However, we can now exclusively report that Apple has also added the feature to the revised build on the latest, Thunderbolt-equipped MacBook Pros that shipped earlier this week.
While they appear to run the same Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.6 version, the newer build (10J3210 versus 10J567, the newest build of Mac OS X 10.6.6 available for download from Software Update by other Macs) includes and automatically activates TRIM Support, as noted in System Profiler.
TRIM should be implemented by the drive manufacturers, in hardware. It shouldn't be something the OS needs to worry about.
How is it possible though? To know what previously allocated blocks are no longer allocated (and therefore in need of trim) you need to consult the filesystem tables. But these tables are different for NTFS, HFS+, ext3. Do we bake knowledge of all popular filesystems in to SSD firmware? I just don't know how it's even possible without OS help.
I recall reading something to the effect that current mac hardware does not support TRIM because of the mobo chipset, not the actual SSD. If this is true, I suppose we should not expect any TRIM support in models prior to sandy bridge.
I recall reading something to the effect that current mac hardware does not support TRIM because of the mobo chipset, not the actual SSD. If this is true, I suppose we should not expect any TRIM support in models prior to sandy bridge.
Booting the same Macbook to Windows 7 shows TRIM working. Seen this on Intels and OWCs (which are Sandforce controllers).
I plan to wait and see what Apple supports in the way of TRIM on 3rd party SSDs. If they don't, I'll buy a Macbook with a BTO SSD. Anyone know if the new MacBooks are SATA 6.0 GB?
There is a teeny problem with trim as it's now implemented. If you RAID two or more SSD's together, TRIM DOESN'T WORK!
How about that? Turns out that it can't understand two or more SSD's together. If Apple could solve that problem, their trim support would be more "elegant".
EDIT: TRIM isn't supported in RAID, only on a controller that supports RAID. My mistake.
Apple not supporting it on any third party drives if 10.7 supports native TRIM would be a powerfully stupid move, but it's not to be unexpected. If Widows 7 can support it running BootCamp on a third party drive in a MacBook there is zero reason OS X can't.
EDIT:
On the other hand, having more than one SSD in a RAID array is pretty pointless for even the hardcore user. Launching apps and games and such aren't that much faster for the cash outlay in a RAID array. A good SandForce drive or an Intel drive with a Marvell controller are plenty fast and you can get them in good capacities for relatively cheap. Anyone who puts SSDs in a RAID array are looking for bragging rights or have money to burn. A well made drive with good firmware and TRIM support is more than enough for 99% of PC and Mac users.
On the other hand, having more than one SSD in a RAID array is pretty pointless for even the hardcore user. Launching apps and games and such aren't that much faster for the cash outlay in a RAID array. A good SandForce drive or an Intel drive with a Marvell controller are plenty fast and you can get them in good capacities for relatively cheap. Anyone who puts SSDs in a RAID array are looking for bragging rights or have money to burn. A well made drive with good firmware and TRIM support is more than enough for 99% of PC and Mac users.
Just because there isn't a SSD/RAID use case that fits you doesn't mean one doesn't exist. Talk to the people shooting 4K video and/or video raw, for starters. Or location photographers who need to have everything on a duplicate set of drives as fast as possible. Or people doing live 64 track digital recording. The speed is only part of the equation, having redundancy in the case of a storage unit failure has a lot of value to people who only get one shot at a creative event.
Just because there isn't a SSD/RAID use case that fits you doesn't mean one doesn't exist. Talk to the people shooting 4K video and/or video raw, for starters. Or location photographers who need to have everything on a duplicate set of drives as fast as possible. Or people doing live 64 track digital recording. The speed is only part of the equation, having redundancy in the case of a storage unit failure has a lot of value to people who only get one shot at a creative event.
Notice I said it isn't a big deal for 99% of PC and Mac users. I understand there is a demand for RAIDed SSDs, just not on the average consumer market. People doing all of the things you mention do have money to spend on high end equipment and already have the tools and hardware necessary. I don't have to talk to anyone to know there are cases where it's needed and they have a solution that works for them. TRIM on an SSD RAID isn't in huge demand, otherwise it would have been solved already. You think drive manufacturers don't know this?
