Anandtech's 2015 SSD Recommendations

[HCMarkus]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9799/best-ssds

[mikehalloran]

No surprises there. Thanks for finding that.

I always find the comments interesting. Often clueless but interesting. The ones that complained about not posting any consumer drives with sudden power loss protection (a row of capacitors that allow an SSD to finish writing if the power is unplugged). There are none that I know of, btw. Enterprise drives with that feature, like the 845 EVO, will normally cost double or more what a consumer drive goes for.

A 4T 850 EVO next year? Interesting... I'm really happy with my 2T.

[HCMarkus]

A 4T 850 EVO next year?

One Drive to rule them all.

Yeah, the comments are often interesting, but watch out when Anandtech reviews GPUs… the fanbois always come out in droves.

[Tobor]

A 4T 850 EVO next year?

One Drive to rule them all.

Are these drives available in a portable solution, i.e. USB 3 and/or Thunderbolt? I just got a rMBP and am looking for the latest/greatest portable drive for samples, and also an additional drive for sessions or backup.

Is OWC's Envoy Pro a good possible solution? The 'rugged' LaCie and G-Drive options seem decent as well but I'm confused by conflicting reports. I'd love to get at least 1T for the samples.

Thanks!

[mikehalloran]

4T is not yet available but 2T is readily available. The EVO has a 5 year warranty; the Pro has ten yr.

http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-2-5-Inch- ... B010QD6W9I

http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-2-5-Inch- ... B010QD6RX4

By shopping around, I found the 2T EVO under $600 and the Pro well under $800. Because my iMac is over 5 years old, I went with the EVO.

I'm certain that you can find them bundled but I would get an external dock and plug in. TB2 can maximize speed, especially in RAID arrays. USB3 docks are less expensive but still very fast. I like that drives stay cool without fans.

This is a generic example. There are dozens of variations out these. Some also include card readers.

[HCMarkus]

http://fudzilla.com/news/memory/39668-m ... for-us-500

Not the fastest, but may be just what the Dr. ordered for some of us.

Mushkin's new 2TB Reactor Series SSD sounds really promisng but Mushkin had another surprise at CES 2016 show, showing that it can actually pair up two 2TB SSDs with JBOD on a single PCB, making a 4TB Reactor series SSD. Although it will have a certain effect on random read and write performance, peaking at around 10K IOPS, it will still provide more capacity than any other similar SSD on the market, offering good performance for applications needing more storage and sequential performance rather than random performance.

According to the same report, Mushkin plans to attach a US $500 price for the 4TB Reactor SSD when it becomes available after the release of the 2TB version, scheduled to launch in Q2 2016.

[mikehalloran]

http://fudzilla.com/news/memory/39668-m ... for-us-500

Not the fastest, but may be just what the Dr. ordered for some of us.

It says that the 2T will ship in Q2 and that this will ship later. Damn – I want it yesterday!

Seriously, if they get it working and under five bills, that will be super sweet. Shipping this year will be nice, too.

At least the 2T Samsungs are here now for those who can't wait that long like I.

[Tobor]

Thanks Mike and HC!

I wasn't aware of the 'toasters' for hard drives...interesting. I've been looking at solutions for my new rMBP, but now starting to contemplate SDD options for my 2011 iMac which is running fine but could use a little speed bump that an SSD could provide.

I've got so much bloat on my 2T iMac drive that the idea of paring it down was daunting. All those downloads.... But now (thinking out loud here) that I'm working on making my MBP a lean and mean music computer, I'm thinking that once I have this accomplished I could clone the drive and put it into the iMac via a new EVO SSD install into my DVD drive port (bought a standalone DVD burner with the laptop).

But back to the rMBP. Have you tried the OWC mobile SSD options? Seems they would be easier to carry around in my laptop bag. And the G-Drive mobile pack also looks intriguing. I could slap one in a TB port and the other in a USB port.

Much appreciate the input!!

[mikehalloran]

The 2011 27" iMac is very easy to upgrade. You can replace the internal HD with an SSD quite easily if you know the shortcuts i. e. the steps to skip from the OWC and iFixIt sites. I can do one in a half hour — add 5 minutes to replace the BR2032 NV RAM battery. Besides the SSD, you need an $11 bracket and a replacement for the internal HD sensor, both available from Amazon or OWC.

Yes, I like the toasters as you call them. Mine are eSATA / USB 2 and I've been using them for years.