SSD on my Macbook PRO

Hi all !
I'm having an MBP 2.2GHz which is running on Toshiba 250GB HDD. Today, a friend offers me an OCZ Core 64GB SSD (2nd version with SATA2) for a very reasonable price. I'm wondering if i change my current HDD with the new SSD, the battery life will be improved or not ? And also are there any negatives ?
Please give me some advices, thank you so much.

 

Battery life will improve, speed should improve, obviously the negative is that you lose 190 GB.

 

The OCZ Core has very slow random writes, but somehow Macbooks don't seem affected by it.

Are you looking at V1 or V2?

 

umm I am also interested changing my macbook pro hard drive to SSD.. but not sure how difficult is it..

 

Changing HDD in Macbook Pro is quite difficult compared to other notebooks.
To PhilFlow: http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/flash_drives/ocz_core_series_sata_ii_2_5-ssd I think it is this one (with 64GB). Is it good ?


http://www.anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.aspx?i=3287&p=4 I have read this review from Anandtech. The most important point that i want is longer battery life. But this review really makes me dissapointed -.- Is it reliable ?

 

64GB is a bit small, but you could always carry a external drive around I guess..=/ I wouldn't bother at the moment but that's just me.

 

You should go for V2 like this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227360

The problems of the OCZ Core that Anandtech writes about do not seem to affect V2 in combination with macbooks.

 

Uhm, i would go for V2 if i can, but this is a limited offer -.-

 

OK I'm not sure about V1 and the Macbook.

 

Thank you, PhilFlow
Is there any one who is using this OCZ SSD and notice the 1 sec lag as mentioned in Anandtech's review ?

 

Good news: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=589036

 

I've added the SSD into my MBP and now it works beautifully

 

This is quite amazing. It seems that Apple owners can just buy the cheap SSDs and experience great performance.

Enjoy your SSD.

 

http://www.ryanblock.com/2007/11/the-first-macbook-pro-with-a-64gb-ssd/

 

But wait a bit here - working isn't always accompanied by a huge bump in drive performance....

All SSD drives that use MLC technology (which amounts to pretty well the majority of them under $600) have the fabulous read speeds due to their <0.2ms access times, but the major drawback is rotten (by comparison) write performance that is either similar or below the speeds of high density 5400 or 7200rpm drives, which will rear it's ugly head a lot for many people. The lone exception to this so far appears to be Intel's X25 drive, which overcomes this hardware limitation by using a different controller algorithm for write operations. SSD drives based on SLC technology (all the more expensive ones) do not exhibit this write speed limitation. So there is a trade-off to consider here if one desires to put an SSD in (beyond the price).

 

I've seen several reports of Apple owners with SSDs with Jmicron controllers completely unaffected by the random write problems/ stutters that Wintel Notebooks are affected by.

Check the link on the first page for more info. Here's another one:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=300292&highlight=warp+v2

 

Yeah, I have no problem at all, from copying, compressing...etc. Pauses are nowhere to be seen. Everything is so smooth. The only annoying thing is the small capacity of the new drive -.-' Though I have 7GB free space but that's not enough for a Windows partition with my favourite CounterStrike Source game >.< Gonna do some more clean up. Any suggestion ?

PS: I will give you guys some feedback upon battery time improvement tomorrow.

 

Hmmm, you're right - maybe OSX's Unix platform is able to handle things better. But the MemoRight drive in the Anandtech article is SLC based (page 2) so those comparative performance numbers are in line with my discussion. I can't find the Flash chip technology that the Patriot drive uses.

If you look at the Xbench read results in RogueMonk's post comparing the 7200.3 and SSD you'll still see a performance delta between 4-42%. His other two drives are older and low density/non-perpendicular; the performance between the 7200.3 and other high-density 5400 drives is going to be similar. I think that the jury is still out, to some extent, on this whole thing..... thx for the links .

 

Clearskies did you read this one too: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=589036 Interesting stuff there too.

 

Yes, that and the LaptopMag links. Interesting indeed.

That same article you link from your MacRumors post to LaptopMag has an excellent discussion on page 1 comparing performance of the OCZ and SuperTalent mlc drives with other slc ones and a 250GB WD Scorpio Blue hdd..... the Scorpio bests the OCZ in write/zip tests by as much as 1/2 the time required, and outperforms the ST drive too.

In the end, I think it's going to be up to the individual whether the shortcomings of the lower priced MLC drives outweigh the benefits they still bring with their ultra-fast read times. I don't have $500 lying around, so for me it's, for the most part, pretty much irrelevant .

 

Yeah sure, but as you probably know those tests were performed on a Wintel platform. So they were influenced by the terrible random writes that most laptops get with SSDs with the Jmicron controller.

From the user reports I'm seeing, Apple laptops are not affected by this. Roguemonk can not seem to make it stutter even when he wants to. Also running vista on his MBP he can not make it stutter: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=301074&highlight=warp

 

Cool - I've learned something today, which is good. thx again for the discussion.

 

Seems that battery usage time of my MBP is increased by 30 mins or so after changing to SSD. (My old HDD is a Toshiba 5400rpm MK2546GSX).
The voltage requirements of these two drives are:
- Toshiba: 5v+ / 1.0A.
- New SSD Core: 5+V / 0.35A.

 

Did you make sure you tested this on exactly the same circumstances?

How long battery life did you get?

Reviews I've read do not give the OCZ Core a 30 minute advantage.

 

Everyday i carry my MBP to my university and my office. I usually write articles and reviews (text works with firefox, entourage, notes and safari in background). With traditional HDD, the battery lasts around 4 hours 20 minutes (lowest screen backlight / no wifi), with the new SSD, it can reach near 5 hours easily.

 

Impressive.

 

I think it is because the new SSD requires much less power in idle mode than traditional HDD.

 

Seems true yeah: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/Intel-x25-m-SSD,2012-14.html

 

Interesting stuff, guys!