Are SSD's worthwhile?

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rimisrandma

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Will a solid state drive in a Macbook Pro deliver super improved performance or only a mild improvement? My interest mainly pertains to recording and audio related applications.

I am only interested in hearing from people that have experience with using solid state drives and had first hand experience with them using a DAW of some sort.

Where would you get them installed, where you buy a Macbook pro with 4gb of ram and a regular 52 or 5400 rpm drive and then have the custom shop put 8GB of ram in with a Crucial 512 GB SSD drive so the whole package is a couple hundred less than buying the package from apple? Would this be a solid package or since other peoples hands and after market gear are in it, would it be prone to errors and unstable performance?
 
You don't need a custom shop to install a SSD, it's actually very simple. I'm running a Seagate Momentus XT in a 2006 Core Duo MBP, Pro Tools 10 DAW. There was a notable improvement from the stock Toshiba 5400RPM HD, and I haven't upgraded RAM.
 
If you can afford a SSD they are very nice:

1. No spin start up
2. QUIET! with no moving parts, they are pretty much silent.
3. Since they don't have moving parts, the read and write speeds are very fast
4. More reliable

Just to name a few of the benefits. However, they are pretty spendy and a regular sata drive does work just fine. Is your computer in the room you record? How many tracks do you record at a time? Do you use your system for other applications?
 
The particular SSD I installed is only 50 bucks more than the SATA version. I wasn't planning to upgrade to SSD, but I slipped into Best Buy to see what was available, and bought it in the spur of the moment. It's working great for me.
 
phriq said:
If you can afford a SSD they are very nice:

1. No spin start up
2. QUIET! with no moving parts, they are pretty much silent.
3. Since they don't have moving parts, the read and write speeds are very fast
4. More reliable

Just to name a few of the benefits. However, they are pretty spendy and a regular sata drive does work just fine. Is your computer in the room you record? How many tracks do you record at a time? Do you use your system for other applications?
Click to expand...

I am planning on buying a 15" Macbook pro. To get a apple installed ssd, it is 1100 bux for a 512 GB, but you can go to crucial and buy one for about 700 dollars. If I bought a stock Macbook pro with the processor I want etc and get 4GB of ram and the regular shitty drive in it, I could upgrade the ram for probably 100 bux and the ssd for 700 and would be at 800 total instead of 200 for 8GB and 1100 for apple's drive and basically save 500 dollars.

Like this:
http://www.crucial.com/store/mpartspecs.aspx?mtbpoid=0A41832EA5CA7304

From videos, to replace the drive it looks like everything is dumped to an external drive, change the internal, and then reload everything. For the ram, it looks like out with the old and in with the new and your done, but I will have to do more research.

Final system at this point is Macbook pro w/ 512 GB HD, 8 GB ram, and an i7 2.5 GHZ processor. Babyface or Duet2 for card (still looking at Presonus firestudio mobile, TC electronic impact twin, MOTU audio express, etc basically a 400 dollar firewire interface in case I go FW). For external drives, a FW800 or a Thunderbolt or one of each depending on the direction I go with the interface. Probably will run Logic Pro 9, but running FL Studios with bootcamp has crossed my mind as well.
 
rimisrandma said:
From videos, to replace the drive it looks like everything is dumped to an external drive, change the internal, and then reload everything. For the ram, it looks like out with the old and in with the new and your done, but I will have to do more research.
Click to expand...

Replacing MBP hdd is a piece of piss.
I did my 13" 2011 mbp recently.

Plugged the new drive in over usb, went to disk utility, formatted external to hfs, cloned the internal to the new external, screwed the bottom off the the mbp and switched em over.

10 or 15 mins all in. :)

I would never pay apple's rates, but if you can get one cheap enough I'd say it's definitely worth the upgrade.
It's a totally different machine with the SSD in.
 
I thought this thread was going to be about something he got from a hooker...Sexually Sold Diseases! :laughings:


;)
 
Steenamaroo said:
Replacing MBP hdd is a piece of piss.
I did my 13" 2011 mbp recently.

Plugged the new drive in over usb, went to disk utility, formatted external to hfs, cloned the internal to the new external, screwed the bottom off the the mbp and switched em over.

10 or 15 mins all in. :)

I would never pay apple's rates, but if you can get one cheap enough I'd say it's definitely worth the upgrade.
It's a totally different machine with the SSD in.
Click to expand...

I plan on putting my OS software, DAW, Amplitube 3, word program of some sorts, etc and then save word doc's, and audio projects to the ext drive. It seems that you can't continuously rewrite over a ssd drive without asking for trouble at some point, but if I just put my main programs on the ssd and then dump my work onto the external drive, I take it that I wouldn't have issues rewriting the ssd anyway?

All in all, I would think that the ssd are more reliable because they can deal with shock a little better because they don't have moving parts. I just don't want to put something in that has a good chance of failing in time. If I put it in and it sounds like it should be good to go, that's fine, but if I would probably have problems in the future, then I might not want to do it. From asking people's advice on this issue from people I run across in my daily life, it isn't all that uncommon to have issues with a regular spinning type hard drive. Although usually it is the 52 or 5400 rpm models and I don't run into people using 7200's at all to provide a comparison.

Somebody told me if something has tits or tires, then you WILL have problems with it. I can clearly see that ssd's have neither, but you can get what I am asking here because I am looking into possibly doing something that costs 700+ dollars and I don't want to be putting something expensive in if it is not so reliable compared to what it comes with.
 
