SSD Drive

[westla]

Looking to get a SSD as my boot drive. Any recommendations?

I usually get OWC drives and memory, but their SSD use the SandyForce chip, which I've read can be a problem.

The other brand I've read good things about is Samsung. Either their:

840 Series
840-EVO Series
840 Pro Series

Any thoughts about these, or other suggestions?

[daniel.sneed]

I just slipped a 500Go Samsung 840 Pro in my MBP a month ago.
Read and write are much faster than my previous Seagate Momentus XT, which was a very good drive on my setup.

AFAIK, 840 Pro write speed is faster than 840. Read speed is the same though.

Happy camper since, with this SSD.

[westla]

Also, could someone recommend a bracket to install the SSD in a drive bay on the Mac Pro? I see some brackets for $5 and some for $30. What do i need?

[frankf]

Also, could someone recommend a bracket to install the SSD in a drive bay on the Mac Pro? I see some brackets for $5 and some for $30. What do i need?

OWC Adaptadrive: http://eshop.macsales.com/item/NewerTech/ADPTADRV/


Frank Ferrucci

[HCMarkus]

So you sprang for a Mac Pro?

I have a bunch (4) of Intel SandForce SSDs which have been very solid for me. That said, Samsung has established a very solid reputation for its SSDs, starting with the 830. They just introduced a new approach to stacking the NAND that promises lower cost and higher capacity. http://www.anandtech.com/show/7237/sams ... nd-scaling so prices should drop further very soon.

Regardless, as with most computer technology, SSDs are a moving target. Unless you get a dud, you are simply gonna' love you SSD, no matter what the model.

Remember that, unless you buy a PCIe card (models available for as low as $16.00 or so), you will be using the Mac's internal SATA buss, which is SATA2, not SATA3, but my research suggests the difference is not noticeable in most situations.

Card example - note ASM1601 chipset supports Mac Booting.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/SATA3-SATA-III- ... 1e7ee2dc34
This single-lane card will provide full SATA3 speed or close to it for a single drive only. If you use both ports, you may bottleneck if both drives are working simultaneously.

Whatever drive you pick, you can spend the money to get a cradle adaptor or simply place your SSD in the optical bay... I have three sitting in mine, on top of the optical drive which I moved from the top to the bottom optical bay. No bracket required, although a little double-sided foam tape will hold your SSD(s) in place if you are worried. If you have a 2009 or later Mac Pro, hook your SSD to the second set of power and SATA connectors located in the bay. If your Mac Pro is an earlier model, there are two "secret" SATA connections located, if I recall correctly, on the mother board. You'll need the appropriate cable to reach those.

[westla]

How large of a SSD drive should I get 120GB or 256GB? I'm going to use it as my boot drive and all my samples except for Omnisphere are on external PCs. Right now in 10.6, I have about 90GB used on my system drive.

[HCMarkus]

^^^Depends ow you manage your system. If you don't plan on offloading at least some of the data that you probably currently have on your system drive (mail, iTunes, photos, documents, etc.) go with the bigger drive. If you intend to manage your system carefully and store most if not all data on different drives, 120GB will probably be enough.

My system is well under 60GB.

You generally want to avoid filling SSDs. Different drives have different over-provisioning schemes; they all have some, but leaving extra empty space is a good thing.

If you go with a non-Sandforce drive, consider installing Trim Enabler (google search for this shareware) and turning Trim ON. Apparently Trim is less critical with SandForce drives, but hard data on this has, to date, eluded me.

[twistedtom]

I am thinking of getting one for my sound banks for my VI's, Right now I have maybe 100gigs of sounds, so I think a 120 would be small. I read that should speed up the loading of patches. It should also make it so I can run more VI's with out the drive slowing things down. I think my bottle neck now is the speed of my drive holding the banks. So am I thinking right, please tell me more. I see that there are different ones out what are the best options for speed? How are the working for your sound banks?

[twistedtom]

I checked out the link to the Samsung V-Nand link, this looks like the way to go, but I do not see it for sale. After reading I see that the SSD's have reliability issues and a limited amount of write cycles. As I want to use them to read sound banks, how will this be effected?

[Gravity Jim]

It's best to use them for drives that you write to infrequently but want high-speed reads from all the time, like a samples drive.

I'm using Samsung 840 Pro drives for my boot drive and for samples and the speeds are fire-breathing. Also, to increase life, you want to make sure you have enabled the drive's TRIM mode... Mac OS will only do that automatically on drives that Apple sells you. With a third party drive, you have to do it yourself, either with terminal commands or with a utility like Trim Enabler.

[HCMarkus]

SSD endurance issues are over-feared in all but heavy enterprise situations, like data centers, not studios. They are great for boot drives, sample drives or scratch drives. As Jim suggests, use Trim if your drive isn't Sandforce. With Sandforce drives, my research suggests Trim can have benefits if the drive is run close to full capacity, but not so much if ample spare area is preserved. If you are ONLY reading from your SSD (i.e. after your initial sample set installation), Trim would not be necessary.

Always back up everything, preferably to more than a single location, no matter what kind of drive is housing your data.

[twistedtom]

So I have 90gigs of samples, will a 120 gig be big enough?

[HCMarkus]

So I have 90gigs of samples, will a 120 gig be big enough?

Yes; until you upgrade to the new greater expanded mondo professional plus version of what you have, then pick up that VI you've been Jonesing for.

Get a 240 gig SSD Tom.

[twistedtom]

Thanks HC, I ordered a 500G so I can put my operating system and programs on it as well.

[williemyers]

... I have three sitting in mine, on top of the optical drive which I moved from the top to the bottom optical bay. No bracket required, although a little double-sided foam tape will hold your SSD(s) in place if you are worried. If you have a 2009 or later Mac Pro, hook your SSD to the second set of power and SATA connectors located in the bay. If your Mac Pro is an earlier model, there are two "secret" SATA connections located, if I recall correctly, on the mother board. You'll need the appropriate cable to reach those.

HC - - you're a *MADMAN*!!
You've got...what...7 internal drives in your MacPro?? 4 x 3.5" & 3 x SSD's? Can you give a few more details to your drive setup? thanks