05-23-2011, 06:21 PM

Hi,
At some point over the summer i'm looking to completely renew my hard drives. I will hopefully be buying 3/4 external drives (All G-Tech - 2 x 2 or 3TB drives for time machine and general storage, 1 x 500GB firewire 800 portable drive as my audio drive for Logic Pro, and possibly 1 x 500GB portable drive for itunes and movies on the go).

I am also tempted by SSD drives. I've been looking for a while but i've always thought that it wouldn't be very good because i wouldn't have the storage. I have a 320GB 5400rpm stock drive now, and to get 300GB+ in an SSD is very expensive.
However, i recently noticed that a lot of files on my mac, i don't actually need on my internal hard drive, and after moving a lot of stuff off it, I could quite easily get by with 240GB/256GB drive.

I am wondering if anyone has had experience with an SSD in this model macbook pro, good or bad, I want to know it all. And if a drive could be suggested to me that would be very helpful. I have been looking at the OCZ Vertex 2E 240GB SATA II drive (around £309), and it looks very good on paper, but does it perform how it should?

Any help on this topic would be very much appreciated,
mrmeister

**Another question that just came to mind - I'm going to be replacing my time machine drive as mentioned earlier. Can i migrate my old time machine drive to the new one?

Thanks again

05-23-2011, 06:51 PM

The SSD will give the macbook the "illusion" if you like, of a speedier machine. Apps will open faster, Spotlight Indexing takes less time, Logic loads faster, and is more reliable. worth it in my opinion? yes, definitely. consider using the internal drive for your audio drive: the R/W speeds are much higher than FW800. move any unnessential projects over to storage, but keep the one you are working on currently on the internal.

oh, and OCZ are one of the leading manufacturers of SSDs and are highly regarded. You wont go wrong.

05-24-2011, 03:10 AM

Originally Posted by robduckyworth

The SSD will give the macbook the "illusion" if you like, of a speedier machine. Apps will open faster, Spotlight Indexing takes less time, Logic loads faster, and is more reliable. worth it in my opinion? yes, definitely. consider using the internal drive for your audio drive: the R/W speeds are much higher than FW800. move any unnessential projects over to storage, but keep the one you are working on currently on the internal.

oh, and OCZ are one of the leading manufacturers of SSDs and are highly regarded. You wont go wrong.

Ok, so, how will it give an illusion? Surely i will have a faster machine will i not?

Internal drive for logic: so you're saying i should record to my internal, mix, then move over to the external?

Also, i've seen so many people saying their OCZ failed between about 1 week - 2 months. I, like everyone, really don't want this to happen. Is this a problem they used to have that is now sorted? And to update the firmware don't you need a Windows tower? I'm sure i've read that as well, something like its firmware can only be upgraded if you're
1) running Windows, and
2) have it as an internal drive, not external.

Is this the case?

Sorry, i don't know how to multi quote yet and i'm in a rush. I'll try and get it sorted for my next post.
Thanks again
mrmeister

05-24-2011, 06:31 AM

I mean illusion in the sense that you are reading and writing to disk faster, and so the computer feels physically faster, apps will open much quicker and the computer in general will be quicker to respond, but the CPU is still the same, so any strenuous processor tasks will take just as long as they did before, with the same limitations (i.e CPU overloads in Logic.)

using an SSD as your internal for essential audio projects lessens the likelihood of encountering a Disk overload error in Logic (you know the ones that stop your session midflow). With an SSD you wont see that unless you max out bandwidth.

think about it. at the minute, your Hard Disk has to read all that data on a magnetic disk, and the reader has to move around to find where each little bit of Audio file is on that disk. with flash, you don't have moving parts. much, much quicker.

as for OCZ failures. You will hear many horror stories on the internet. Just because one person has it happen to them, doenst mean it will happen to you. you shouldn't have to worry about the firmware of your drive at all. Many people on this forum are running OCZ SSDs in their systems with zero problems. If you do have a problem, You can return it and get a new one (but I doubt you will have to.) They are a leading manufacturer of SSDs and are highly regarded by Reviewers and users as one of the best brands to go for.

05-24-2011, 08:41 AM

Ok, so thats sorted and firmware isn't so important?
What about the sleep and hibernation issues? I've heard something about how sleep and/or hibernation doesn't work at all because of the SSD, but i don't know why...
Also, what is TRIM? I see its not available in Snow Leopard without modding, and people are hoping for it in Lion. Is it important?

Sorry about the amount of questions, i know that i can look it up, and i've tried, but i find it easier if i'm told directly.

Thanks again
mrmeister

05-24-2011, 08:56 AM

I havent got one so you will have to ask SSD owners about the sleep issues. I'd be surprised if they were still present, seeing as MBPs are now shipped with SSDs.

TRIM is a feature of the OS that removes blocks of data on the SSD that are considered unused. Its like "garbage collection".

It will be introduced in Lion.

05-24-2011, 08:59 AM

So is it bad that Snow Leopard doesn't have TRIM? Could/Would that slow my macbook down, or cause some other issue?

Thanks for all your help by the way robduckyworth
mrmeister

05-24-2011, 09:09 AM

In theory, it will slow it down, but most people running SSDs on here haven't experienced any. an SSD will always completely smoke a magnetic drive, TRIM or no TRIM.

05-24-2011, 09:18 AM

So, final SSD question (i think!). Is there anything i can do myself to replace TRIM? Would erasing free space every so often help me?

mrmeister

05-24-2011, 09:36 AM

Oh, also, if i get a new internal drive (hopefully that SSD), can i keep it running with my current Time Machine WITHOUT having to do a lengthy and large first backup? I want to be able to just continue from my current Time Machine, but i don't want to restore my new hard drive from a Time Machine backup.
Is this possible?

mrmeister

05-24-2011, 10:41 AM

Originally Posted by mrmeister

So, final SSD question (i think!). Is there anything i can do myself to replace TRIM? Would erasing free space every so often help me?

mrmeister

Most SSDs sold today, the good ones at least, have garbage collection via their firmware, so you don't "need" TRIM. Some people that have enabled TRIM on Snow Leopard have said that their SSD's performance drops considerably.