[racgordon]

I am about to load up an Oct 2011 Macbook Pro 17 with a~240-256GB SSD and 16MB RAM (I know apple says 8MB but it does support 16MB). I will also be moving the existing 750GB HD to replace the DVD-ROM.

I have done this before for clients and have generally gone with OWC because if there is a problem with Hardware there it is just easier to deal with (for them). Since this is my own machine I am looking to minimize initial cost anmd get highest performance. The five uses of this machine are

1. Image Manipulation - Retouching Photoshop 5, Lightroom 4 DXO Optics Pro
2. Amateur but serious Video Post Production - Final Cut Pro etc
3. Running Multiple VMs and Virtual Network setups in VMware for app debugging.
I tend to use a Mac for running multiple Windows / Linux Server setups for interoperability testing and initial
tuning
4. Writing Code.
5. Fastest Angry Birds Platform (JOKE - Sorta)

For the SSD I am looking at the Corsair Force GT 240GB SSD or possibly OCZ Vertex 4 256GB SSD. I have always used Drives with Sandforce controllers before, the OCZ is using and Indilinx but professes OS X Support. I am looking for spread and also high IOPS and running a bunch of VMs can stress Drive IO.

As far as memory, my experience is the compatibility (i.e. it actually works) is far more importance than small incremental speed gains that Apple HW and OS X do not really tend to gain much from.

So my question is which 8GB DIMMS have you had success with, and which SSDs to you think better from experience.

Many Thanks

Does anyone have suggestions thoughts?

[P]

If you're interested in a cheap SSD that "just works" with OS X, I'd pick the original Sandforce drives. They can be found dirt cheap now, they don't need TRIM (which needs a hack) and the speed is consistent. If reliability is more important, pick one of Intel's or the Samsung 830 (very similar to what Apple ships) and do the TRIM enabler hack.

[OreoCookie]

I have a Corsair GT3 180 GB SSD, and about the only complaint I have is that it's too small I haven't run into any problems (although I have heard of problems with the Sandforce controllers). I have also kept my 640 GB drive. So far it's a great combination. Although I have noticed some (software) issues: iTunes apparently doesn't like it if the library sits on another volume.

[mduell]

No reason to pay OWC's 30% markup, ever.

For RAM I'd go with Crucial from Newegg, $154 for 2x8GB.

256GB is a bit cramped for photo/video work; I know you'll have the big slow drive available, but it will be painful to use after trying the SSD. 512GB is only $585 with Marvell 9174, or 256GB is $300.

[racgordon]

Originally Posted by P 

If you're interested in a cheap SSD that "just works" with OS X, I'd pick the original Sandforce drives. They can be found dirt cheap now, they don't need TRIM (which needs a hack) and the speed is consistent. If reliability is more important, pick one of Intel's or the Samsung 830 (very similar to what Apple ships) and do the TRIM enabler hack.

It is my understanding (and I may be way off base) that TRIM is merely one method of wear leveling with MLC flash. To the extent that it is useful, it integrates back to the OS so that the OS does not interrupt a wear leveling action with a write command. I am not sure that the various OSX TRIM hacks actually work in that they implement trim but rather simply give the appearance that TRIM is working on a SSD with a controller that implements Wear Levelling as a hardware function at a lower level of the controller.

Having looked at how this works with BSD and ZFS (using SSD as a cacheing device) I think that the 2xxx Sandforce controllers and maybe the Indilinx 12xx abstract wear leveling to a layer between the machine facing i/o controller and the SSD facing I/O controller and achieve it in the background by using over provisioned memory. If you look at PRO or Enterprise SSDs the main difference is FLASH with greater MTBF and a much higher amount of over provisioning. This would seem logical if you need much higher i/o throughput as you have a greater pool of spare flash to use in wear leveling.

My problem with the older drives that Apple tends to use is that the performance tends to be lower. In the same way that apple tends to use 5400rpm drives vs 7200rpm drives. My understanding (which may be flawed) is that Apple looks to make the machine as a whole perform to a specific level. Based upon those parameters it will contract for components so that it can produce a machine set price for a particular period of time (and thebe insulated by its supply contracts from market fluctuations etc.)

This is all well and good but I am trying, for my own needs to push that envelope and get the best drive I/O performance I can by getting the best SSD that makes sense within my price envelope. e,g. I could get a small increase in performance by going to an Enterprise SSD of a 240GB capacity but it would cost 5x as much because it has other features (always on reliability, different I/O characteristics) that offer very little benefit to me.

Mind you (being facetious) the premium price Apple puts on SSDs almost does that for you....... but then again they are factoring in the cost of carrying the item in spares inventory in sufficient quantities for up to 7 years after the model is discontinued.

[racgordon]

Originally Posted by mduell 

No reason to pay OWC's 30% markup, ever.

For RAM I'd go with Crucial from Newegg, $154 for 2x8GB.

256GB is a bit cramped for photo/video work; I know you'll have the big slow drive available, but it will be painful to use after trying the SSD. 512GB is only $585 with Marvell 9174, or 256GB is $300.

I take your point........

My feeling on SSDs significantly larger than 240GB is that the max IOPS drops significantly compared to 240GB SSDs which I think are at the sweet spot right now.

In my own particular setup, whilst I may do some work on smaller clips on the Internal SSD, I am going to use an external Thunderbolt RAID for anything larger. Most likely I will start with two striped 240GB SSDs and then if I run out of capacity will look at other options. My workflow is to store pre and post processed video on rotating disks and only move stuff to SSD when I actually need that kind of throughput. Again that is what fits my workflow and needs.
.
As far as memory is concerned, and because Newegg's pricing can be violative, the Crucial RAM from Newegg is which SKU? and (just to be a pain) why that as opposed to Corsair memory at about $20 cheaper. I have watched the pricing of 8GB DIMMs plummet so I suspect the price difference has more to do with market than quality (but then I am a cynic).

[P]

TRIM has been severely oversold. The point about it is good enough: If a file is deleted and the logical block it used is not reused, the drive is not told, and it must treat that block as still in use. In an SSD, that logical block is part of a cluster. A cluster is an area that represents the smallest possible are that can be deleted. If other logical blocks in the same cluster are changed, the entire cluster must be copied and rewritten somewhere else. Since the SSD does not know that a certain logical block is now deleted, it must copy that block along with everything else in the cluster.

Sounds terrible, right? Of COURSE we need TRIM! Otherwise, if we ever fill up the drive to 100%, we'd only ever have the 7% buffer to play with when writing! Terrible!

Terrible. Except that this scenario doesn't happen in regular usage - in fact, nothing close to it happens. Filling a drive completely is insane for any modern OS, so don't do that. If you leave the recommended 10% free, you don't have a problem. Any reasonable OS will reuse logical blocks (mainly to optimize the usage of free space, but it also so happens that the outer blocks on a spinning drive are faster than the inner ones, so reusing the first blocks is A Good Idea), so the situation where a logical block is written to once and never reused is very very rare. On the other hand, that TRIM command is an operation, which forces the SSD to respond. We're counting IOPS for a reason - we want as many as possible, so sending a TRIM command when the drive is in heavy use wastes an operation that could have done something useful.

In total, TRIM doesn't help all that much in the real world (as opposed to theoretical tests, where it often does great). Sandforce in particular always designed their firmware to be used without it, and since it takes a hack to make it work on OS X, just don't bother with a Sandforce drive.