Coding Horror: The State of Solid State Hard Drives
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Coding Horror: The State of Solid State Hard Drives
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Re: Coding Horror: The State of Solid State Hard Drives
#2When I when from 7.2k RPM to 10k RPM the performance increase was very noticeable.
It'll be the next upgrade I do to my laptop when it starts feeling a bit sluggish.
Re: Coding Horror: The State of Solid State Hard Drives
#3Linus' recommendation to buy the Intel X25-M still stands, because they have the fastest small-block random I/O performance.
Why would you buy an SSD only to do large sequential transfers with it? Just use a 1.5TB HDD to store your media files.
Re: Coding Horror: The State of Solid State Hard Drives
#4Timely - I bought an X-25 80GB on Sunday. Can't wait for it to arrive
Re: Coding Horror: The State of Solid State Hard Drives
#5Jeff Atwood is wrong on the internet... again! Tell me you're surprised. There are too many mistakes in the post to bother correcting. Just read the anandtech.com article if you want accurate info.
For accurate price info you should know that the second generation 160 GB X-25Ms originally listed for $450 but shot up in price due to excessive demand. It's only in stock at stores that price gouge and MIA everywhere else. Amazon, not price-gouging, has the 80 GB for $260 and the kit version of the 160 GB for $500.
Re: Coding Horror: The State of Solid State Hard Drives
#6Is there any estimated self-life comparison of SSD vs HDD for "average" computer usage? I wanted to migrate to SSD earlier this year - but I did some research the information wasn't very convincing. There seems to be a compromise in self-life and performance decrease (over time) for overall speed gain.
Re: Coding Horror: The State of Solid State Hard Drives
#7I'm using one of the 120GB Samsung SSDs that Apple ships stock in the MacBook Pro. It's definitely faster for things like program startup, etc. (many things start in less than one dock "bounce"), but otherwise not so clear.
Sure wish Apple would ship the Intel drives. Perhaps they can't get a low enough price on them.
Or, alternately, that Samsung would get with the program and do the kind of controller work required to make these things go faster. (Whatever Intel's doing--see the anandtech.com massive article.)
Or, perhaps both Apple and Samsung could get together and implement the critical TRIM command (see http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3631&p=8).
Re: Coding Horror: The State of Solid State Hard Drives
#8I picked up a 160GB X-25M G2 for $450 on Newegg the minute they were posted - I have it installed in an otherwise-maxed 17" non-unibody MacBook Pro.
It's an amazing and surprising difference, one that reminds me of my first dual-processor machine. It's not that your system feels faster when doing one thing (although it does), but that no matter how much you throw at it, it just doesn't slow down - a tremendous difference from the chug I experienced on the 250GB drive that was previously installed.
Easily the best $450 I've spent on an upgrade in a long, long time - far more effective than replacing my MBP would'be been.
Re: Coding Horror: The State of Solid State Hard Drives
#9I signed up for a newegg.com alert and immediately purchased a 160GB X-25M g2 for ~$450 minutes after they announced they had stock. I put it in a late 2006 mac mini (1.8GHz Intel Core 1 duo) and it has transformed the feel of the computer. There are far fewer pauses. Big apps launch instantly. Extremely satisfying.
The only problem is that it started reporting S.M.A.R.T. errors.
Re: Coding Horror: The State of Solid State Hard Drives
#10I'm using one of the 120GB Samsung SSDs that Apple ships stock in the MacBook Pro. It's definitely faster for things like program startup, etc. (many things start in less than one dock "bounce"), but otherwise not so clear. Sure wish Apple would ship the Intel drives. Perhaps they can't get a low enough price on them. Or, alternately, that Samsung would get with the program and do the kind of controller work required…
The first generation of the Intel SSD's contained halogens so Apple couldn't use them. The new ones are halogen-free, so it might be they show up in future revisions of the MBP.