I've been using an Intel X25 G2 in mine for nearly a year now, and even without trim, there is minimal slowdown with normal usage. Only if you're OCD and perform benchmarks every day you would notice smaller numbers under write speeds over time.
But I do hope they support third party drives, Apple's SSDs are way overpriced and often much slower.
Toshiba's SSDs run at 200 MB/s+, which is about the maximum a SATA 3GB/s SSD can do. For anything faster they'd need to upgrade to non-Toshiba SSDs, more specifically SSDs which support SATA III's 6GB/s Bandwidth. So far we've still been stuck with SATA II on Macs. Maybe this year finally.....
Quote:
Apple's current SSD's are not overpriced, and they're pretty fast.
Uh, not really. SATA III SSDs can reach 400+MB/s Read/Write already, for example the Corsair Peformance 3 Series, while Apple's bound themselves to SATA II SSDs, which are bottlenecked into 200 MB/s performance.
Also, seeing as the Performance Degradation that has already happened cannot be 100% reverted even with future TRIM Support, they're technically a bit overpriced. If I bought a 2010 iMac on release, by now my SSD would be functioning at say around 70 MB/s due to the constant writing and deleting. Even if I got TRIM tomorrow with 10.6.7, I wouldn't get 100% of my Drive's performance back. For what we pay for them, for not even having TRIM, they're overpriced. That money is best spent on an OWC Drive which at least uses SandForce Controllers which have built-in "Intelligent Garbage Collection." Or some other Manufacturer's Drive with Garbage Collection or SandForce Controllers.
Quote:
But, if you buy a drive with a Sandforce, or similar controller, trim support is much less of an issue.
True. Although, SandForce has been proven to not always manage to do as good as job as TRIM. SandForce + TRIM together are the ultimate force for stopping SSD Performance Degrading though, so summarized:
SandForce and TRIM are both excellent, but together they're better than either of the two apart.
Quote:
What I'm curious about is when this will be backported to the MBA, given that 100% of them are SSD-based
Seeing as this is on the custom 10.6.6 Build in the MacBook Pro 2011s, all Macs should have the TRIM feature in 10.6.7, once the MacBook Pros and the rest of the Macs are merged into one "Universal Build."
Quote:
TRIM should be implemented by the drive manufacturers, in hardware. It shouldn't be something the OS needs to worry about.
Implementing it on a Hardware Level means nothing. I can buy an OCZ Vertex 2 SSD which has TRIM, but it wouldn't matter, because OS X doesn't support TRIM. You need both the Drive and the OS to support TRIM for it to work. To have it only necessary on a Hardware Level to work, you'd need some sort of TRIM Controller, like the SandForce Controllers some SSDs come with which have their own "Intelligent Garbage Collection."
Quote:
For Apple picked SSD's, or for any SSD?
Quote:
I plan to wait and see what Apple supports in the way of TRIM on 3rd party SSDs. If they don't, I'll buy a Macbook with a BTO SSD. Anyone know if the new MacBooks are SATA 6.0 GB?
So far this TRIM support is bound to Apple-selected SSDs. Also, no. Apple is still on SATA II, 3GB/s Bandwidth. Maybe with this year's Desktop re-fresh we'll see them starting to move onto SATA III.
Also, for anyone that wants to RAID 0 SSDs: You can RAID 0 SandForce Controllers, so you should be able to RAID 0 SSD Drives with SandForce Controllers. OCZ's RevoDrive X2 has SandForce Controllers set to RAID 0.
Quote:
Maybe they're mad that you're violating your NDA or using software that doesn't belong to you.
You do realize barely anyone is even aware that its under NDA? Besides, Apple isn't even bothering to contain the information. If they cared, they'd have slapped AppleInsider and all the other Sites with "Cease and Desist" orders by now for all the Lion Developer Preview Content they posted on.
