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SSD for MBP 6,2 (mid-2010) with SATA2

J

jo.schua

Junior Member
Hi there !

I am searching for a decently priced SSD to run alongside my current 500gb 7200rpm HDD in my Macbook Pro 15" (8,2) i5, 8gb ram.
I think for me 120-160 GB will suffice since I#ll be using my HDD for music/films etc.

I'm using a lot of Lightroom and Photoshop an every once in a while I'm doing some projects in Premier. I think i would store the most recent RAW fotos on my ssd too to get better access.

I know that my MBP only has SATA2 but nowadays i don't see a lot of price advantage in buying a (overall possibly slower) Sata2 drive (quite the contrary).
I've benn reading a little over technical stuff like Triming and Garbage collection an what is supported or not by Mac OS but things are changing so quickly that you cant even rely on articles that are more than half a year old.

I took a look at various options for me:

Samsung 830 (128GB), Sata3, MCX controller 127€

INTEL 320 Series SSD 120GB , Sata2, 180€
(more expensive, slower but more reliable ?)

OCZ Agility3 2,5" SSD 120 GB 90€

I know that there's a lot more...I would love some suggestions and thoughts on the matter. I would like to stay way under 200€ on the price...one optibay kit (yet to decide which) I#ll also have to buy!

Thanks for the help!
Jo.schua
 
thanks for the quick answer. I will take a further look here...what about the issue of using a Sata3 drive on a sata2 interface ? Heard that some drives handle this better than others.

Also...I'm not too keen on having to do firmwareupdates...I only have my Macbook ond nothing else...so stability should be satisfactory with the firmware that it ships with.

Any thoughts on a Intel 330 series ?
 
Uh, I'm not sure a firmware update is even needed with the 830, but not putting the latest mature firmware on a newly bought SSD is unwise. (Let others be the guinea pigs in case of unproven firmware versions though.)

Intel 330 is SandForce with a rewritten Intel firmware. The Intel firmware is said to have worked out the kinks, but why take any chances? SandForce's strength is compressible data. I wouldn't pay any extra for the Intel 330 anyway.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/590?vs=533
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/593?vs=533
 
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ShintaiDK said:
Crucial M4 or Samsung 830.
Click to expand...
The Crucial m4 requires a firmware update to address the ~5kh bug, so keep that in mind. I have one (in a third computer) and it was very easy to update (just had to reboot, but otoh it was a Windows 7 machine).
 
but it seems that the samsung performs better in benchmarks and doesnt need to be firmware updated....looks like the better candidate for me...

Anyone already using the samsung in an sata2 mac ?
 
What about the Plextor M3 Series PX-128M3? Fast, reliable drive that comes with a five year warranty.
 
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jo.schua said:
thanks for the heads up.... could I expect them to have these firmware fixes already installed on a drive sold half a year later ?
Click to expand...

That will depend on our long the seller is sitting on their stock.

Firmware updates are pretty easy to do so you shouldn't really have a problem just updating the drive when you buy it. Tho i'm not sure of the process of doing it on a mac so you may want to pop it into a friends pc update the firmware then take it to the mac.
 
jo.schua said:
thanks for the heads up.... could I expect them to have these firmware fixes already installed on a drive sold half a year later ?
Click to expand...
I just got my 830 drives today and when I tried to update them it said they already had the latest firmware. 🙂

Will install Windows 7 now.
 
good to know 🙂 will depend on the reseller though think...you will probably use the drive on an sata3 interface...would be good to know how it performs with sata2...
 
Everything's working great so far, I'm happy to finally get an SSD from this computer (it used to be so sluggish!). It's a GA-EP45-UD3R based system (P45 with E8400) so it only has SATA 2 (3Gb/s), but here are my AS SSD results (default settings), I thought 4K Read seemed a little low, but IDK:

Code: 
AS SSD Benchmark 1.6.4237.30508
------------------------------
Name: SAMSUNG SSD 830 Series ATA Device
Firmware: CXM03B1Q
Controller: msahci
Offset: 103424 K - OK
Size: 119,24 GB
Date: 2012-07-13 03:37:12
------------------------------
Sequential:
------------------------------
Read: 255,23 MB/s
Write: 221,51 MB/s
------------------------------
4K:
------------------------------
Read: 19,82 MB/s
Write: 52,02 MB/s
------------------------------
4K-64Threads:
------------------------------
Read: 519,88 MB/s
Write: 100,39 MB/s
------------------------------
Access Times:
------------------------------
Read: 0,102 ms
Write: 0,065 ms
------------------------------
Score:
------------------------------
Read: 565
Write: 175
Total: 1031
------------------------------

Windows Experience Index (WEI) is 7.7 out of 7.9 though. 🙂

edit: And it feels faaast in a way it never did! 😀
 
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Until Intel starts making a SATA 6gig controller is seems Samsung & Plextor are the two big reliable brands followed by Crucial.
 
Uh, wait, how did I end up getting 4K-64Threads: Read: 519,88 MB/s on a SATA 3Gb/s port? That makes no sense, it should be about half that. Is Windows 7 caching somehow inflating the score (thus ruining the purpose of the benchmark)?
 
Go large if your storing RAW photos. Those files are very large. I store on a RAID setup and also use another SSD for cache file disk editing. (See sig below)
 
Any ideas on how this happened on a SATA 2 / SATA 3Gb/s controller (ICH9R in AHCI mode)?
MrMuppet said:
------------------------------
4K-64Threads:
------------------------------
Read: 519,88 MB/s
Write: 100,39 MB/s
------------------------------
Click to expand...
 
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