Intel's 2nd Generation SSD are here.

hmurchisonhmurchison
Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
SSD prepare to go mainstream



The GREAT news is that the new Intel SSD controllers are Halogen free. It appears that Apple has avoided Intel SSD because they would hamper Apple's Green initiatives. Those problems are over and hopefully we'll see Intel SSD as options for Macs late this year or early next year.



80GB now is $225 and latency for writes has been reduced



Well that's about what I needed to see. I'm skipping a 320GB Scorpio Black and moving to a 80GB SSD. I really want that performance that only a SSD gives you. I'll move my mass storage to an externally connected FW800 drive.



Looking forward to seeing what the 320GB drive offers.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 6
    aizmovaizmov Posts: 989member
    HDD for life!



    But keeping an eye on SSD.

    For OS, apps and frequently used files you can put them on SSD, and use HDD for music, video and images.
  • Reply 2 of 6
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,425member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Aizmov View Post


    HDD for life!



    But keeping an eye on SSD.

    For OS, apps and frequently used files you can put them on SSD, and use HDD for music, video and images.



    +1



    I think the benefits of SSD will become even more pronounced when Quad Core Macs are the norm. The ultra low latency is a boon for multitasking.
  • Reply 3 of 6
    begbeg Posts: 53member
    Wow, thats very tempting the price on the 80 GB is great. If Intel would make the 160 GB the price of the 80 I'd probably buy it even though my MacBook already has a 128GB G.Skill Falcon SSD. ^_^



    Hell maybe I could go for the 80. I am only using around 38GB total on my Mac now.



    If only I had more expendable income...



    Just for the record the Falcon SSD is great a lot better than using a standard HDD. The intel one is just nicer.
  • Reply 4 of 6
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,425member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by beg View Post


    Wow, thats very tempting the price on the 80 GB is great. If Intel would make the 160 GB the price of the 80 I'd probably buy it even though my MacBook already has a 128GB G.Skill Falcon SSD. ^_^



    Hell maybe I could go for the 80. I am only using around 38GB total on my Mac now.



    If only I had more expendable income...



    Just for the record the Falcon SSD is great a lot better than using a standard HDD. The intel one is just nicer.



    We're probably about 18 months away from the 160GB being priced like the 80GB of today from Intel. Though I expect that we're less than a year from other vendors offering 160GB for less than $2 per Gig.
  • Reply 5 of 6
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,322moderator
    I'm going to hold out for $1 per GB but these drives look very competitive price-wise. They even doubled the random write performance, which was already much faster than the competition. Pity we will have to wait until Q4 for the 320GB version but maybe it will come in at a better price rate than we have now. At the same cost per GB, it will be over $800, which is 2-3x an equivalent 10k HDD. It has added benefits like the silence, weight, power consumption, heat and extra performance but if the 320GB hit the $600-700 mark, it would help push the mainstream pricing much quicker. I think these price cuts will already help a lot and force competitors to push their prices down given that they are selling inferior drives.



    I'm still a bit disappointed by Intel's 70MB/s sustained sequential write though. That's not really much faster than a 7200rpm drive. Pushing that above 100MB/s would be nice.



    I can certainly see a possibility in Apple bundling Intel's drives now as they charge $400 for a 128GB Samsung and $850 for a 256GB but I doubt they'll make the switch until Intel announce their 320GB model because otherwise they would top out at 160GB.
  • Reply 6 of 6
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,322moderator
    Benchmarks of the new drives are here and they use the test that slowed down the last one originally:



    http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid...e=expert&pid=5



    For sequential write, the OCZ Vertex looks to be a better buy; for server performance, the 2nd gen X-25M would be better.



    They are close in terms of price:



    160GB X-25M G2 = $440

    120GB OCZ Vertex = $360



    I'd feel more comfortable buying an Intel X-25M now that the slowdown issue was fixed but having twice the sequential write performance with the Vertex is nice when saving big files like VM save states.



    Having a tight competition between them will be good for driving SSDs forward.
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