EDIT: TRIM isn't supported in RAID, only on a controller that supports RAID. My mistake.
Apple not supporting it on any third party drives if 10.7 supports native TRIM would be a powerfully stupid move, but it's not to be unexpected. If Widows 7 can support it running BootCamp on a third party drive in a MacBook there is zero reason OS X can't.
EDIT:
On the other hand, having more than one SSD in a RAID array is pretty pointless for even the hardcore user. Launching apps and games and such aren't that much faster for the cash outlay in a RAID array. A good SandForce drive or an Intel drive with a Marvell controller are plenty fast and you can get them in good capacities for relatively cheap. Anyone who puts SSDs in a RAID array are looking for bragging rights or have money to burn. A well made drive with good firmware and TRIM support is more than enough for 99% of PC and Mac users.
I think it's smart of Apple to test it first with their own drives. There was a lot of problems with trim support when it first came out. It works differently on every OS. There's no real rush. I'd rather they got it right first.
I disagree about SSD RAIDS. If you have no real need for the speed, that's fine. But if you work with large photo files as I do, it makes a difference, as some friends of mine who run pro photo websites have found out. Saving and opening those large files is speeded up considerably. And you'd be surprised at just how much RAM you need when your files are getting into several hundred MBs with layers and duplicated images.
So speak for yourself, as you obviously don't need much in speed.
Notice I said it isn't a big deal for 99% of PC and Mac users. I understand there is a demand for RAIDed SSDs, just not on the average consumer market. People doing all of the things you mention do have money to spend on high end equipment and already have the tools and hardware necessary. I don't have to talk to anyone to know there are cases where it's needed and they have a solution that works for them. TRIM on an SSD RAID isn't in huge demand, otherwise it would have been solved already. You think drive manufacturers don't know this?
When I mentioned this, I wasn't talking about the average user. I just mentioned a problem with trim which would show up using RAID. You decided this wasn't something of importance.
You did insult people who do use RAIDs pretty strongly. It was pretty annoying. Go read your response to my first post, and you'll see for yourself.
So can somebody tell me their opinion on the best SSD for Macs? OWC Mercury? OCZ Vertex 2? Something else? I'm looking in the 320GB range. Any feedback much appreciated. I'd go back and read Anandtech (which I have) but I'm afraid that's just overkill for simple answers for the best SSD for Macs at a reasonable price.
Also, is it true you can "rejuvenate" your SSD by cloning it to another drive, reformatting the SSD then cloning the other drive back to the SSD in one go?
For SSDs being the future of storage there really isn't enough reliable information on all this stuff.
So can somebody tell me their opinion on the best SSD for Macs? OWC Mercury? OCZ Vertex 2? Something else? I'm looking in the 320GB range. Any feedback much appreciated. I'd go back and read Anandtech (which I have) but I'm afraid that's just overkill for simple answers for the best SSD for Macs at a reasonable price.
Oooh... BTW OWC has 8GB of RAM for about $100+
Right now, the OCZ drives have the worst reliability rating. It's actually worse than the rating for the average HDD. I don't know the reliability of the OWC, but I bought a 60GB one to play with, and it's fast, but I don't know how reliable it is as they don't sell enough to have stats for them anywhere I've looked.
Also, is it true you can "rejuvenate" your SSD by cloning it to another drive, reformatting the SSD then cloning the other drive back to the SSD in one go?
For SSDs being the future of storage there really isn't enough reliable information on all this stuff.
The definitive answer to that question right now is a resounding; Urm, well maybe, but, uh, maybe not.
When I mentioned this, I wasn't talking about the average user. I just mentioned a problem with trim which would show up using RAID. You decided this wasn't something of importance.
You did insult people who do use RAIDs pretty strongly. It was pretty annoying. Go read your response to my first post, and you'll see for yourself.
