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You are here: MacNN Forums > Hardware - Troubleshooting and Discussion > Mac Notebooks > What model is the 128GB SSD in the MBP?

What model is the 128GB SSD in the MBP?
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Simon
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Nov 27, 2009, 05:44 AM
 
I'm curious about which model Apple uses for the 128GB SSD you can BTO for a 15" 2.66 GHz MBP. Could somebody who got the 128 GB SSD BTO check which model they got? What about specs, performance, power requirements, etc.?

The reason I'm asking is because Apple charges $300 for it and I've been comparing with offers from Newegg. Obviously SLC drives are much more expensive, but even of you look at fast MLC drives there are a few interesting offers.

120 GB OCZ Vertex for $385. They quote 240 MB/s sequential read, 170 MB/s sequential write. There's no mention of the IOPS though.

And then there's the 160 GB Intel X-25M for $589 shipped. This drive isn't cheap but it has an excellent reputation.
     
CharlesS
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Nov 27, 2009, 02:07 PM
 
I've heard horror stories about some of the cheaper SSDs having bad controller chips that cause all sorts of problems. Intel, of course, is the best there is, although not cheap.

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mduell
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Nov 27, 2009, 02:20 PM
 
Samsung, and they're completely retarded. Sequential performance is uninteresting. Go with Intel for performance.
     
Simon  (op)
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Nov 28, 2009, 03:06 AM
 
The X-25M is twice the price of Apple's BTO SSD. Sure it's a bit bigger too, but I'm not looking for capacity so that's wasted on me.

I'm interested in drives that cost roughly the same as Apple's BTO option. The Vertex I quoted above comes with a different controller than the Samsung controller OCZ uses on their Summit drive. So I'm not worried about running into the same trouble. What I'm curious to know is what IOPS the Vertex has and how that compares to Apple's built-in Samsung model.
     
CharlesS
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Nov 28, 2009, 05:13 AM
 
Here's a review of the Vertex I found:

AnandTech: The SSD Anthology: Understanding SSDs and New Drives from OCZ

It doesn't seem to use the JMicron controller like older OCZ SSDs used to, so that's good. (The JMicron controller used to like to freeze up momentarily every so often).

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Simon  (op)
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Nov 28, 2009, 06:54 AM
 
Thanks, Charles. I was already quite familiar with Anand's exhaustive report. That's why I started looking at the Vertex in the first place. What I'd like to know now is what IOPS rates the Vertex achieves and how that compares to the drive Apple uses.
( Last edited by Simon; Nov 28, 2009 at 07:01 AM. )
     
mduell
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Nov 28, 2009, 01:25 PM
 
Anandtech's SSD Relapse includes a few proxies for IOPS in benchmarks of the Vertex, some other Indilinx drives, a Samsung drive, and of course the Intel kids.
( Last edited by mduell; Nov 28, 2009 at 03:57 PM. )
     
Simon  (op)
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Nov 28, 2009, 03:20 PM
 
Bad link.
     
mduell
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Nov 28, 2009, 03:57 PM
 
     
Simon  (op)
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Nov 30, 2009, 04:55 AM
 
So it looks like in Anand's teste the OCZ Vertex (Indilinx controller) does quite well compared to the Intel X-25M. Since the former is about $350 it's roughly the same price as the Apple BTO 128 GB SSD. The Intel SSD OTOH runs you about $600.

My conclusion from this is that the X-25M is a great disk if you have lots of money to spend. If you're on a budget however, you should probably get the cheapest HDD from Apple and then install an inexpensive OCZ Vertex yourself. It appears the Apple SSD option (Samsung controller) is not favorable at all.
     
Simon  (op)
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Nov 30, 2009, 05:00 AM
 
Another question regarding SSDs in MBP. Is there TRIM support in OS X? I'm guessing not in Leopard, but what about SL?
     
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Nov 30, 2009, 08:25 AM
 
TRIM is not in Snow Leopard. Speculation has it that it will be added in a point update when Apple decides to upgrade it's SSDs into something uses it.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
Simon  (op)
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Dec 4, 2009, 04:47 AM
 
     
   
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