Serial ATA vs Solid State Drive

Hi, i was configuring a new MacBookPro and found that Apple had introduced a new HDD "Solid State Drive". Costing wise the new 512Gb Solid State Drive is really really high when compared to the old 500GB Serial ATA drive.

I understand that the new HDD has "no moving parts for enhanced durability". Have anyone used it and can you post here the advantages you found compared to the old HDD.

Thanks
-Amstos

There really is no comparison. SSD's are lightning fast and much more durable than platter hard drives. The *only* down side is cost, but, like everything else in the tech world, the longer you wait, the less you will pay.

I installed a 256GB SSD in my MBP and couldn't be happier with the performance. By the time I come close to filling it up, the larger SSD's will have come down in price so I can upgrade to a larger size.

If you have the money, SSD is the only way to go.

As joec mentioned it really comes down to speed performance and the no moving parts issues which is really nice for a laptop since they usually move around a lot more than a desktop. Of course money is another issue. SSD cost a lot more and is considered a luxury if you can afford it.

If you can't afford the SSD I would recommend getting the 7200 RPM drive instead of the stock 5400 RPM drives if you care about performance. It's not quite as fast as SSD but most people have noticed a difference in speeds. I certainly have.

one thing that was not mentioned was that over time SSD's do slow down over time. but that depends on your read and writes you put on the drive.

devoult said:

over time SSD's do slow down over time

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'devoult', i was taken aback on this post. What do you exactly mean by that?

The SSD is also a SATA connection. That has nothing to do with what type of drive. You're talking about the differences between a HDD and an SSD. I wouldn't get one of the higher capacity ones yet as they're multiple layer, so the read and write speeds aren't as good as the smaller capacity drives yet.

lol well i mean what i said that yes SSD's do slow down over time. nowadays the newer ones and more expensive ones support what's called TRIM. that's where is spreads the data across all of the memory modules in the drive so that way the drive will wear evenly giving you a better wear on the drive. but yes they do slow down over X amount of read and writes.

then better i go for Serial ATA 500GB for now.

Amstos said:

then better i go for Serial ATA 500GB for now.

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Not necessarily - depending on how much use it gets, it's probably going to take a *long* time for the SSD to slow down to where you are going to notice a performance hit. And even then it's still going to outperform a standard HDD 7200 RPM drive.

Only in read speeds, Joe.

Guys, can anyone refer me to a link were i had done a Benchmark between MBP running on 'Serial ATA HDD' and MBP running on 'SSD HDD'.

I use majorly 'Maya' for 3D works and 'Eyeon Fusion' for my compositing works. Any benchmarks done on this rendering process would be much appreciated. Thanks.

I would say to read some of the reviews by Anand on Anandtech.com on Solid State Drives. He explains TRIM and all the other questions you might have.

It really makes no difference if it's a Mac or Windows machine where the drives are compared. The Speed increase will still show up.

States thewman

Thanks 'dtravis7'. I will check anandtech.com