Insulted? Really? What are you, 10 years old? What I said is true. 99% of PC and Mac users have zero use for an SSD RAID array so it's only a problem to a small set of users. That's why it isn't offered on the consumer market, once it is a real problem it'll be supported. Right now the problems are GC, write amplification, TRIM support, speeds and price per GB. When SSD RAID arrays are commonplace and enough of a demand is present it'll be supported. Right now it's not a big deal. I understand that Apple needs to do internal testing on their OS to ensure reliability, I would expect nothing less. But I also expect Apple to set some ridiculous arbitrary requirement that you have to purchase a new Mac or one of their BTO drives to have it enabled. Which, I say again, would be powerfully stupid of them to do. Windows 7 can do it reliably with any 3rd party drive so I would expect Apple to do so as well.
EDIT: I reread your initial comment and it said nothing other than Apple could be more 'elegant' if they supported it. Nothing about who needed it or why. That's why I said it's almost pointless to worry about it because there aren't very many out there that need it right now. It's possible in Windows 7 but very dangerous. Doing RAID with SSDs is extremely risky. Sure it's fast but if one drive fails you have absolutely zero chance of recovering any data (dependent upon which RAID you use). Even a normal drive has a danger to using it because in the event of a drive failure it's nigh on impossible to recover data. If you are going that route you must be diligent about backing up. All that said it's extremely expensive to do any RAID system with an SSD do those that do either know what they are getting into, have the money, or are using a system that is sufficient for their needs until something is done. Apple doesn't need to solve a problem that isn't widespread and there's nothing 'elegant' about doing so. I don't understand where that even come into play. The drive manufacturers are going to push that feature, not Microsoft or Apple. I've not once heard either say anything about the internal workings or effort to support SSDs much less RAIDing them.
Insulted? Really? What are you, 10 years old? What I said is true. 99% of PC and Mac users have zero use for an SSD RAID array so it's only a problem to a small set of users. That's why it isn't offered on the consumer market, once it is a real problem it'll be supported. Right now the problems are GC, write amplification, TRIM support, speeds and price per GB. When SSD RAID arrays are commonplace and enough of a demand is present it'll be supported. Right now it's not a big deal. I understand that Apple needs to do internal testing on their OS to ensure reliability, I would expect nothing less. But I also expect Apple to set some ridiculous arbitrary requirement that you have to purchase a new Mac or one of their BTO drives to have it enabled. Which, I say again, would be powerfully stupid of them to do. Windows 7 can do it reliably with any 3rd party drive so I would expect Apple to do so as well.
EDIT: I reread your initial comment and it said nothing other than Apple could be more 'elegant' if they supported it. Nothing about who needed it or why. That's why I said it's almost pointless to worry about it because there aren't very many out there that need it right now. It's possible in Windows 7 but very dangerous. Doing RAID with SSDs is extremely risky. Sure it's fast but if one drive fails you have absolutely zero chance of recovering any data (dependent upon which RAID you use). Even a normal drive has a danger to using it because in the event of a drive failure it's nigh on impossible to recover data. If you are going that route you must be diligent about backing up. All that said it's extremely expensive to do any RAID system with an SSD do those that do either know what they are getting into, have the money, or are using a system that is sufficient for their needs until something is done. Apple doesn't need to solve a problem that isn't widespread and there's nothing 'elegant' about doing so. I don't understand where that even come into play. The drive manufacturers are going to push that feature, not Microsoft or Apple. I've not once heard either say anything about the internal workings or effort to support SSDs much less RAIDing them.
Please, don't justify insulting a swath of people to further your opinion. You didn't insult me, because I do need more than the average user. It's the throwing up of the. 99% are just showing off idea that was the insult. But this time, you did insult me. I'll just mention that it's not a good idea to insult moderators of sites.
I was pointing out a very simple thing, that RAIDing SSD's eliminates trim support. No comment on that was required, except possibly a; really, I didn't know that!, as most people don't!
Comments
But, if you buy a drive with a Sandforce, or similar controller, trim support is much less of an issue.
This is the future.
TRIM should be implemented by the drive manufacturers, in hardware. It shouldn't be something the OS needs to worry about.
