Why Should I Be Interested In SSD drives?

[Ormond]

I'm trying to understand Apple's shift to SSD drives. I don't know much really, which may explain why I don't get it. As a casual window shopper, the SSD drives seem quite expensive per GB of space. What's the compelling benefit(s) to justify the extra expense?

 

[Cory Cooper]

The shift to SSD is a welcome one from my point of view. Although the cost per GB is higher, there are numerous benefits:

-less heat
-quieter
-less energy consumption
-incredible speed gains
-less weight
-smaller physical size
-better reliability/longevity
-no damage from computer movement
-and more

As the cost per GB comes down, standard hard drives will all but disappear. Reminds me of the switch from tube to flat screen TVs.

C

 

[honestone]

To further emphasize the "need for speed", I recently purchased 2 Samsung 850 Pro 512 gig SSD drives (got them for a super price!). One of my external drives (with a Seagate mechanism) was "going bad", as TechTool Pro kept telling me, and thus it needed to be replaced. I enclosed one of SSDs inside a nice, slim Orico external enclosure (easy installation), connected it to one of my Macs, erased, formatted, and partitioned it into 3 partitions. Two of the partitions I use for backups for each of my Macs.

Well, yesterday, I went through my normal disk cleanup/maintenance/repair, and backup processing. I still have a 1 TB Seagate External drive with 3 partitions (again, 2 of them for backups for each of my Macs), and it spins at 7200 rpm. I connect that drive via Firewire 800, and the Orico enclosure via USB 3.0. Well, I was blown away by the backups I did yesterday. My Mac MIni has a Samsung 840 Pro 256 gig SSD drive, and my MacBook Air has a Samsung 840 EVO 252 gig SSD drive (I believe that is the model). Both of them have the same amount of "stuff" on each, less than 85 gig worth (I like to keep my Macs "lean and clean"). When I ran SuperDuper! to do the backups, it took ONLY 10 minutes to backup to the new SSD, but over 30 minutes to backup to the Seagate drive. And that happened for each of the two backups I do for each machine.

Also, given that SuperDuper! makes a bootable backup, booting up from such a backup definitely satisfies my "need for speed". I am seeing similar differences in booting up either of my Macs from each of the backups.

I am going to give the other Samsung drive to one of my sons for a Christmas gift, but I am definitely going to replace the external Seagate drive with an SSD (even though the drive is fine. I'll try and sell it). As it is, the 3 partitions I have on the new SSD are 100 gig, 100 gig, and 312 gig. For the two smaller partitions, given that I use each of them for backups, I need to keep the stuff on each of my Macs as lean as possible. While I might need to download an occasional large file (typically a movie or a TV series), I would need to "move" it to that larger partition on the external SSD drive. So to possibly alleviate all this, I might purchase a Samsung 850 Pro 1 Gig SSD drive. We'll see.

 

[Jess Carr]

I second what Mr. Cooper said about the benefits of SSDs, and I'm here to add a few of my personal opinions after replacing the old Hitachi hard disk drive on my MacBook Pro with a shiny SSD (I remember I bought one from Crucial as per an Apple Genius's advice).

Apple has been pushing SSDs in recent years. If you go to an Apple Store, you'll find most of the models (Macbook, iMac, it doesn't matter) displayed are with flash storage. I saw a few iMacs have the options to choose Fusion Drive (half HDD + half SSD), but the latest models are all with SSDs. In my opinion, reliability is the major advantage SSDs have over spinning HDDs.

Speaking of this, the reason why I had to replace my old MacBook hard drive is that the Hitachi HDD was dead all of a sudden and I lost partial data due to backup failure. That experience incentivized me to purchase an SSD and I'm happy about the decision. Besides the huge performance boost I gained, my Mac is now much quieter. Yes, I agree with you that the price of SSDs are still higher, but considering the extra benefits you get from an SSD, it's definitely worth it. Plus, in the near future, the price of SSDs will be dropping (market signal).

If you want to choose a hard drive as an external storage device (for the purpose of backup), I also prefer SSDs over HDDs. Another experience...I had an old WD Passport and it became corrupted within a year.

So, SSD is the way to go, without doubt.

 

[Ormond]

As the cost per GB comes down, standard hard drives will all but disappear. Reminds me of the switch from tube to flat screen TVs.

Well, ok, to each their own of course. But I'm gonna wait for the price per GB to come down, way down. When we can get the benefits listed above, for the same price as the older hard drives, then I'll call it progress. But then, I did the same thing with the tube to flat screen evolution.

 

[honestone]

I second what Mr. Cooper said about the benefits of SSDs, and I'm here to add a few of my personal opinions after replacing the old Hitachi hard disk drive on my MacBook Pro with a shiny SSD (I remember I bought one from Crucial as per an Apple Genius's advice).

Apple has been pushing SSDs in recent years. If you go to an Apple Store, you'll find most of the models (Macbook, iMac, it doesn't matter) displayed are with flash storage. I saw a few iMacs have the options to choose Fusion Drive (half HDD + half SSD), but the latest models are all with SSDs. In my opinion, reliability is the major advantage SSDs have over spinning HDDs.

Speaking of this, the reason why I had to replace my old MacBook hard drive is that the Hitachi HDD was dead all of a sudden and I lost partial data due to backup failure. That experience incentivized me to purchase an SSD and I'm happy about the decision. Besides the huge performance boost I gained, my Mac is now much quieter. Yes, I agree with you that the price of SSDs are still higher, but considering the extra benefits you get from an SSD, it's definitely worth it. Plus, in the near future, the price of SSDs will be dropping (market signal).

