What brand of SSD does Apple use?

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
I'm going to be purchasing a Macbook Pro in the next month. Does anyone know what brand of SSD Apple uses? How has the reliability been?



Thanks

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 18
    aquaticaquatic Posts: 5,602member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by hsvfdvcadjhdf View Post


    I'm going to be purchasing a Macbook Pro in the next month. Does anyone know what brand of SSD Apple uses? How has the reliability been?



    Thanks



    The 128 gig SSD price didn't actually look too bad and I almost got that BTO option. At the last second I just went with the standard 320 gig on the 15" and got an aftermarket 500 gig 7200 rpm drive for a $70 steal. Anyway I mainly held off on SSDs for one major reason: Apple does NOT support TRIM in MacOS X. Windows 7 does. This helps keep SSDs running fast. I'm surprised since they've been selling them BTO for over a year. I wonder if 10.6.4 will bring TRIM? Also, the price is still a tad high for me personally. I'll probably get an SSD to replace my HDD sometime next year.
  • Reply 2 of 18
    benroethigbenroethig Posts: 2,782member
    various probably.
  • Reply 3 of 18
    Does it void AppleCare to install a 3rd party SSD?
  • Reply 4 of 18
    hirohiro Posts: 2,663member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Aquatic View Post


    The 128 gig SSD price didn't actually look too bad and I almost got that BTO option. At the last second I just went with the standard 320 gig on the 15" and got an aftermarket 500 gig 7200 rpm drive for a $70 steal. Anyway I mainly held off on SSDs for one major reason: Apple does NOT support TRIM in MacOS X. Windows 7 does. This helps keep SSDs running fast. I'm surprised since they've been selling them BTO for over a year. I wonder if 10.6.4 will bring TRIM? Also, the price is still a tad high for me personally. I'll probably get an SSD to replace my HDD sometime next year.



    TRIM is becoming a non issue as the new controller firmware is doing garbage collection and this accomplishes the same thing. The difference is TRIM does it immediately on the block deletion at the OS's direction and GC will do it during a drive idle intervals and does not require any OS interaction to do so.



    Both methods end up with pristine blocks, and in nearly the same timeframe in human timescales. TRIM might have a slight advantage if you are running nearly full, but as that is an acknowledged bad idea to start with I wouldn't worry about it.
  • Reply 5 of 18
    ivan.rnn01ivan.rnn01 Posts: 1,822member
    Samsung. The crappiest make out there ever. Fortunately, OCZ, Intel and other decent brands appear to install smoothly, without any known issues.
  • Reply 6 of 18
    pmzpmz Posts: 3,433member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by hsvfdvcadjhdf View Post


    I'm going to be purchasing a Macbook Pro in the next month. Does anyone know what brand of SSD Apple uses? How has the reliability been?



    Thanks



    I would not buy a new MacBook Pro without equiping at least the cheapest SSD. The difference in performance and longevity cannot be matched, and you cannot improve your Mac in any single better manner, than to pony up the extra $200 for the 128 gb SSD. My best friend did so back in November and still could not be happier. Its dead silent, cool as cucumber, and FAASST.



    The better question is WTF does Apple use for regular HDDs, since they fall apart regularly. Apple built-in HDD's have a 3 year life, maximum, before you're going to be performing some disk utility magic to bring it back. It's sad that Apple is still ruining their products with terrible HDDs, and cannot just bite the bullet on SSD prices and make them standards.





    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Aquatic View Post


    The 128 gig SSD price didn't actually look too bad and I almost got that BTO option. At the last second I just went with the standard 320 gig on the 15" and got an aftermarket 500 gig 7200 rpm drive for a $70 steal.



    This is where your post could stop, since you are offering nothing of help to the specific question.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by hsvfdvcadjhdf View Post


    Does it void AppleCare to install a 3rd party SSD?



    Of course it does. Most Apple Genius's will try to tell you that third party RAM does too.



    These are not meant to be taken apart, so buying them with that intention is a mistake from the start.
  • Reply 7 of 18
    aquaticaquatic Posts: 5,602member
    Another useful question is: what is the best way to keep SSDs running fast on OS X? It seems most drive manufacturer utilities run in Windows or BIOS or whatnot. What drives have "garbage collection" and is it as good? Does Intel X-25 G2 have it? I assume all Intel and OCZ have good GC in firmware. So no TRIM really isn't a big deal? If so maybe I'll scoop a good Intel G2 deal sometime later this year if the stock of 160 gigs stays around and drops in price a hundred bucks by fall or winter '10. I read about "stuttering" on first-gen SSDs when they fill up. I guess with firmware this isn't an issue anymore? I mainly have read that Intel G2 and OCZ are the gold standards. I'll probably go Intel myself for the name/quality/support/performance.
  • Reply 8 of 18
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,309moderator
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by pmz View Post


    Of course it does. Most Apple Genius's will try to tell you that third party RAM does too.