However, we can now exclusively report that Apple has also added the feature to the revised build on the latest, Thunderbolt-equipped MacBook Pros that shipped earlier this week.
While they appear to run the same Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.6 version, the newer build (10J3210 versus 10J567, the newest build of Mac OS X 10.6.6 available for download from Software Update by other Macs) includes and automatically activates TRIM Support, as noted in System Profiler.
I don't know about the "exclusive" part, a guy going by the name gapdev over on MR scooped you guys by about three days: http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost...&postcount=328
What I'm curious about is when this will be backported to the MBA, given that 100% of them are SSD-based.
This is the future.
TRIM should be implemented by the drive manufacturers, in hardware. It shouldn't be something the OS needs to worry about.
How is it possible though? To know what previously allocated blocks are no longer allocated (and therefore in need of trim) you need to consult the filesystem tables. But these tables are different for NTFS, HFS+, ext3. Do we bake knowledge of all popular filesystems in to SSD firmware? I just don't know how it's even possible without OS help.
I don't suppose someone could explain to me what TRIM is?
Thanks.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=what+is+TRIM
I recall reading something to the effect that current mac hardware does not support TRIM because of the mobo chipset, not the actual SSD. If this is true, I suppose we should not expect any TRIM support in models prior to sandy bridge.
Booting the same Macbook to Windows 7 shows TRIM working. Seen this on Intels and OWCs (which are Sandforce controllers).
I plan to wait and see what Apple supports in the way of TRIM on 3rd party SSDs. If they don't, I'll buy a Macbook with a BTO SSD. Anyone know if the new MacBooks are SATA 6.0 GB?
Ah, very good question sir!
There is a teeny problem with trim as it's now implemented. If you RAID two or more SSD's together, TRIM DOESN'T WORK!
How about that? Turns out that it can't understand two or more SSD's together. If Apple could solve that problem, their trim support would be more "elegant".
EDIT: TRIM isn't supported in RAID, only on a controller that supports RAID. My mistake.
Apple not supporting it on any third party drives if 10.7 supports native TRIM would be a powerfully stupid move, but it's not to be unexpected. If Widows 7 can support it running BootCamp on a third party drive in a MacBook there is zero reason OS X can't.
EDIT:
On the other hand, having more than one SSD in a RAID array is pretty pointless for even the hardcore user. Launching apps and games and such aren't that much faster for the cash outlay in a RAID array. A good SandForce drive or an Intel drive with a Marvell controller are plenty fast and you can get them in good capacities for relatively cheap. Anyone who puts SSDs in a RAID array are looking for bragging rights or have money to burn. A well made drive with good firmware and TRIM support is more than enough for 99% of PC and Mac users.
EDIT:
On the other hand, having more than one SSD in a RAID array is pretty pointless for even the hardcore user. Launching apps and games and such aren't that much faster for the cash outlay in a RAID array. A good SandForce drive or an Intel drive with a Marvell controller are plenty fast and you can get them in good capacities for relatively cheap. Anyone who puts SSDs in a RAID array are looking for bragging rights or have money to burn. A well made drive with good firmware and TRIM support is more than enough for 99% of PC and Mac users.
Just because there isn't a SSD/RAID use case that fits you doesn't mean one doesn't exist. Talk to the people shooting 4K video and/or video raw, for starters. Or location photographers who need to have everything on a duplicate set of drives as fast as possible. Or people doing live 64 track digital recording. The speed is only part of the equation, having redundancy in the case of a storage unit failure has a lot of value to people who only get one shot at a creative event.
Just because there isn't a SSD/RAID use case that fits you doesn't mean one doesn't exist. Talk to the people shooting 4K video and/or video raw, for starters. Or location photographers who need to have everything on a duplicate set of drives as fast as possible. Or people doing live 64 track digital recording. The speed is only part of the equation, having redundancy in the case of a storage unit failure has a lot of value to people who only get one shot at a creative event.
