From HDD to SSD
Last week I decided to move to SSD's as my main storage on my Mac Pro.
It may not be as much as a difference on a Mac as it is on a Windows or Linux system. (OSX caches everything after it's started once..) It still is one of the most noticeable upgrades I've ever done. (also the most expensive...)
I decided 240GB of storage would be enough, to make things even faster I also decided to go for a RAID0 array of 2 SSD's.
After some searching and comparing of prices I settled on two OCZ Vertex 120GB SSD's. I also considered Intel X25-M 80GB SSD's, but the price-premium of these SSD's was too high, compared to the performance benefits.
I used two of these to make the 2.5" SSD's compatible with the drive-sleds of my Mac Pro. They work really well!
Continue reading for some stats!
It may not be as much as a difference on a Mac as it is on a Windows or Linux system. (OSX caches everything after it's started once..) It still is one of the most noticeable upgrades I've ever done. (also the most expensive...)
I decided 240GB of storage would be enough, to make things even faster I also decided to go for a RAID0 array of 2 SSD's.
After some searching and comparing of prices I settled on two OCZ Vertex 120GB SSD's. I also considered Intel X25-M 80GB SSD's, but the price-premium of these SSD's was too high, compared to the performance benefits.
I used two of these to make the 2.5" SSD's compatible with the drive-sleds of my Mac Pro. They work really well!
Continue reading for some stats!
First, some stats!
This is a screenshot from XBench, benchmarking the original drive that came with my Mac (A Western Digital Caviar Blue 640 GB):
This is the same benchmark, but with my SSD's:
This benchmark was done while Disk Utility was repairing permissions on the array (I'd already booted from it). I've just done another benchmark, without Disk Utility doing things, and the values are roughly the same.
I actually expected the array to be quite a bit faster than this, but then again, this is already very fast... Perhaps I can squeeze a bit more out of it in the future, after firmware updates and some tweaks.
Update!
I did some tweaking and did another benchmark without any other processes running:
Second benchmark:
This makes things even more interesting!
This is a screenshot from XBench, benchmarking the original drive that came with my Mac (A Western Digital Caviar Blue 640 GB):
This is the same benchmark, but with my SSD's:
This benchmark was done while Disk Utility was repairing permissions on the array (I'd already booted from it). I've just done another benchmark, without Disk Utility doing things, and the values are roughly the same.
I actually expected the array to be quite a bit faster than this, but then again, this is already very fast... Perhaps I can squeeze a bit more out of it in the future, after firmware updates and some tweaks.
Update!
I did some tweaking and did another benchmark without any other processes running:
Second benchmark:
This makes things even more interesting!
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