Mac Pro + SSD = Awesome!

[KidCactus]

I've just ripped out my system HDD from my Mac Pro, and replaced it with a OVZ Apex SSD (http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/flash_drives/ocz_apex_series_sata_ii_2_5-ssd) (120 GB) inside an Icy Dock (http://www.icydock.com/product/mb882sp-1s-1.html). And it kicks ass!

Not only is it dead silent (duh!), it's damn fast! It has shaved off almost 30 seconds of the startup time of the system, and most applications start more or less immediately.

My old HDD (Seagate Barracuda 250 GB 7200 rpm):

Sequential
Uncached Write 41.69 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 39.92 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 25.73 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 40.81 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random
Uncached Write 0.99 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 22.02 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 0.61 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 19.81 MB/sec [256K blocks]

The new SSD (OCZ Apex 120 GB):

Sequential
Uncached Write 169.72 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 148.61 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 17.61 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 226.19 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random
Uncached Write 1.90 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 45.21 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 14.03 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 187.35 MB/sec [256K blocks]

:cool:

[Xerxes]

It would be totally sweet if the OS could be put on these and everything else was pure storage. I'm referring to my laptop of course.

[bapenguin]

I"m really anxious to see where this tech is a year from now. This stuff is improving at a ridiculous rate.

If they can get these things at 500GB for around $300 or $400 I'm sold.

[Nura]

Also, just incase anyone hasn't seen it.

96dWOEa4Djs

[Xerxes]

I"m really anxious to see where this tech is a year from now. This stuff is improving at a ridiculous rate.

If they can get these things at 500GB for around $300 or $400 I'm sold.

That'll be the day. It's not even $1 a gig yet. I'd probably buy a even more kick ass laptop for that day.

[Wackman3000]

Amazing little video there Nura. I can't wait for these bad boys to drop in price.

[bapenguin]

That'll be the day. It's not even $1 a gig yet. I'd probably buy a even more kick ass laptop for that day.

Yeah, but the stuff has dropped in price a tremendous rate. Since it seems to be becoming more mass market, they might finally get cheaper to produce.

[total]

Yeah, but the stuff has dropped in price a tremendous rate. Since it seems to be becoming more mass market, they might finally get cheaper to produce.

I read an article not too long ago by someone from...Samsung I think saying that this year SSDs should reach hard drives price points. You might not get as large of a drive, but it will still be decently sized. I'll see if I can dig that up.

[jeffbax]

That video pisses me off. I probably wait about a 1-2 minutes to open Visual Studio alone at work. I'll definitely be eyeing a Mac Pro if my MacBook Pro ever starts to wear thin (but its almost difficult for hardware to be 'too slow anymore' these days) SSDs are the future.

[cp#]

I still need to read the Anandtech article. I'm a bit skeptical, maybe a year or two

[BabyJesus]

I still need to read the Anandtech article. I'm a bit skeptical, maybe a year or two

Yeah I think its going to be a bit before they come down to regular HD prices.

I am more concerned with the finite write limitations of the SSD's, If you use the drive heavily I am sure you will hit the total amount of writes relatively quickly, especially when you have an OS like windows bashing on the disk all of the time.

[Bingley Joe]

Very cool -- can't wait to get my hands on one of these someday

[fast1]

Me too, I hope someday

[Jackel]

I might look into one of these for my desktop, then I can leave my other drives for media only.

[Psykoboy2]

This thread doesn't help me in building my macbook pro...especially since they now offer SSD's

[KidCactus]

This thread doesn't help me in building my macbook pro...especially since they now offer SSD's
Trust me, it's worth it. I'm still amazed how fast everything is now. Today I powered off my Mac Pro, crawled under my desk and opened it to have a look at a thing. Then I reconnected the power, put back the side of it and hit the power button. Then I crawled back and stood up, and by then it had finished booting to the desktop. :D