Notice I said it isn't a big deal for 99% of PC and Mac users. I understand there is a demand for RAIDed SSDs, just not on the average consumer market. People doing all of the things you mention do have money to spend on high end equipment and already have the tools and hardware necessary. I don't have to talk to anyone to know there are cases where it's needed and they have a solution that works for them. TRIM on an SSD RAID isn't in huge demand, otherwise it would have been solved already. You think drive manufacturers don't know this?
This is the future.
TRIM should be implemented by the drive manufacturers, in hardware. It shouldn't be something the OS needs to worry about.
This is called garbage collection, which is already implemented; TRIM makes that job much easier when the OS tells the drive what can be deleted.
TRIM isn't necessary to run all the time either.
I've been using an Intel X25 G2 in mine for nearly a year now, and even without trim, there is minimal slowdown with normal usage. Only if you're OCD and perform benchmarks every day you would notice smaller numbers under write speeds over time.
But I do hope they support third party drives, Apple's SSDs are way overpriced and often much slower.
Toshiba's SSDs run at 200 MB/s+, which is about the maximum a SATA 3GB/s SSD can do. For anything faster they'd need to upgrade to non-Toshiba SSDs, more specifically SSDs which support SATA III's 6GB/s Bandwidth. So far we've still been stuck with SATA II on Macs. Maybe this year finally.....
Apple's current SSD's are not overpriced, and they're pretty fast.
Uh, not really. SATA III SSDs can reach 400+MB/s Read/Write already, for example the Corsair Peformance 3 Series, while Apple's bound themselves to SATA II SSDs, which are bottlenecked into 200 MB/s performance.
Also, seeing as the Performance Degradation that has already happened cannot be 100% reverted even with future TRIM Support, they're technically a bit overpriced. If I bought a 2010 iMac on release, by now my SSD would be functioning at say around 70 MB/s due to the constant writing and deleting. Even if I got TRIM tomorrow with 10.6.7, I wouldn't get 100% of my Drive's performance back. For what we pay for them, for not even having TRIM, they're overpriced. That money is best spent on an OWC Drive which at least uses SandForce Controllers which have built-in "Intelligent Garbage Collection." Or some other Manufacturer's Drive with Garbage Collection or SandForce Controllers.
But, if you buy a drive with a Sandforce, or similar controller, trim support is much less of an issue.
True. Although, SandForce has been proven to not always manage to do as good as job as TRIM. SandForce + TRIM together are the ultimate force for stopping SSD Performance Degrading though, so summarized:
SandForce and TRIM are both excellent, but together they're better than either of the two apart.
What I'm curious about is when this will be backported to the MBA, given that 100% of them are SSD-based
Seeing as this is on the custom 10.6.6 Build in the MacBook Pro 2011s, all Macs should have the TRIM feature in 10.6.7, once the MacBook Pros and the rest of the Macs are merged into one "Universal Build."
TRIM should be implemented by the drive manufacturers, in hardware. It shouldn't be something the OS needs to worry about.
Implementing it on a Hardware Level means nothing. I can buy an OCZ Vertex 2 SSD which has TRIM, but it wouldn't matter, because OS X doesn't support TRIM. You need both the Drive and the OS to support TRIM for it to work. To have it only necessary on a Hardware Level to work, you'd need some sort of TRIM Controller, like the SandForce Controllers some SSDs come with which have their own "Intelligent Garbage Collection."
For Apple picked SSD's, or for any SSD?
I plan to wait and see what Apple supports in the way of TRIM on 3rd party SSDs. If they don't, I'll buy a Macbook with a BTO SSD. Anyone know if the new MacBooks are SATA 6.0 GB?
So far this TRIM support is bound to Apple-selected SSDs. Also, no. Apple is still on SATA II, 3GB/s Bandwidth. Maybe with this year's Desktop re-fresh we'll see them starting to move onto SATA III.
Also, for anyone that wants to RAID 0 SSDs: You can RAID 0 SandForce Controllers, so you should be able to RAID 0 SSD Drives with SandForce Controllers. OCZ's RevoDrive X2 has SandForce Controllers set to RAID 0.
