advice on new computer

[Arthur]

Anyone looked at the OWC offerings Pro or RE Versions (RE = Raid Edition I presume).

The OWC Mercury Extreme Pro and Mercury Extreme Pro RE are both MLC-based SSDs which use the SandForce SF-1200 controller. The only difference between them is the over-provisioning (the Pro model has 7%, while the Pro RE has 28%) and the warranty (3 years vs 5 years).

 

The closest equivalents to these two SSDs would be OCZ Vertex 2E and OCZ Vertex 2 (both of which are widely available in the UK). If you read StorageReview's review of the 120GB Mecury Extreme Pro, you will see there is hardly any difference in speed between them - certainly not enough to warrant ordering one from the US.

 

using parcel2go.com to register a USA address and ordering one from the USA would do the trick

That depends on whether you actually want to see the item you ordered.

[mac_shinobi]

The OWC Mercury Extreme Pro and Mercury Extreme Pro RE are both MLC-based SSDs which use the SandForce SF-1200 controller. The only difference between them is the over-provisioning (the Pro model has 7%, while the Pro RE has 28%) and the warranty (3 years vs 5 years).

 

The closest equivalents to these two SSDs would be OCZ Vertex 2E and OCZ Vertex 2 (both of which are widely available in the UK). If you read StorageReview's review of the 120GB Mecury Extreme Pro, you will see there is hardly any difference in speed between them - certainly not enough to warrant ordering one from the US.

 

 

That depends on whether you actually want to see the item you ordered.

 

I wanted an SSD that

 

1. Had constant throughput as per the comparison ( I have no way of being able to do this as I dont have access to each of the drives to see for myself )

 

2. Has at least 200gb

 

3. Has good read and write

 

I was contemplating 2 X25 intel drives in raid 0 but not sure how I would achieve this on my 2008 Mac pro ??

[Arthur]

If it was me I'd up the psu - 550w is never going to be enough especially if you upgrade anything in the future.

MrBIOS is correct. A 550w PSU is plenty. Xbit Labs recently did an article on PC power consumption and they agree too.

 

Also, the test system used in TechReport's recent review of the Radeon HD 6870 (which is fairly similar to Joe's) uses 129 watts at idle and 305 watts at full load.

 

Processor Intel Core i7-965 Extreme (3.2GHz)

Motherboard Gigabyte EX58-UD5 (x58)

RAM 12GB DDR3 1600MHz (6 DIMMs) - Corsair Dominator CMD12GX3M6A1600C8

HDD WD RE3 WD1002FBYS 1TB SATA

Graphics XFX Radeon HD 6870 1GB

[Arthur]

I wanted an SSD that...

I agree that a SandForce-based SSD would be your best choice with Mac OS X. SSDs using this controller all do garbage collection in the background to restore performance back to how it was when new (like Windows 7 does with TRIM). However, performance does drop quite a bit when you are reading/writing data which doesn't compress easily (such as video). I would say you have three options.

 

1) Get a 240GB OCZ Vertex 2E. If you want the SSD to last a bit longer, you could partition the drive so that you are only using ~200GB of its total capacity (for example) - leaving the rest unformatted. This would effectively turn it into an OWC Mecury Exteme Pro RE. There are some benchmarks of the Vertex 2E running under OS X here.

2) RAID two smaller SSDs together (see below)

3) Wait for the Intel X25-M G3, or SSDs based on the new SandForce SF-2000 controller. These are both only a few months away from being released - the G3 should be out in February 2011 and the 300GB model should cost around what a 160GB X25-M G2 costs today.

 

N.B. Neither OCZ or OWC have a firmware updater which runs under OS X, so you currently have to use Windows for this.

 

I was contemplating 2 X25 intel drives in raid 0 but not sure how I would achieve this on my 2008 Mac pro??

The easiest way to RAID drives together in OS X would be the one described here. You will also want to read this regarding the long-term performance.

 

Software Config

Now you have two working SSDs in your MacBook Pro. You are currently in either one of two situations:

 

• [My Situation] One of the SSDs has already been loaded up with OS X and the other is empty.
  
• Both SSDs are new and empty. There is no OS loaded on either.