    These are not meant to be taken apart, so buying them with that intention is a mistake from the start.



    The manuals say quite clearly that your warranty is void if you break something while upgrading and they don't cover 3rd party products, those are covered by the manufacturer's own warranty.



    So, it's perfectly ok to buy 3rd party RAM and a 3rd party SSD. If something happens with the machine, you should switch it back to the original drive anyway in case they swap it out on repair so they won't know anyway.



    As mentioned above, Apple use Samsung SSDs and you should go for either OCZ or Intel x-25M, which are better value and higher performance drives.
  • Reply 9 of 18
    1337_5l4xx0r1337_5l4xx0r Posts: 1,558member
    Hiro, can you post some links to back that up?
  • Reply 10 of 18
    kaeligkaelig Posts: 3member
    Has anyone received his ssd mbp ?



    I'm looking forward to buy one, but before I need to know what model is inside the beast
  • Reply 11 of 18
    hirohiro Posts: 2,663member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by 1337_5L4Xx0R View Post


    Hiro, can you post some links to back that up?



    OCZ, Crucial and SuperTalent all use Indilinx firmware, just released under their own names after lawyer induced QA testing. The 1916 (Jan 2010) version enables full GC.



    engadget



    http://www.ocztechnology.com/aboutocz/news/151 (1819 firmware)
  • Reply 12 of 18
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by hsvfdvcadjhdf View Post


    Does it void AppleCare to install a 3rd party SSD?



    Absolutely not.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ivan.rnn01 View Post


    Samsung. The crappiest make out there ever. Fortunately, OCZ, Intel and other decent brands appear to install smoothly, without any known issues.



    Samsungs' SSDs are designed for stability and reliability at the expense of speed. I wouldn't call them crappy, they're just... slow. And the reliability benefit might matter in a server environment, but not to any normal person using it in their personal computer.



    I recommend Intel drives. I have an 80GB X-25M and it's great.
  • Reply 13 of 18
    kaeligkaelig Posts: 3member
    Any news about the ssd model/brand apple is using in its new mbp ?
  • Reply 14 of 18
    g-newsg-news Posts: 1,107member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Kaelig View Post


    Any news about the ssd model/brand apple is using in its new mbp ?



    Judging by the speed test results from barefeats.com, I doubt it's any of the above mentioned brands (OCZ, Crucial, Supertalent). The 128 and 256GB flavors are most likely some major manufacturer's products, Samsung or Toshiba, I'd guess. The 512GB isn't even available from every brand, so I'm guessing they chose the cheapest of them all. Here in Switzerland that'd be a Kingston SSD V+ by far, but I have my doubts Apple is using them as a supplier. Maybe it's something only available to the OEM market.
  • Reply 15 of 18
    pmzpmz Posts: 3,433member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Marvin View Post


    The manuals say quite clearly that your warranty is void if you break something while upgrading and they don't cover 3rd party products, those are covered by the manufacturer's own warranty.



    So, it's perfectly ok to buy 3rd party RAM and a 3rd party SSD. If something happens with the machine, you should switch it back to the original drive anyway in case they swap it out on repair so they won't know anyway.



    And in the real world, it translates to, any issue with your machine whatsoever, will be attributed to the 3rd party component, if Apple can get away with it.



    It doesn't work with me (or you), someone familiar with the details of their warranty. It would work on the majority of people who 1) are not good at confrontations, and 2) aren't really sure what that "thing" is that their friend put in to "make it faster/better"
  • Reply 16 of 18
    @G-News: Thanks a lot, this link has been very helpful.
  • Reply 17 of 18
    elev8delev8d Posts: 1member
    Looks like this SSD is the way to go maybe over the ones apple preinstalls. Although, apple is now offering a 500 GB SSD for 1500 and this is a 400 GB SSD for 1400



    http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/inter..._SSD_Sandforce
  • Reply 18 of 18
    jedc53jedc53 Posts: 4member
    You don't pay Apple's price for a SSD especially not if you want to know what drive you'll be getting.I'm furiously trying to find out which SSD they use.Apple is now offering a 128Gb SSD for 1000 and this is a 400 GB SSD for 1400.
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