Maybe they're mad that you're violating your NDA or using software that doesn't belong to you.
You do realize barely anyone is even aware that its under NDA? Besides, Apple isn't even bothering to contain the information. If they cared, they'd have slapped AppleInsider and all the other Sites with "Cease and Desist" orders by now for all the Lion Developer Preview Content they posted on.
EDIT: TRIM isn't supported in RAID, only on a controller that supports RAID. My mistake.
Apple not supporting it on any third party drives if 10.7 supports native TRIM would be a powerfully stupid move, but it's not to be unexpected. If Widows 7 can support it running BootCamp on a third party drive in a MacBook there is zero reason OS X can't.
EDIT:
On the other hand, having more than one SSD in a RAID array is pretty pointless for even the hardcore user. Launching apps and games and such aren't that much faster for the cash outlay in a RAID array. A good SandForce drive or an Intel drive with a Marvell controller are plenty fast and you can get them in good capacities for relatively cheap. Anyone who puts SSDs in a RAID array are looking for bragging rights or have money to burn. A well made drive with good firmware and TRIM support is more than enough for 99% of PC and Mac users.
I think it's smart of Apple to test it first with their own drives. There was a lot of problems with trim support when it first came out. It works differently on every OS. There's no real rush. I'd rather they got it right first.
I disagree about SSD RAIDS. If you have no real need for the speed, that's fine. But if you work with large photo files as I do, it makes a difference, as some friends of mine who run pro photo websites have found out. Saving and opening those large files is speeded up considerably. And you'd be surprised at just how much RAM you need when your files are getting into several hundred MBs with layers and duplicated images.
So speak for yourself, as you obviously don't need much in speed.
Notice I said it isn't a big deal for 99% of PC and Mac users. I understand there is a demand for RAIDed SSDs, just not on the average consumer market. People doing all of the things you mention do have money to spend on high end equipment and already have the tools and hardware necessary. I don't have to talk to anyone to know there are cases where it's needed and they have a solution that works for them. TRIM on an SSD RAID isn't in huge demand, otherwise it would have been solved already. You think drive manufacturers don't know this?
When I mentioned this, I wasn't talking about the average user. I just mentioned a problem with trim which would show up using RAID. You decided this wasn't something of importance.
You did insult people who do use RAIDs pretty strongly. It was pretty annoying. Go read your response to my first post, and you'll see for yourself.
Oooh... BTW OWC has 8GB of RAM for about $100+
For SSDs being the future of storage there really isn't enough reliable information on all this stuff.
For SSDs being the future of storage there really isn't enough reliable information on all this stuff.
Agreed. I like what I read about SSDs, but there's plenty of contradictory info. out there right now.
So can somebody tell me their opinion on the best SSD for Macs? OWC Mercury? OCZ Vertex 2? Something else? I'm looking in the 320GB range. Any feedback much appreciated. I'd go back and read Anandtech (which I have) but I'm afraid that's just overkill for simple answers for the best SSD for Macs at a reasonable price.
Oooh... BTW OWC has 8GB of RAM for about $100+
Right now, the OCZ drives have the worst reliability rating. It's actually worse than the rating for the average HDD. I don't know the reliability of the OWC, but I bought a 60GB one to play with, and it's fast, but I don't know how reliable it is as they don't sell enough to have stats for them anywhere I've looked.
Also, is it true you can "rejuvenate" your SSD by cloning it to another drive, reformatting the SSD then cloning the other drive back to the SSD in one go?
For SSDs being the future of storage there really isn't enough reliable information on all this stuff.
The definitive answer to that question right now is a resounding; Urm, well maybe, but, uh, maybe not.
When I mentioned this, I wasn't talking about the average user. I just mentioned a problem with trim which would show up using RAID. You decided this wasn't something of importance.
You did insult people who do use RAIDs pretty strongly. It was pretty annoying. Go read your response to my first post, and you'll see for yourself.
