No, my time isn't that valuable.
Poll: Are you using SSDs?
101–110 of 153 posts
Re: Poll: Are you using SSDs?
#102I'm not using one in a production web environment, but my Macbook Pro has one in it now and it's phenomenal. Photoshop boots up in quite literally 3 seconds or less (cold startup) and every other action imaginable is noticeably quicker. I used to feel like browsing files in the Finder was slower than it was for me on my old Windows XP machines but eventually I got used to it. I use keyboard navigation as well, so it…
Very interesting. Do you notice any slow down over time? I think I'm right in saying that OSX doesn't implement the trim command or something like that?
Re: Poll: Are you using SSDs?
#103I've had one in my MBP for a year and it is the best "bang for buck" I have ever spent on a computer component.
My wife used my computer the other day, and she was shocked at the performance, enough to comment about it. She doesn't normally talk about computers or relative performance in things. Her computer is a 2008 MBP with a 7200RPM drive and lots of RAM - not far from my machine, except for the SSD.
Re: Poll: Are you using SSDs?
#104Been using an SSD in my Macbook Pro for the last year ... easily the best computer upgrade I've made in my lifetime (no kidding) ... Photoshop and Netbeans open up in 5-9 seconds, booting into OS X takes less than 30-40 seconds and applications generally fire up in the blink of an eye. One word of caution though, when the SSD runs out of free blocks and has to re-use blocks marked as deleted, the performance hit can…
If you have an SSD based on Intel firmware, you can use Intel's TRIM utility on Windows XP as well. This is what I'm using on my gaming PC which hasn't been upgraded in ages, except for the addition of the SSD I installed.
Re: Poll: Are you using SSDs?
#105I'm not using one in a production web environment, but my Macbook Pro has one in it now and it's phenomenal. Photoshop boots up in quite literally 3 seconds or less (cold startup) and every other action imaginable is noticeably quicker. I used to feel like browsing files in the Finder was slower than it was for me on my old Windows XP machines but eventually I got used to it. I use keyboard navigation as well, so it…
My SSD RAID 0 setup is still chugging along like a beast! Now I'm just curious how much faster it would be if I swapped the X25-M's out for dual Crucial C300's...
As I noted in that article though - SSD RAID 0 on a Mac is a danger zone because there's no TRIM. My first single, non-raid SSD (X25-M G1) died after 9 months of typical development usage. So I backup like a banshee. The speed boost is worth the risk though.
Re: Poll: Are you using SSDs?
#106I'm using SSDs in a handful of QA and staging VM servers. As a consequence, VMs are SCREAMING FAST running on SSD. As a further consequence, I have had 4/6 SSD drives fail. Use RAID. Don't buy A-DATA SSDs. (using ext4, Linux 2.6.35)
Re: Poll: Are you using SSDs?
#107Best. Upgrade. Ever.
I switched to a 120GB OWC Mercury Pro SSD in my MacBook Pro.
The upgrade is impressive enough that I understand why some people end up ditching the optical drive entirely in their MacBook Pros.
I honestly would not be surprised if we don't see the MacBook Pros lose the optical drive entirely in the next year or two. Steve is notorious for dumping dead technologies when the time is right and the CD/DVD is one of those. I haven't put a CD in my laptop since I bought it and the only time I ever use a DVD is to boot into the startup disk or watch a movie.
The best decision that Apple could make at this point is to offer a MacBook Pro with either two SSDs, possibly in a RAID 1 configuration. Speed and security of data is now more valuable to the average consumer than the convenience of being able to read DVDs and CDs.
The alternative would be to sell MacPros with one 60-120GB SSD drive to boot off and run applications from and a conventional HDD with 320GB+ to store stuff like photos, video and music on.
If you are debating an upgrade to SSD, don't. Just buy one already.
Re: Poll: Are you using SSDs?
#108If you run SSDs on a Mac, I highly recommend OWC's Mercury Pro series: http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/internal_storage/Mercury_Extr...
Since OS X lacks TRIM support (arggh!), normal SSDs tend to degrade in performance over time. The OWC's are designed with a microcontroller to do the equivalent of TRIM behind the scenes, and they also happen to be fast as hell. I upgraded from a year-old 64g Kingston to a 120g OWC, and the speed boost was just as noticable as the original move from a spinny drive to SSD. (Down to a 22 second boot time on 3yo hardware!)
Re: Poll: Are you using SSDs?
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
It would be stunning for SSDs to take off with exponential speed improvements. Sure, I expect them to get faster and faster, but I have no doubt that there's no Moore's Law at work in this case. I stand by my original comment.
It has nothing to do with speed, it has to do with transistor counts, which should increase disk size or lower cost.
I totally agree. Moore's Law is completely inapplicable when it comes to disk performance.
Re: Poll: Are you using SSDs?
#110I have a SSD on my Macbook Pro. Totally worth it. Definitely snappier in booting up, starting up apps, and any disk i/o-intensive operations. It's certainly noticeable. Also, you don't need to sweat the higher price per byte, because more and more of my files (and I would assume yours?) are on the cloud every day anyways, so 256GB or even 128GB is fine for me these days.
There are several comments about people putting them in MBPs, but I guess I'll ask you... since OS X doesn't support TRIM have you seen any degradation in performance? I've been on the fence for a while due to the cost and OS X being behind the times.
I also haven't had any problems (though only after 3 months). I am both aware and a little nervous about the issue, though, so I've run a few benchmarks, and so far, so good. I'll be sure to tell HN if this changes.