[besson3c]

I'm toying with the idea of buying a tower, installing 6 drives, installing OpenIndiana, setting up a NAS to provide long term storage for the house, and offloading some of the crap on my laptop to the NAS so that I can replace the drive with an SSD. I would access the files on the NAS via NFS version 3 or 4 preferably (I don't know if OS X supports NFS4 and how complex UID mapping would get), or else Netatalk/AFP if I had to.

I intend to research and think about the OpenIndiana thing, but on the Mac side how many of you have gone all NAS so that you can use a laptop with a relatively low capacity SSD as your primary machine? How many of you have messed around with NFS? With NFS or whatever you use with your NAS do you get into automounting volumes and stuff? Is this a complete PITA when you are away from home? Would you recommend a setup like what I'm contemplating?

[brassplayersrock²]

yes. I like this idea.

edit:
as for the away from home part,http://www.google.com/search?client=...1&bih=1106

[Athens]

I switched to a 64GB SSD in my desktop almost a year ago and was absolutely worth it. Most of my stuff is stored on a regular 2TB HD. Im thinking of changing my setup soon.

1 more 64GB SSD as a Applications Drive (over half my apps are installed on my 2TB due to space issues.

I am also thinking about adding in 24GB of ram.

8GB or ram as my system ram. 8 GB of ram setup as a Ram drive for virtual memory. 8GB of ram as another ram drive as a scratch disk for Adobe and other crap plus a cache for internet. I really only need 4GB for that but the way I have to populate the DIMMs I am stuck with 24GB of ram. With virtual memory operating out of ram and scratch disks operating out of ram, I should get the most speed I can out of my system.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by brassplayersrock² 

yes. I like this idea.

edit:
as for the away from home part,access your harddrive from anywhere - Google Search

There are a ton of ways I can access my files while away from home, I can facilitate this, I'm not worried about this... I'm just slightly concerned about:

- being annoyed by automounting stuff failing, or shares that attempt to reconnect causing the Finder to wig out
- getting annoyed at the performance (I guess the way to prevent this is to make sure I have everything I need with me, so this may mostly be a change of habit sort of thing)

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

- getting annoyed at the performance (I guess the way to prevent this is to make sure I have everything I need with me, so this may mostly be a change of habit sort of thing)

As far as this point goes I also realize that I can bring along a USB drive with stuff too.

My primary concern is VM images, cause I do a lot of work with VMs.

[Eug]

I have a 96 GB SSD in my 4 GB C2D MacBook Pro, and for general OS usage, including boot up, app launching, and just general navigation around OS X, it feels faster than my 12 iMac 2.93 GHz i7, and that machine is already plenty fast.

For network backup, I just bought two 2 TB drives and run them in a NAS in RAID 1, with some of it allocated to Time Machine. I also have an Airport Extreme with external hard drive backing up via Time Machine for my laptops.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

With NFS or whatever you use with your NAS do you get into automounting volumes and stuff? Is this a complete PITA when you are away from home?

It's probably not too relevant to your situation, but automount with my DroboFS works like a charm, even on a MBP that's sometime away from home.

Drobo has its own little app running in the background. If the DroboFS NAS is on the same network, the shares will get auto mounted in the background. No fussing if the DroboFS can't be reached.

-t

[subego]

SSD FTW. Look how I laugh at your puny caps filter.

[Paco500]

The reality is that OS X has always been a bit flakey on accessing network shares, but things have gotten better recently. Lion supports NFS 4 and Apple had finally created a SMB stack that is not just a glitchy port of SAMBA.

AFP is still probably the best way to go if you can easily support it on the server, but if don't want the headache, try NFS.

Lion and NFS 4 support are new to Apple, why would you be looking at 4 vs. 3?

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Paco500 

The reality is that OS X has always been a bit flakey on accessing network shares, but things have gotten better recently. Lion supports NFS 4 and Apple had finally created a SMB stack that is not just a glitchy port of SAMBA.