I'm not sure how well documented SSD reliability is since it's a relatively new technology, but to be honest, I think you'd be better off googling it.

Someone on here might know, but personally, I haven't had mine long enough to know if they have long term problems or not.


Sounds a bit odd though; The whole trouble from rewriting thing. Where'd you hear that?
 
phriq said:
3. Since they don't have moving parts, the read and write speeds are very fast
4. More reliable
Click to expand...

@3, I don't know enough about this from firsthand experience, but the research I have done over the past few years suggests that write speed is the SSD weakness. There's no question that a SSD can simultaneously load more applications at a much faster rate, but I'd be curious as to its performance in writing an 800mb 24/96 vinyl rip vs a 10k rpm 6Gb/s WD Velociraptor. Also a sequence of several small 10MB wavs, or a multitrack recording project specifically. Does anyone here have any real world experience w/this comparison to report?

@4, that's just untrue. While SSD may be less susceptible to data loss from g-force shock & trauma, all it takes is a single static charge to wipe them clean or render them unusable; same as HDD. The MTBF specs are also comparable on paper.

At the moment the cost does not appear to justify the gains and seems to be a severe case of diminishing returns....but again, I lack the direct experience.

Also I just upgraded my early 2011 [8.1] mbp 13" to 8gb of gskill ram, for $45 [plus a free 4GB micro sd!]. Apple & the various big box retailers wanted 200 more for lesser quality ram, had I gone with that option when building the thing. DIY or die...
 
haunt said:
Does anyone here have any real world experience w/this comparison to report?
Click to expand...

They've caught up

Here's a bench of my first intel x25m
Drive Type INTEL SSDSA2M080G2GC
Disk Test 162.41

Sequential
Uncached Write 148.87 91.40 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 145.66 82.41 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 136.23 39.87 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 408.04 205.08 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Random
Uncached Write 132.84 14.06 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 95.81 30.67 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 457.47 3.24 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 174.40 32.36 MB/sec [256K blocks]

And here's my new drive.
Drive Type OCZ-VERTEX2
Disk Test 313.28

Sequential
Uncached Write 260.66 160.04 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 262.47 148.50 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 92.14 26.97 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 353.73 177.78 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Random
Uncached Write 1273.79 134.85 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 495.21 158.54 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 2948.02 20.89 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 938.12 174.07 MB/sec [256K blocks]
 
But really. I've not heard much about ssds. Seems interesting. I'm going to hit the gogle.
 
I'm still rolling with my trust "old-technology" SCSI drives in my DAW, and have no need/desire to upgrade any time soon.

I think with any new technology, it's best to give it some time on the street before diving in, otherwise you pay the initially high prices of being in the "first wave" and you also risk possible issues that have yet not cropped up.
 
miroslav said:
I
I think with any new technology, it's best to give it some time on the street before diving in, otherwise you pay the initially high prices of being in the "first wave" and you also risk possible issues that have yet not cropped up.
Click to expand...

100% The latter is the reason why I didn't upgrade to 10.7 Lion yet.
 
Steenamaroo said:
They've caught up

Here's a bench of my first intel x25m
Drive Type INTEL SSDSA2M080G2GC
Disk Test 162.41

Sequential
Uncached Write 148.87 91.40 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 145.66 82.41 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 136.23 39.87 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 408.04 205.08 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Random
Uncached Write 132.84 14.06 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 95.81 30.67 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 457.47 3.24 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 174.40 32.36 MB/sec [256K blocks]

And here's my new drive.
Drive Type OCZ-VERTEX2
Disk Test 313.28

Sequential
Uncached Write 260.66 160.04 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 262.47 148.50 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 92.14 26.97 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 353.73 177.78 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Random
Uncached Write 1273.79 134.85 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 495.21 158.54 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 2948.02 20.89 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 938.12 174.07 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Click to expand...

Those numbers are looking better, but how is the performance outside of the benchmark testing; w/real world application? Also do you have a 10k rpm drive that you can use as a comparison?
 
Actually, the vertex 2's were an upgrade from WD raptors.

I don't think I have benchmarks from those close to hand, but I definitely noticed a huge performance increase in almost every aspect.

Copying times, app opening times, boot times, No. of simultaneous audio tracks in Pro tools, audio import times, everything.
The whole system is just so much snappier, plus it's silent whereas the Raptors sounded like tractors with dodgy diffs.
 
Duplication, data recall, boot times are all hands down advantages of ssd. It's the real world writes that I'm curious about. How about multitrack recording in pro tools, or are you just reporting the increase in performance during playback in the daw?

The thing about HDD is some are near silent, while others sound like a metronome....even 2 of the same make. [GG QC]
Also, WD Velociraptors are superior to the Raptors in speed, power consumption, noise & heat generation. Esp of the 10k rpm variety.
 
I have heard that SSDs are great for the speed of getting information compared to HDs. If you use it for just your OS then the performance is improved by a substantial amount, and if you install your DAW on it and use it for your recordings then it will be a good deal faster than using an HD.

G
 
I've an ssd for audio drive and for system, so I can't really differentiate I'm afraid.

IIRC sustained write between the two is up to 100mb/s or so, but I'd have to check to be sure. I'll do that later for ya's.
 
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