIM, which is a pain because most of the info/discussion out there is Windows-centric. I'm still biding my time with an SSD for my MBP. Don't like all this uncertainty given the big & fast ones cost a bomb :(
 
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Spyhop said:
OS X doesn't support TRIM, which is a pain because most of the info/discussion out there is Windows-centric. I'm still biding my time with an SSD for my MBP. Don't like all this uncertainty given the big & fast ones cost a bomb :(
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Hmmm interesting.....so is the TRIM issue one which might be solved via a software update in future? Or would it have to be supported on the boards inside the systems?

If it's the latter, then I may just go for a 'cheapo' OCZ one as I doubt I'll be buying a new MBP anytime soon....
 
The TRIM issue will be solved when they update the OS. However (with my cynical hat on) it wouldn't surprise me if they made it 10.7 only as from what we've seen so far features seem a little thin on the ground - TRIM would be a big incentive to upgrade for a lot of people.

But that's not to say an SSD in a Mac is going to eventually grind to a halt. I can't give you specific drive recommendations because they've moved on since I got mine, but whichever way you cut it it will still be miles faster/quieter than a standard laptop drive.
 
They have tested what happens to macs and ssds and the results suggest that trim isnt really necessary for macs. The windows machines slowed the ssd considerably when trim wasnt used but the macs performance didnt really take a hit.
 
I'm not convinced that's true Fez. My Crucial M225 suffered with write fatigue quite badly on my OSX 10.6 unit. 2/3 months and it was around 50% of 'clean' performance.

I now have an OCZ Vertex 2 in it....and it's running pretty well. I think that's more to do with the garbage collection on the drive though, and nothing to do with the OS?
 
MacRS4 said:
I'm not convinced that's true Fez. My Crucial M225 suffered with write fatigue quite badly on my OSX 10.6 unit. 2/3 months and it was around 50% of 'clean' performance.

I now have an OCZ Vertex 2 in it....and it's running pretty well. I think that's more to do with the garbage collection on the drive though, and nothing to do with the OS?
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I thought the M225 had garbage collection on 1916?

http://www.forum.crucial.com/t5/Sol...upport-garbage-collection-on-a-Mac/td-p/13722

Were you running an earlier F/W or something?
 
Spyhop said:
You think so for 10.7? Unless it's confirmed, I think relying on Apple to provide "the expected thing" is a dangerous game.
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Correct, pure conjecture on my part. I'm surprised it hasn't appeared already to be honest.

In regards to OSX "not needing" TRIM it's not quite that black and white. In some configurations the performance degradation isn't noticeable, but definitely there. It really depends on the controller firmware. But, like I said, it blows a spinning disk away by such a margin you're really not going to notice.
 
Comments on that article seem to have a beef with the methodology used.

In truth, I can't be arsed getting up to speed on all this. It just has a sense of messiness about it that seems like it should be cleanly resolved in another generation or two of kit.
 
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Hmm, think that might be the article I read a while back too. My vertex 2e hasnt slowed by a noticeable amount yet although I think the controller is good and I have only had it for about 3 months now so its hard to say.

Can't hurt to have trim support in the future though, hint hint apple.
 
M225 was the latest upgraded firmware. I found I was secure erasing every 3 or 4 weeks (I'm quite a heavy user, loads of VM stuff).

Not had to do that on the 2e as yet.
 
Brian8bit said:
Read this for more information on OS X and TRIM

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/apple/2010/07/01/mac-ssd-performance-trim-in-osx/1
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That article is absolutely and complete wrong - here's why:

5fbf6ece72f5ea75822e6e972ec5f95f.png


Note that they write out all zeros to the drive? This is NOT a way of write-erasing a drive. As far as the controller is concerned you've just written to every single cell on the drive. You've not erased it. You've write-fatigued it.

This is born out by their results:

57984e24dc06a977748de810f38746f9.png


They're similar 'cleaned by zeros' as dirty simply because to the drive controller the data looks exactly the same.

Their conclusion then is complete tosh - it's based on a rubbishing testing analogy.
 
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