Change to SSD

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Hi guys..

For those who are familiar with SSD storage. I have couple questions before I move on to SSD.

1. Could someone explain to me how fast the transfer rate? Is that worth to change?
2. How to clone my whole hard drive contents to new SSD? Should I use third party application or what?
2. Should I update the OS or any other firmware after I change the SSD? Currently I'm using MacBook Pro 15" Late 2008.
3.Any SSD recommendations?

TIA. Cheers. :)
 

cwa107


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1. Usually 3-4 times faster on reads. Write speeds can be faster, but sometimes are comparable to normal HDDs.
2. SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner.
3. All of your updates are handled automatically via the Apple Software Update mechanism. Occasionally there are firmware updates to SSDs, but these should be few and far between. Often, they'll need to be done in Windows.
4. Research heavily. There are huge disparities in performance and reliability. No one drive is kind of the hill.

You might also consider waiting because OS X does not currently support TRIM. So, over time, the drive will slow down until you reformat it.
 

dtravis7


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+! for CWA. That Lack of TRIM support bothers me at this point.
 
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Same here I would wait for trim support.
 
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I ran a 128GB SSD on my 15" Late 2008 2.53Ghz MBP and loved it. In fact, I moved it to my 2010 MBP when I sold the 2008. Very fast, applications like iTunes launch with about "1 hop" on the dock. Boot up takes about 15 seconds or so. Handbrake 64-Bit takes half the time it use to when converting video and iMovie is immensely quicker when importing video to projects. The battery life improved by 30% or so. I highly recommend them. Mine will be going on 2 years this coming fall with no issues. I used Super Duper! to move my data which took no time between a 7200rpm, a Firewire 800 port and the SSD. The brand I chose was the Super Talent Ultra Drive GX. Inspecting it in System Profiler revealed it to be a Samsung drive at heart. You can do your own version of TRIM by using the "write zeros to free space" in the Disk Utility. OK, it's not TRIM, but it apparently works according to some articles. Honestly, mine is as fast as it has ever been so I really don't know. There has been one firmware update that I'm aware of for my particular drive. I chose not to apply it as it only had relevance to Windows, so I can't comment on FW updates. If you have the cash, it is the single biggest bump in speed you can do for your system. Going from 4GB to 8GB of RAM was nothing compared to a SSD upgrade.
 
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morani
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Hi all..Thanks for sharing the information.
 
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Morani
I hope you wouldn't mind if I continue with a few Qs, as it is better for info to remain in one thread.
Guys,
I am on a budget. I had intended to buy 8GB of RAM, but after seeing XJ-LINUX's comment on the speed improvements resulting from moving to an SSD, I am wondering if it might be better to merely upgrade to 4GB from 2 GB and buy an SSD. So here are my Qs:
a. Is the SSD technology mature enough? I have been reading about how SSD drive performance declines over time.
b. If I buy a 40GB SSD as my primary (boot disk) for Mac OSX, how much of free space will I have after a default install of OSX?

Thanks
 

cwa107


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Morani
I hope you wouldn't mind if I continue with a few Qs, as it is better for info to remain in one thread.
Guys,
I am on a budget. I had intended to buy 8GB of RAM, but after seeing XJ-LINUX's comment on the speed improvements resulting from moving to an SSD, I am wondering if it might be better to merely upgrade to 4GB from 2 GB and buy an SSD. So here are my Qs:
a. Is the SSD technology mature enough? I have been reading about how SSD drive performance declines over time.
b. If I buy a 40GB SSD as my primary (boot disk) for Mac OSX, how much of free space will I have after a default install of OSX?

Thanks

a) Hard to say how mature something has to be until it is "mature enough". SSDs are basically just really fat flash drives. Yes, they are fairly mature. Are they still evolving by leaps and bounds on an annual basis? Yes. The controllers (the biggest thing impacting performance) are getting better constantly - and with each new chipset, drives are leapfrogging one another.

b) I believe 10.6 without the iLife suite, bog standard, uses about 12GB. I may be wrong on that. Keep in mind, you will not derive as much benefit in having just the OS installed on the SSD. It's applications that are installed there that will make the performance really shine.
 
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Morani
I hope you wouldn't mind if I continue with a few Qs, as it is better for info to remain in one thread.
Guys,
I am on a budget. I had intended to buy 8GB of RAM, but after seeing XJ-LINUX's comment on the speed improvements resulting from moving to an SSD, I am wondering if it might be better to merely upgrade to 4GB from 2 GB and buy an SSD. So here are my Qs:
a. Is the SSD technology mature enough? I have been reading about how SSD drive performance declines over time.
b. If I buy a 40GB SSD as my primary (boot disk) for Mac OSX, how much of free space will I have after a default install of OSX?

Thanks

1) OWC did many tests and engineering from my understanding on their new line of SSDs. From what I've heard, they degrade significantly slower than most current SSD. Some claim that it doesn't really degrade at all or by the time it does, one is usually going to purchase a new HD anyway.
2) From my recent install on my 128GB SSD, I did a very minimal 10.6 OSX install. I didn't install any of the iLife, printer drivers, language files, etc. If I remember correctly, after a very fresh install, I had roughly 121-122GB of free space on my SSD. so it took about 6-7GB.
 
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A tick over 8GB including iLife, if you skip the printer drivers, Xcode and extra languages. I have a 128GB and still have about 40GB free after 24GB of iTunes music/video, 14GB of iPhoto and small SUSE11 and Win7 VM's. I looked into a 40GB for my Mini "server", but decided it was just too tight when figuring in swap, sleep and temp file spaces. 60GB was my magic number for the Mini's applications, binaries, etc. with an external 1TB drive for backups, music/video/photos and documents.
 
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I've been running a Torqx M28 256GB SSD in my Core i7 MBP with 4GB RAM for a few months now and couldn't be happier. It's VERY fast compared to a standard platter drive (even a 7200 drive). OSX boots in about 15 seconds from power up to desktop. Windows7 (using BootCamp) boots in about 20 seconds from power up to desktop. All apps open almost instantly on both the OSX side as well as the Win7 side. For me, the 256GB is plenty large enough - even with full install of all my apps as well as all my data files, music, etc. on both OSX and Win7, I still have 51% unused on the Win7 side and 69% unused on the OSX side.

I haven't had any negative issues at all.

My recommendation is to go for it if you have the money. An SSD and at least 4GB of RAM makes for a really fast machine!
 

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