Thoughts on SSD for Macbook Pro

Spooky69 · 11 Mar 2011 at 16:50

Best SSD for Macbook Pro?

2010 i7 Macbook Pro - any ideas as to which SSD will work best? I realise that I only have SATA II but wonder if the newer SATA III drives would still provide better performance, aside from being able to keep the drive when I eventually upgrade.

I am also keen for sleep and hibernation to work as they are meant to work if at all possible. I have a feeling that this might limit me to the Intel. If this is the case then is there any advantage to getting the 510 instead of the G2 or, perhaps, waiting another month or several for the G3?

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Peter_S · 12 Mar 2011 at 09:21

Have a google for digilloyd mac performance guide. Lots to read about there (most of it about optimising performance for LR3 and CS5). Also OWC (other world computing - lots of lovely if expensive stuff) who sell most of the things he uses to upgrade macs.

I think the issue is about the lack of TRIM support in SnowLeopard so the drives need to have "resiliance" which seems to mean SandForce Enterprise grade stuff - unfortunately with Enterprise prices!

Hope that helps

Spooky69 · 12 Mar 2011 at 11:36

Are you sure about Enterprise grade stuff being needed? I was fairly certain that Sandforce and Intel are ok without TRIM as they perform their own type of garbage collection but Crucial are not so good on the Mac.

So the question remains about sleep/hibernation issues with Sandforce drives and whether it is likely to be worth waiting for or using any of the newer products that are coming to market.

joxang · 12 Mar 2011 at 12:15

Sandforce and Intel garbage collection are both excellent. That said, no one really knows how a lack of TRIM affects drive life and performance degradation. Roll with it if you want - I have a vertex 2 in my hackintosh.

If you want to go SLC you can pick up an OEM SLC SSD off eBay for pretty cheap, only marginally more than an equivalent MLC SSD. Look for those with indilinx controllers as they're pretty much identical to the Intel E series.

whitecrook · 12 Mar 2011 at 12:22

Wait for Lion which will have much better SSD support. This is what I am doing with my MBP 2010

Spooky69 · 12 Mar 2011 at 12:55

Had a look and it is interesting except that the capacity ends up being lower than I would like to have.

We have yet to see if Lion will immediately support TRIM for all drives or only for Apple drives, unless anything has been discovered that I am unaware at this time.

If Intel would get the G3 to market quickly then it could be a really interesting time to buy - the reliability and non-issues with Macbooks is attractive but of course that is traded against outright performance. Would I notice the performance differences though?

I am open to either getting SATA III so I can keep it when I upgrade the Macbook or SATA II and putting it in my wife's Macbook when I upgrade, so I could go with the 'older' tech if the price dropped suitably. Nobody seems to be trying to make a particular effort to dump the Vertex 2 stock at the moment though, despite the imminent arrival of Vertex 3. OWC reckon that there is a fix for the hibernation/sleep issues on it's way soon but I think this has been said for quite some time.

It's an interesting time for SSDs!