AFP is still probably the best way to go if you can easily support it on the server, but if don't want the headache, try NFS.

Lion and NFS 4 support are new to Apple, why would you be looking at 4 vs. 3?

Performance is said to be a little better in NFS4 vs. 3, but the downside is that additional technology is needed to map UIDs between the server and client, whereas in NFS3 they were just taken at face value and matched up with local account info. I need to learn more about this. If using 4 will be a complete PITA, using 3 is no big deal...

I can use AFP/Netatalk if need be, but ZFS supports NFS and iSCSI natively, so I'd just have to work a little more to get this to work.

I need to decide on whether I want my NAS to be a Linux based server running OpenIndiana as a guest VM presented physical disks, or OpenIndiana and just try to live in this world. The downside for the short term is that I'd have some performance degradation as traffic is forced through the emulated SATA controller provided by the VM hypervisor, but apparently Nexenta is working on a VirtIO driver to provide para-virtualization for OpenIndiana to rectify this problem, so this will only be a temporary shortcoming. I'm leaning towards doing things this way.

My experience with the Finder and network shares definitely lines up with yours. I'm wondering though, in your experience has it mattered whether you were using AFP/SMB/NFS/SSHfs/anything else, or has it sucked across the board? I don't need the best possible performance, I just don't want to be annoyed by the Finder being retarded and wigging out, so I'm asking primarily about reliability and whether there are glitches and crap.

Thanks for all of your feedback guys! I don't think my older Macbook Pro will support SATA III, so I'm looking at this drive:

Newegg.com - OCZ Vertex 2 OCZSSD2-2VTXE60G 2.5" 60GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

I haven't done a whole lot of comparison and research, but these drives seem to be popular and highly regarded. I need to figure out whether or not I can really make do with 60 gig

[P]

I have the 120 gig version of that. I had problems with it to begin with and eventually had to RMA the drive. OCZ was nice enough about the RMA, but it was annoying. Their lack of a firmware update solution for Macs also makes me wary of them - firmware updates are a fact of life for SSDs, and not being able to them is a big negative.

Related to this...Does anyone know of a good, small NAS that can fit a DVD in it for network access? I'd rather not build a big tower, but I could fit a NAS in a closet somewhere.

[Waragainstsleep]

Worth considering that most NAS drives don't use HFS+ on their disks. This means Spotlight won't index them and you won't get the previews within finder windows. Quick look should still work though.

[Cold Warrior]

Would you swap your laptop DVD drive for a second internal drive? This would get SSD performance and still provide storage on the HDD. I do this in my MBP now.

I don't have a NAS at home, just not enough need for storage always on. At work however I'm in the early stages of FreeNAS 8 on HDD but SSD L2ARC and ZIL. Are you considering openindiana because you prefer opensolaris?

[Eug]

Originally Posted by P 

I have the 120 gig version of that. I had problems with it to begin with and eventually had to RMA the drive. OCZ was nice enough about the RMA, but it was annoying.

If it was OCZ Sandforce, I wouldn't have touched it with a 10 foot pole.

Their lack of a firmware update solution for Macs also makes me wary of them - firmware updates are a fact of life for SSDs, and not being able to them is a big negative.

Not really. Firmware updates are a fact of life for Sandforce SSDs. They sometimes are required with other brands, but firmware updates are much, much less common with other brands, with many models never getting a firmware update.

[SierraDragon]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

...and offloading some of the crap on my laptop to the NAS so that I can replace the drive with an SSD.

...or just go for simple, fast and reliable by using an SSD for boot and putting a HD in the optical drive slot with external directly-attached RAID as needed. The question is whether or not NAS benefits are worth the cost/complexity.

-Allen

[P]

Originally Posted by Eug 

If it was OCZ Sandforce, I wouldn't have touched it with a 10 foot pole.

