OCZ Vertex 3 (240GB) Review

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• dagamer34 - Friday, May 6, 2011 - link

  Yeah, I kinda addressed that with the fact that "should you pay $100 to boot Windows in 9 seconds instead of 14". I'm arguing the practical purpose of it, not the theoretical one.
  
  People don't buy SSDs for faster boot times because that's something you do only once a day. They buy them to avoid the silly 15 sec Photoshop load time and increase the general responsiveness of their system. Once you go from 6.8ms latency to 0.1ms latency, I don't see how you improve that further.

• Omid.M - Friday, May 6, 2011 - link

  I've noticed every time you cover SSDs that you have a recommendation for OS X that's generally different from your conclusion in the article.
  
  Is that the case here as well?
  
  How would you rank the top 3 SSDs for Macs, if each is from a different vendor? From a reliability standpoint, as I don't think the difference in speed is noticeable to the end user unless performing specific tasks:
  
  Intel 510 (or 320)
  Vertex 3
  Crucial C300
  
  What do you think, Anand?
  
  @moids

• purrcatian - Friday, May 6, 2011 - link

  Macs don't support TRIM. There aren't too many high performance SSDs with which you can get away with using them without TRIM and expect long term speed. SandForce controllers have always been good at working without TRIM, so the Vertex 3 would likely be your best bet.
  
  The Marvel controllers in the Crucial C300 and Intel 510 are know for not working too well without TRIM, so they wouldn't be a good choice for a Mac.

• Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, May 6, 2011 - link

  If you've got a Mac with a 6Gbps interface, then the Vertex 3 240GB is a solid recommendation. Note that some users have had issues with the 2011 MBPs and Vertex 3s but personally I've lucked out. I suspect there may be some odd issues with Apple's ribbon cable for the 6Gbps bay.
  
  If you're running a 3Gbps Mac then I'd say SSD 510 or 320. Still waiting to see how the smaller capacity drives perform though.
  
  Take care,
  Anand

• Omid.M - Friday, May 6, 2011 - link

  Anand,
  
  And I bet Apple has been silent about the ribbon cable theory?
  
  I would hope a company with so many engineering resources (and so vertically integrated) could quickly look into something like that and rule it out.
  
  @moids

• darwinosx - Friday, May 6, 2011 - link

  I know why wouldn't Apple drop everything and use all their resources to investigate every theory about their hardware...

• darwinosx - Friday, May 6, 2011 - link

  Many, many Mac users are having issues with the Intel 510 but have seen no issues with the 320.

• kasakka - Friday, May 6, 2011 - link

  OSX does support TRIM now, but it's only enabled for Apple branded drives. There's a hack that lets you enable it for all drives and at least on my X25-M it shows as enabled but can't say anything about performance - even without it the drive has been very fast for the year I've had it.
  
  I guess that OSX Lion will officially support TRIM for all drives.

• Omid.M - Friday, May 6, 2011 - link

  Thanks for the reply.
  
  I understand TRIM is not supported natively for non-Apple SSDs, but I also have read about the kext hack that enables TRIM for 3rd party drives. Of course, my question implies that I would enable this hack to try it out.
  
  From what I've read on MacRumors forums (and I believe AT forums), people are having better luck with Intel 320 than the Vertex 3. The speed difference can't be that noticeable in every day use (save for niche situations?), so I'd take reliability over a marginal increase in speed, assuming TRIM would be enabled via the hack.
  
  I think I would take the Intel 320 300 GB (280 GB usable) over the Vertex 3 240 GB.
  
  I'd love to see a comparison of error rates (RMA rates, I guess) between the manufacturers for those specific drive capacities.
  
  Maybe AFTER OCZ sends Anand the last batch of requested SSDs for testing? :)
  
  @moids

• darwinosx - Friday, May 6, 2011 - link

  But they will in a month or so when Tiger comes out. Or you can download TRIM functionality right now.