Last week I replaced my rev 1 MBA with the latest SSD model and am really impressed with the speed change with the SSD over the HD.
Thing is, the MBA HDD is a 4200 rpm drive and your Mac Pro has a 7200 rpm. Generally, your transfer rate will be 60-70MBps in the Mac Pro vs under 30MBps in the MBA. The Intel X-25M tops out at 70-80MBps sequential write.
What you'd be cheaper doing is getting 2 fast 7200 rpm drives and putting them in RAiD-0. This can give you up to 180MBps sequential write. There is added risk by running two drives as one given that if either fails, you have to start over but you should always have a complete backup whether you use one drive or multiple.
If you are dead set on an SSD, the main ones to choose between would be the X-25M mentioned above and OCZ's Vertex drive:
You don't have to go all out and get an expensive one, if it's just a boot drive, even a 30GB model would suffice. You can get an OCZ Vertex 30GB for $140. Then just store your files on a standard hard drive. The SSD mainly helps application launch times and boot times. It would help with large file read/writes but price per GB is way too high just now.
I've just started thinking about it and need to also look into prices here in Japan and or taxes on anything I ship over (some items are steep) to see if it will be worthwhile or if i should wait a little.
Thanks Mavin, for the dual HD idea, too. That might be a more viable option. My MP currently has 4 HDs: 1 300GB for boot, 2 1TB HDs in a RAID config for data and the last one a 1TB that right now serves TimeMachine (saved an entire day's work the one time I have needed it).
You don't notice the write speed unless you do a lot of write intensive stuff like building software. The SSD will absolutely slay a hard drive in read speeds which you will notice damn near every second you are touching the computer.
It will even beat that raid-0 by a long shot because far more important than bandwidth, is first word latency, and the SSD is ~ 500 times faster at that. You have to routinely read some huge files for the HD raid bandwidth to overcome that handicap at human perceivable levels.
Last week I replaced my rev 1 MBA with the latest SSD model and am really impressed with the speed change with the SSD over the HD.
Are there an SSDs available for MacPro's? If so, does anyone have experience with them?
Yes, there are. My experience is that my Mac Pro ( 8 core ) runs much faster and does not produce as much heat as before. There is a dramatic speed change for me and it is noticeable.
Comments
Last week I replaced my rev 1 MBA with the latest SSD model and am really impressed with the speed change with the SSD over the HD.
Are there an SSDs available for MacPro's? If so, does anyone have experience with them?
1. Get second generation Intel X25-m if you value the fastes random read/write MLC SSD available. 80GB (lol thanks Marvin) is now just $230
2. Get an adapter that takes a 2.5" drive and places it in your optical bay or 3.5" drive bay
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...OCK-_-17994063
Voila
Done
$80 is now just $230
And I thought the UK exchange rate was bad.
Last week I replaced my rev 1 MBA with the latest SSD model and am really impressed with the speed change with the SSD over the HD.
Thing is, the MBA HDD is a 4200 rpm drive and your Mac Pro has a 7200 rpm. Generally, your transfer rate will be 60-70MBps in the Mac Pro vs under 30MBps in the MBA. The Intel X-25M tops out at 70-80MBps sequential write.
What you'd be cheaper doing is getting 2 fast 7200 rpm drives and putting them in RAiD-0. This can give you up to 180MBps sequential write. There is added risk by running two drives as one given that if either fails, you have to start over but you should always have a complete backup whether you use one drive or multiple.
If you are dead set on an SSD, the main ones to choose between would be the X-25M mentioned above and OCZ's Vertex drive:
http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/sho...spx?i=3607&p=4
You don't have to go all out and get an expensive one, if it's just a boot drive, even a 30GB model would suffice. You can get an OCZ Vertex 30GB for $140. Then just store your files on a standard hard drive. The SSD mainly helps application launch times and boot times. It would help with large file read/writes but price per GB is way too high just now.
I've just started thinking about it and need to also look into prices here in Japan and or taxes on anything I ship over (some items are steep) to see if it will be worthwhile or if i should wait a little.
Thanks Mavin, for the dual HD idea, too. That might be a more viable option. My MP currently has 4 HDs: 1 300GB for boot, 2 1TB HDs in a RAID config for data and the last one a 1TB that right now serves TimeMachine (saved an entire day's work the one time I have needed it).
It will even beat that raid-0 by a long shot because far more important than bandwidth, is first word latency, and the SSD is ~ 500 times faster at that. You have to routinely read some huge files for the HD raid bandwidth to overcome that handicap at human perceivable levels.
Last week I replaced my rev 1 MBA with the latest SSD model and am really impressed with the speed change with the SSD over the HD.
Are there an SSDs available for MacPro's? If so, does anyone have experience with them?
Yes, there are. My experience is that my Mac Pro ( 8 core
Hope I've helped you.