If you want to choose a hard drive as an external storage device (for the purpose of backup), I also prefer SSDs over HDDs. Another experience...I had an old WD Passport and it became corrupted within a year.

So, SSD is the way to go, without doubt.

Well said, Jess! And, I will soon move to an almost "all SSD world", once I replace my external 1 TB drive with an SSD (not sure yet of the size, but it will definitely be another Samsung 850 Pro).

As for pricing, yes, prices will continue to fall. And at least here in the US, Black Friday is not far away at all.

I have been lucky, though, as none of my HDDs failed prematurely. Heck, I still have the 1 TB Hitachi 5400 rpm HDD that originally came in my Mac mini (replaced it with a Samsung 840 Pro 256 gig SSD) inside a nice, slim Orico external enclosure. I have been using it when we travel (comes in real handy), but now that I have the Samsung 512 gig SSD inside a slim, Orico external enclosure, I just might no longer need the Hitachi drive, and thus could sell it. Then, I'll be completely "SSD centric".

 

[Jess Carr]

Well said, Jess! And, I will soon move to an almost "all SSD world", once I replace my external 1 TB drive with an SSD (not sure yet of the size, but it will definitely be another Samsung 850 Pro).

As for pricing, yes, prices will continue to fall. And at least here in the US, Black Friday is not far away at all.

I have been lucky, though, as none of my HDDs failed prematurely. Heck, I still have the 1 TB Hitachi 5400 rpm HDD that originally came in my Mac mini (replaced it with a Samsung 840 Pro 256 gig SSD) inside a nice, slim Orico external enclosure. I have been using it when we travel (comes in real handy), but now that I have the Samsung 512 gig SSD inside a slim, Orico external enclosure, I just might no longer need the Hitachi drive, and thus could sell it. Then, I'll be completely "SSD centric".

I too, look forward to the BlackFriday deals (in BestBuy perhaps) I'm not against HDDs or the Hitachi brand, it's just after something bad happened to me, I couldn't help but reconsider my choice.

 

[Jigs]

SSDs are the bomb, and there is no going back once you adopt. The price per GB is negligible, considering the performance and reliability boost. I would not run a mac these days without one.

 

[honestone]

SSDs are the bomb, and there is no going back once you adopt. The price per GB is negligible, considering the performance and reliability boost. I would not run a mac these days without one.

Perfectly stated! I am almost all SSD. Also, my new external Samsung 850 Pro 512 gig SSD, inside a nice, slim Orico external enclosure, was definitely the way for me to go.

 

[Mac Lifesaver]

A quick look at speed gains : I'll give real world speeds not theoretical Maximums.

The standard hard drive, 5400rpm achieves read/write speeds of about 40-60 MB/s

A faster hard drive, 7200rpm about 70-100 MB/s

Before about 2010 we had SATA2 connection for hard drives.
2011 SATA3
Late 2013 PCIe direct

A good SATA SSD drive runs up to about 500 MB/s

SATA2 will run at a max of about 250 MB/s so 5 x faster than a standard hard drive can and less than a standard SSD.

SATA3 max is about 550 MB/s, my 2011 15" MacBook Pro now runs about 512, the old hard drive sits in the Super Drive bay so I have 1.25gb of storage internally, a great option for older Macs!

PCIe means there is basically no bottle neck limiting speeds and we start to see amazing speeds.
First round from Apple was about 1000 MB/s
Second round up to 2000 MB/s
Current MacBook Pro 2016 has moved to soldered to the board SSD, while this means upgrades to internal storage are now all but impossible they have achieved about 3000 MB/s so 50 times the standard hard drive. That's quite an amazing achievement in Apple production Macs over 4 years!

While Apple has managed to cut off a chunk of upgrade income for Repaireres like me and savings for gutsy home upgraders I would personally still buy a current Mac for the speed gains.

Hope that helps understanding

Hugo @ Mac Lifesaver

 

[honestone]

Very informative and interesting post, Mac Lifesaver. My mid 2013 13" MacBook Air has a PCI-E "type" SSD (Samsung SSD, but not exactly sure which Samsung model), whereas in my late 2012 Mac Mini, I replaced the slow, 1 TB 5400 rpm Hitachi drive with a fast Samsung 840 Pro 256 gig SSD. Both machines definitely run fast, but I of course cannot experience the "need for speed" with the SSD be soldered onto the logic board. I am pleased, though, with both of them.

Recently, I purchased 2 Samsung 850 Pro 512 gig SSDs (got a SUPER price!), and I have installed one of them inside a nice, slim Orico external enclosure, with a USB 3.0 interface. My SuperDuper! backups from each of my Macs to the respective partitions on that SSD go VERY, VERY fast! And booting up from such a backup is fast also, although, of course, not as fast as booting from the machines themselves. But, definitely impressive!

 

[Jigs]

Perfectly stated! I am almost all SSD. Also, my new external Samsung 850 Pro 512 gig SSD, inside a nice, slim Orico external enclosure, was definitely the way for me to go.

Yes, the Samsung 850 is a reliable SSD, and works great inside the mac as well!

 

[honestone]

Yes, the Samsung 850 is a reliable SSD, and works great inside the mac as well!

Yeah, I suspect it would. I am thinking of replacing my external 1 TB Seagate 7200 rpm drive/enclosure with the other Samsung 850 Pro 512 gig SSD.

 

[Pasquanel]

I started with a late 2012 mini and I have to say I was impressed, a lot of performance from such a small package. I later upgraded the ram to a full 16 gig and replaced the original platter drive with
OWC Mercury Extreme® Pro 6G SSD, whoa now were cooking! I store everything I care about on a !TB usb SSD and back it up to I-drive. The only downside to the mini is the limited video capability.