Insulted? Really? What are you, 10 years old? What I said is true. 99% of PC and Mac users have zero use for an SSD RAID array so it's only a problem to a small set of users. That's why it isn't offered on the consumer market, once it is a real problem it'll be supported. Right now the problems are GC, write amplification, TRIM support, speeds and price per GB. When SSD RAID arrays are commonplace and enough of a demand is present it'll be supported. Right now it's not a big deal. I understand that Apple needs to do internal testing on their OS to ensure reliability, I would expect nothing less. But I also expect Apple to set some ridiculous arbitrary requirement that you have to purchase a new Mac or one of their BTO drives to have it enabled. Which, I say again, would be powerfully stupid of them to do. Windows 7 can do it reliably with any 3rd party drive so I would expect Apple to do so as well.
EDIT: I reread your initial comment and it said nothing other than Apple could be more 'elegant' if they supported it. Nothing about who needed it or why. That's why I said it's almost pointless to worry about it because there aren't very many out there that need it right now. It's possible in Windows 7 but very dangerous. Doing RAID with SSDs is extremely risky. Sure it's fast but if one drive fails you have absolutely zero chance of recovering any data (dependent upon which RAID you use). Even a normal drive has a danger to using it because in the event of a drive failure it's nigh on impossible to recover data. If you are going that route you must be diligent about backing up. All that said it's extremely expensive to do any RAID system with an SSD do those that do either know what they are getting into, have the money, or are using a system that is sufficient for their needs until something is done. Apple doesn't need to solve a problem that isn't widespread and there's nothing 'elegant' about doing so. I don't understand where that even come into play. The drive manufacturers are going to push that feature, not Microsoft or Apple. I've not once heard either say anything about the internal workings or effort to support SSDs much less RAIDing them.
Insulted? Really? What are you, 10 years old? What I said is true. 99% of PC and Mac users have zero use for an SSD RAID array so it's only a problem to a small set of users. That's why it isn't offered on the consumer market, once it is a real problem it'll be supported. Right now the problems are GC, write amplification, TRIM support, speeds and price per GB. When SSD RAID arrays are commonplace and enough of a demand is present it'll be supported. Right now it's not a big deal. I understand that Apple needs to do internal testing on their OS to ensure reliability, I would expect nothing less. But I also expect Apple to set some ridiculous arbitrary requirement that you have to purchase a new Mac or one of their BTO drives to have it enabled. Which, I say again, would be powerfully stupid of them to do. Windows 7 can do it reliably with any 3rd party drive so I would expect Apple to do so as well.
EDIT: I reread your initial comment and it said nothing other than Apple could be more 'elegant' if they supported it. Nothing about who needed it or why. That's why I said it's almost pointless to worry about it because there aren't very many out there that need it right now. It's possible in Windows 7 but very dangerous. Doing RAID with SSDs is extremely risky. Sure it's fast but if one drive fails you have absolutely zero chance of recovering any data (dependent upon which RAID you use). Even a normal drive has a danger to using it because in the event of a drive failure it's nigh on impossible to recover data. If you are going that route you must be diligent about backing up. All that said it's extremely expensive to do any RAID system with an SSD do those that do either know what they are getting into, have the money, or are using a system that is sufficient for their needs until something is done. Apple doesn't need to solve a problem that isn't widespread and there's nothing 'elegant' about doing so. I don't understand where that even come into play. The drive manufacturers are going to push that feature, not Microsoft or Apple. I've not once heard either say anything about the internal workings or effort to support SSDs much less RAIDing them.
Please, don't justify insulting a swath of people to further your opinion. You didn't insult me, because I do need more than the average user. It's the throwing up of the. 99% are just showing off idea that was the insult. But this time, you did insult me. I'll just mention that it's not a good idea to insult moderators of sites.
I was pointing out a very simple thing, that RAIDing SSD's eliminates trim support. No comment on that was required, except possibly a; really, I didn't know that!, as most people don't!