OCZ Vertex 2 is the old Sandforce 1200 series controller, which is the same as OWC has sold to a lot of Mac users for a long time now and which has been the most common controller on the Windows side since the launch 18 months ago. The one with the BSOD problems was the newer Sandforce 2200 controller.

Originally Posted by Eug 

Not really. Firmware updates are a fact of life for Sandforce SSDs. They sometimes are required with other brands, but firmware updates are much, much less common with other brands, with many models never getting a firmware update.

Really? Let's see... Intel: Version 1.92, that's a fairly high version number. Google "Intel SSD firmware" to see a LOT of hits - they keep sending out updates. Indilinx? Seems like quite a few there as well. Crucial? I don't know which controller they use, but it's not Sandforce - it might be their own. In fact, it seems to be an industry problem. Before I would have recommended an Intel drive if one didn't want to bother with that, but the last bug they had effectively bricked drives.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep 

Worth considering that most NAS drives don't use HFS+ on their disks. This means Spotlight won't index them and you won't get the previews within finder windows. Quick look should still work though.

I think this is more of a case of Spotlight not working with any network volumes, right?

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Cold Warrior 

Would you swap your laptop DVD drive for a second internal drive? This would get SSD performance and still provide storage on the HDD. I do this in my MBP now.

I don't have a NAS at home, just not enough need for storage always on. At work however I'm in the early stages of FreeNAS 8 on HDD but SSD L2ARC and ZIL. Are you considering openindiana because you prefer opensolaris?

I'm considering OpenIndiana because ZFS support is further along in OpenSolaris than in FreeBSD, e.g. the ability to run the root (boot) pools on ZFS drives, and I may migrate my production server from Solaris 10 to OpenIndiana at some point so this gives me an opportunity to test OI a little.

However, you have a good point here, I ought to be testing and considering FreeNAS. I'm already quite familiar with FreeBSD.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by SierraDragon 

...or just go for simple, fast and reliable by using an SSD for boot and putting a HD in the optical drive slot with external directly-attached RAID as needed. The question is whether or not NAS benefits are worth the cost/complexity.

-Allen

I'm not sure that replacing my optical drive with a HD in my laptop would quality is simple and non-complex actually... Not so much the hardware part of it, but coming up with a dedicated RAID I can connect to directly and share with my wife who would also be using it when she gets her Macbook Air.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by P 

OCZ Vertex 2 is the old Sandforce 1200 series controller, which is the same as OWC has sold to a lot of Mac users for a long time now and which has been the most common controller on the Windows side since the launch 18 months ago. The one with the BSOD problems was the newer Sandforce 2200 controller.

OWC has had some significant issues with their drives in Macs, which is undoubtedly partially because they use Sandforce. This is true with both 1200 and 22xx.

Also, re: regarding SF-1200

Really? Let's see... Intel: Version 1.92, that's a fairly high version number. Google "Intel SSD firmware" to see a LOT of hits - they keep sending out updates. Indilinx? Seems like quite a few there as well. Crucial? I don't know which controller they use, but it's not Sandforce - it might be their own. In fact, it seems to be an industry problem. Before I would have recommended an Intel drive if one didn't want to bother with that, but the last bug they had effectively bricked drives.

I'm not saying that firmware upgrades for other companies' drives don't exist. In fact, they even exist with platter based drives. However, it seems to be far more common with Sandforce-based drives.

Furthermore, it's the response of the company that is rather telling. Intel encountered a problem, and then issued a fix for it.

OCZ OTOH has techs on their site blaming everyone else for their problems, and then go on to say that they aren't the only ones. Very unprofessional. It's a real eye opener reading the posts on their own forum from their own employees.

OCZ has also sold SSDs with performance ratings completely wrong for the ones sold. The actual max performance specs were based on a different model, but did the ol' bait and switch and sold a slower model in its place, further evidence of its unprofessionalism.

