[ppinhao]

Hello,

I'm going to upgrade my 2011 13" macbook pro drive with a new ssd but I don't know which drive to buy.

I'm leaning towards the ocz vertex 3 240gb (not max iops because it's much more expensive here) or the ocz octane 256gb.

I'm open to suggestions on other brands.

My budget is around 350€ which one should I buy?

This post has been edited by ppinhao: 01 February 2012 - 08:19 PM

[Brian]

Really depends on what you're after. Both drives are good, the V3 is one of the fastest around, the Octane is excellent when it comes to power consumption. List out the pricing on the Samsung 830 and Crucial m4 also where you are. Let's see how they all line up.

[ppinhao]

Brian, on 02 February 2012 - 12:12 PM, said:

Really depends on what you're after. Both drives are good, the V3 is one of the fastest around, the Octane is excellent when it comes to power consumption. List out the pricing on the Samsung 830 and Crucial m4 also where you are. Let's see how they all line up.

The best prices I found was

Vertex 3 240gb - 347€
Octane 256gb - 330€
samsung 830 - 347€
crucial m4 - 340€

I'm going to use the drive exclusively on OS X without TRIM and from what I read the SF base drives do a good job with garbage collection is that anything to worry in the samsung or crucial?

I get the feeling that the Octane is a good bet because it's ocz's controller and firmware so any problems should be quickly fixed and the drive's performance should improve over time.
In theory the vertex 3 should be one of the most stable because SF controller is used in almost every brand so lot's of users installing it and testing and it's been out for a year or so now.

Choosing a SSD is not easy right now, almost every drive seems to have some kind of issue or luck factor lol

This post has been edited by ppinhao: 02 February 2012 - 12:51 PM

[Kdawgca]

As for Trim, check out the below link.

How To: Enable TRIM with Non-Apple SSD

As for SSDs, all I can add is that the M4 is a pretty popular drive. Yes, most SSDs have issues at one point or another, but remember that most people would be fine with any SSD on the list(assuming there are no immediate compatibility problems). Just make sure to have a good backup set up and use the latest firmware.

[Brian]

With that pricing scheme I'd go Vertex 3 if you want raw performance or the Samsung 830 if you're more concerned about long term reliability and stability. Either way you win.

[ppinhao]

Brian, on 02 February 2012 - 06:13 PM, said:

With that pricing scheme I'd go Vertex 3 if you want raw performance or the Samsung 830 if you're more concerned about long term reliability and stability. Either way you win.

So I went with the Vertex 3 it's arriving on Monday.
I'm kind of worried, I saw that early 2011 mb pro that have the 6/3 port configuration (like mine) seem to be more prone to have problems.

I will report back once I have the drive installed.

Thanks.

[Brian]

Good luck and yes, please let us know how it goes.

[ppinhao]

So I only wen't to pick up the drive today

I did a fresh lion install, then used migration assistant to move my files over to the ssd
Everything went fine and it's fast

Here is my results from Xbench which I know is not the best benchmark software to use but I had it installed

Disk Test 471.81
Sequential 276.59
Uncached Write 596.19 366.05 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 483.60 273.62 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 109.85 32.15 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 619.88 311.55 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 1603.93
Uncached Write 1949.81 206.41 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 955.20 305.80 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 2776.74 19.68 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 1742.23 323.28 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Thanks for helping

[Brian]

Great, glad it worked out so well for you!