Need your Advice - SSD Vs. Hard Disc Drive

lechon

Hey Guys,

I am in much need of you insight and experience. I am about to Purchase a Macbok Pro 17 with everything on it. I am torn on the decision of choosing between a SSD and a Hard Disc Drive. I will be using my system for video edits while on the road, and I was looking to get a SSD instead of a Hard disk when ordering my Mac. The SSD will be 512GB. After reading many reports about the failure rates on the SSDs, it looks like they are no different that a regular drive when it comes to failure rate. I am also concern that there might not be a utility software used for data recovery when it comes to these SSD units and some have commented that when a SSD unit "crashes" it does not crash like a regular Hard Drive where you might have a chance of recovery with a utility program, on a SSD a crash means a total wipe out, is that true?

In any case any of your insights, experience and knowledge would be greatly appreciated.



Lechon

Marvin

Quote:

Originally Posted by lechon


I am about to Purchase a Macbok Pro 17 with everything on it.

CES is just over a week away with new processors and the MBP line is due a refresh any time now. The hardware AVC encoder/decoder will be worth holding out for:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DopdfPnWlFA



If Apple supports this, it would mean being able to encode an H.264 sample movie 2-3x faster than normal with minimal CPU usage so you can keep using the machine.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lechon


I am also concern that there might not be a utility software used for data recovery when it comes to these SSD units and some have commented that when a SSD unit "crashes" it does not crash like a regular Hard Drive where you might have a chance of recovery with a utility program, on a SSD a crash means a total wipe out, is that true?

With things like TRIM, custom controllers and the way NAND memory works, your data will not be as recoverable as a hard drive. You'd have to send the drive back to the manufacturer at huge expense. But how likely would you do a similar recovery with a HDD if the read/write head broke after accidentally knocking the laptop against something?



You'd have to send it to a special facility for them to remount your drive platters in a contained environment and it will be expensive:



http://www.geek.com/articles/gadgets...rive-20080512/



$1900 in the above case.



You'd be cheaper buying 10 external HDDs and cloning daily backups to all of them.



This is another reason to wait for the update because the new MBP may have Light Peak and/or USB 3, which are way faster than anything we've had now. Of course, they may drop FW 800.



I'd also hold out for an SSD refresh. They are moving to 25nm NAND, which should hopefully bring the cost down a bit - for the manufacturers, it should allow nearly double the capacity at the same price. A UK site lists one of the Vertex series as 25nm but I don't think it is:



http://overclockers.co.uk/showproduc...odid=HD-070-OC



The same model has been on Newegg for months:



http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...ZSSD2-2VTX200G



I think we'll hear more about SSD at CES too though on Jan 6th.

lechon

This information helps on my decision process.



Lechon

bdblack

Hard disk? SSD?



How about both?



yank the optical drive and shove in an aftermarket SSD with an adapter. For data integrity, you can back up everything to your main hard disk with time machine or whatever... or yank the optical drive and install a second high performance hard disk. Use an external firewire powered optical drive if you need one. They are very portable...

smax

Hard drives/SSDs are user replaceable now. Get a hard drive with your computer, wait a few months and get a new SSD. You'll save money by not using the Apple factory upgrade in the first place, you can get a newer, better performing drive, and you can look around at reviews and be picky about what you get.