There was even a bunch of drama with OWC accusing OCZ of shady business practices, although it's not completely clear who is accurate on this one, but it sure didn't make me feel any more comfortable dealing with OWC, or OCZ.

[P]

Eug: I'm not defending OCZ, which seems to have had its early success on SSDs go to its head, but I do not agree that Sandforce controllers are any worse than other manufacturers. It is the only controller that works well without TRIM support, and the 1200 series has had its rough edges polished off by now. If it is more visible, it is because they're selling more. I would be wary of OCZ right now, but I think that the Sandforce 1200 drives are the best bang for buck for anyone who doesn't have 6 Gb/s SATA controllers.

Originally Posted by Eug

OCZ has also sold SSDs with performance ratings completely wrong for the ones sold. The actual max performance specs were based on a different model, but did the ol' bait and switch and sold a slower model in its place, further evidence of its unprofessionalism.

Well, not exactly. They sold their Sandforce 1200 drives (and possibly other drives as well, I'm not sure) for about a year using 34nm flash from a certain manufacturer (I don't remember which). As their volumes grew, they could not source enough of that particular type of flash, and tried using two additional sources: One a brand new 25nm flash from the same manufacturer, one a 32nm flash from a competitor. This did not turn out well - especially the 32nm flash was slower. To their credit, they did repent and offered replacement drives with the original 34nm flash to those who asked, completely stopped using the 32nm flash (the slowest type), updated their software to display the type of flash used and changed the model numbers so it was at least possible to tell which type of flash was in the drive.

While it might be sneaky, it's not uncommon. Just about every large display manufacturer out there does the same thing, with Dell even switching between different panel types (TN and PVA/IPS). Apple does it a lot - the iPad 2 comes with two different display panels, the iMacs have HDs from both WD and Seagate, etc.

Originally Posted by besson3c 

I think this is more of a case of Spotlight not working with any network volumes, right?

Spotlight works over networks if the drive has been indexed locally - ie, Spotlight on the server creates an index, and Spotlight on the client uses that index to search.

[Waragainstsleep]

Yes, so Spotlight works fine over AFP on HFS+ volumes. But it can only index HFS+ volumes.

I have dealt with OWC for years and have no complaints. I have also dealt with OCZ via distributors and direct with their reps. Again, I can't really complain though I did discover a model of SSD that simply did not work with Macs they were cool and switched it out repeatedly.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by P 

While it might be sneaky, it's not uncommon. Just about every large display manufacturer out there does the same thing, with Dell even switching between different panel types (TN and PVA/IPS). Apple does it a lot - the iPad 2 comes with two different display panels, the iMacs have HDs from both WD and Seagate, etc.

Not the same thing at all. OCZ was advertising specific performance characteristics, but the new 25 nm stuff could not support this. Rather than release a different model or at least a different data sheet, the continued to advertise the higher speeds.

[Athens]

Originally Posted by P 

I have the 120 gig version of that. I had problems with it to begin with and eventually had to RMA the drive. OCZ was nice enough about the RMA, but it was annoying. Their lack of a firmware update solution for Macs also makes me wary of them - firmware updates are a fact of life for SSDs, and not being able to them is a big negative.

Related to this...Does anyone know of a good, small NAS that can fit a DVD in it for network access? I'd rather not build a big tower, but I could fit a NAS in a closet somewhere.

Some have firmware updates for Macs too. Kingston supports firmware updates on OS X and Windows.

One problem is TRIM support, OS X will only TRIM Apple Branded SSD drives with Apple Firmware. Solution to that is never let the SSD get over 75% full and once a year redo the computer but you have to use special software to restore the SSD back to full spec speed. At least with the older ones. I don't know if the newest ones solve that problem of performance issue over time on the controller itself.

[P]

Originally Posted by Eug 

Not the same thing at all. OCZ was advertising specific performance characteristics, but the new 25 nm stuff could not support this. Rather than release a different model or at least a different data sheet, the continued to advertise the higher speeds.