If you are in situation #2, I am guessing (not tried it personally) that you need to:

 

• Put your OS X disc into the SuperDrive you placed into the provided external enclosure and connect it to your MacBook Pro
  
• Hold down C and boot into the installer
  
• Close the installer window and go to the top menu to open up Disk Utility
  
• Create the RAID array and proceed installing OS X onto it

However, I have heard of some issues where the computer will not see the RAID array when you are booted off of the OS X install disc. You might need to create the array while booted off of another external OS X install or on a working OS X install already present on one of the SSDs — that’s why I recommend having an external hard drive lying around just in case. To clarify, it seems if you have the computer booted off of OS X on another drive, insert the install disc, run the initial setup from the inside-OS X installer that auto-reboots for you, that it should work.. if that makes sense. If not, leave a comment.

 

If you are in situation #1 like myself, then things are a bit trickier. In a nutshell, I cloned my OS X installation onto an external USB 2.0 hard drive, changed the startup disk to that external drive then booted from it, created the RAID array, cloned the external drive onto the new RAID array, changed the startup disk to the RAID array and rebooted.

 

While you can do the drive cloning back and forth like I describe below I always recommend doing a fresh OS X install whenever possible.

Edited November 2, 2010 by Arthur

[mac_shinobi]

I agree that a SandForce-based SSD would be your best choice with Mac OS X. SSDs using this controller all do garbage collection in the background to restore performance back to how it was when new (like Windows 7 does with TRIM). However, performance does drop quite a bit when you are reading/writing data which doesn't compress easily (such as video). I would say you have three options.

 

1) Get a 240GB OCZ Vertex 2E. If you want the SSD to last a bit longer, you could partition the drive so that you are only using ~200GB of its total capacity (for example) - leaving the rest unformatted. This would effectively turn it into an OWC Mecury Exteme Pro RE. There are some benchmarks of the Vertex 2E running under OS X here.

2) RAID two smaller SSDs together (see below)

3) Wait for the Intel X25-M G3, or SSDs based on the new SandForce SF-2000 controller. These are both only a few months away from being released - the G3 should be out in February 2011 and the 300GB model should cost around what a 160GB X25-M G2 costs today.

 

N.B. Neither OCZ or OWC have a firmware updater which runs under OS X, so you currently have to use Windows for this.

 

 

The easiest way to RAID drives together in OS X would be the one described here. You will also want to read this regarding the long-term performance.

 

Read that ref the mac book pro - still have to read the pro longing performance but I have the 2008 mac pro ( Tower )

 

http://www.gearfuse.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/new-mac-pro.jpg

 

Also if I get a SATA 6gbps pci express card - would that allow me to make a SATA 6 gbps SSD bootable on the mac ?

[Arthur]

I have the 2008 mac pro

It would still work the same way since you would be using Disk Utility to create the RAID array. As you long you had two spare SATA ports in your Mac Pro you will be fine (that is if you decided to buy two SSDs rather than one). The other option would be to buy a proper hardware-based RAID card, but that's going be very expensive.

 

Also if I get a SATA 6gbps pci express card - would that allow me to make a SATA 6 gbps SSD bootable on the mac?

Depends on the card. The only 6Gbps PCIe cards I can find that are Mac compatible are these eSATA cards (and they are not bootable)...

 

http://www.caldigit.com/FASTA-2e/

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer%20Technology/MXPCIE6GS2/

[mac_shinobi]

It would still work the same way since you would be using Disk Utility to create the RAID array. As you long you had two spare SATA ports in your Mac Pro you will be fine (that is if you decided to buy two SSDs rather than one). The other option would be to buy a proper hardware-based RAID card, but that's going be very expensive.

 

 

Depends on the card. The only 6Gbps PCIe cards I can find that are Mac compatible are these eSATA cards (and they are not bootable)...

 

Caldigit---FASTA-2E

NewerTech MAXPower 6G PCIe eSATA Controller... (MXPCIE6GS2) at OWC

 

Cool - could really do with a 6gbps bootable PCI E card so I can use a SATA 3 SSD in my 2008 mac pro - am sure there was a site - someones blog or someit that showed a number of PCI E sata 6gbps cards, shrugs....

[Arthur]

someones blog or someit that showed a number of PCI E sata 6gbps cards, shrugs....

Were you thinking of this page (all eSATA though)? What you need to look for is a SATA 6Gbps PCIe card that is EFI bootable. I looked on all the usual sites (OWC, NewerTech, HighPoint, Atto, CalDigit, Apple etc.) but none of them make or sell a card that would be suitable for your Mac Pro and a SATA III SSD. Even expensive cards made by companies like 3ware do not support this, so it looks like you're going to be stuck with SATA II for the foreseeable future.

[Arthur]

could really do with a 6gbps bootable PCI E card so I can use a SATA 3 SSD in my 2008 mac pro

If only this was bootable on a Mac.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3997/ocz-revodrive-x2-review/1