What happens in an SSD is that the controller uses multiple data channels in parallel. For maximum performance, all channels must be populated. On a smaller drive - say 60 gigs - that is not true, and the max data rate is lower. They were still advertised the same, from day one, but tests showed that smaller drivers were slower.

When changing to 25nm flash, the dies get twice the capacity - ie, you need fewer dies for the same total capacity. This means that also a larger drive will be unable to use all channels, so all drives smaller than 240 gigs got a lower max sequential performance.

It's a deviation from the tested parts, but not particularly a deviation from the advertised specs, however. They advertised "up to 285 MB/s" for COMPRESSIBLE data (note the ** on the spec sheets) which was always true, as the controller can take that data rate and then send on a lower compressed data rate to the flash. For incompressible data, it was never true for the smaller drives. The change in flash moved this level one notch up along the capacity scale.

Again: not particularly excusing what OCZ did, but you make it out as unusually sneaky. It's not. It's exactly the same as the panel lottery on LCD displays - even slightly better, as certain manufacturers like to advertise 178°/178° viewing angles and then switch to a TN panel.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by P 

When changing to 25nm flash, the dies get twice the capacity - ie, you need fewer dies for the same total capacity. This means that also a larger drive will be unable to use all channels, so all drives smaller than 240 gigs got a lower max sequential performance.

Well, you say you're not excusing OCZ, but then you essentially go on to explain why OCZ should be excused.

Originally Posted by Athens 

One problem is TRIM support, OS X will only TRIM Apple Branded SSD drives with Apple Firmware. Solution to that is never let the SSD get over 75% full and once a year redo the computer but you have to use special software to restore the SSD back to full spec speed. At least with the older ones. I don't know if the newest ones solve that problem of performance issue over time on the controller itself.

You can enable TRIM on essentially any SSD out there, with a hack in Lion and later iterations of Snow Leopard. However, if that makes you uncomfortable, there are some drives out there now that have very aggressive garbage collection, so TRIM isn't as necessary. If I had to reformat every 6 months or whatever just to use an SSD, I wouldn't have bothered.

What I ended up doing was to get a drive with aggressive garbage collection and which also uses a controller that Apple uses in its own SSDs. Then I enabled TRIM as well.

NB. AFAIK Apple has never used a Sandforce SSD in Macs, and I suspect they won't any time soon, despite their lower cost.

[P]

Originally Posted by Eug 

Well, you say you're not excusing OCZ, but then you essentially go on to explain why OCZ should be excused.

I explained what happened. I won't consider OCZ for my next drive due to their lack of firmware update support on anything other than Win 7, but this particular thing, with the different flash types, doesn't annoy me especially. This is how I expect the world to work lately. Call me a pessimist if you like.

Originally Posted by Eug 

NB. AFAIK Apple has never used a Sandforce SSD in Macs, and I suspect they won't any time soon.

Apple uses Samsung and Toshiba controllers that are only sold to computer OEMs, not to aftermarket drive manufacturers. They seem to be more reliable, but they are also significantly slower. To be honest, I would have considered them if they were available, but they aren't and that's it.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by P 

Apple uses Samsung and Toshiba controllers that are only sold to computer OEMs, not to aftermarket drive manufacturers. They seem to be more reliable, but they are also significantly slower. To be honest, I would have considered them if they were available, but they aren't and that's it.

My aftermarket Kingston drive uses the same Toshiba controller as in some of the MacBook Airs.

My drive came out in 2010. As you say though, it is slower than the competition.

Other MacBook Airs use a faster Samsung SSD, and drives with that controller are now also available aftermarket, from Samsung themselves. The Samsung 470 uses the same controller as Apple Samsung SSDs.

I would have considered the Samsung 470 and it's widely available in the US, but up here in Canada they aren't commonly available.

[P]

Did not know that. The Samsung model is available here, and would have been a contender if I had bought one today.