SSD Prices Halved Since Last Year

[Andrew Richards]

[Jason Jenkins] “My OWC SSD died on me after about 10 months of use. I’ve never had a mechanical hard drive die on me. They replaced it under warranty, but make sure you back up!”

I’ve had the inverse experience, but regardless- always backup!

Best,
Andy

[Mark Wilson]

I’m looking at installing SSD’s in my Mac Pro. I was reading about Trim support in Raid 0 configuration, is this a big factor when choosing SSD drives?

Thanks,

Mark Wilson

[Andrew Richards]

[Mark Wilson] ” I was reading about Trim support in Raid 0 configuration, is this a big factor when choosing SSD drives?”

TRIM lets the OS tell the SSD’s controller what it is doing so the SSD controller can perform its own garbage collection and thus extend the life of the SSD. Apple supports TRIM for its own SSDs, but as far as I know not for 3rd parties. There is a utility for enabling it, but I haven’t used it.

TRIM is sort of redundant on any SandForce-powered SSD (OWC, OCZ, Intel 520, among others), since SandForce reserves cells for indepentent garbage collection without input from the host OS.

As far as RAID support goes, make sure your SSD choice is specifically qualified for RAID duty. Not all are. I’m not well versed on TRIM on RAID-0 striped SSDs. If it is OS dependent, I doubt OS X supports it. If you want more speed in your Mac Pro than you get with a single 2.5″ SATA 3G SSD, look at OWC’s Accelsior.

Best,
Andy

[Mark Wilson]

Andy,

Thanks, I will check out the Accelsior.

Mark

[Herb Sevush]

[Andrew Richards] ” If you want more speed in your Mac Pro than you get with a single 2.5″ SATA 3G SSD, look at OWC’s Accelsior.”

AS long as you have an open PCIe slot, which are often filled in on a Mac Pro used for editing. So many nice things to add with an available slot – USB3, Accelsior, Esata – so many choices, so few slots.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Andrew Richards]

[Herb Sevush] “So many nice things to add with an available slot – USB3, Accelsior, Esata – so many choices, so few slots.”

Too true!

Best,
Andy

[Craig Seeman]

All this kinda makes an iMac with Belkin’s Thunderbolt Dock look attractive.
https://9to5mac.com/2012/06/05/belkin-shows-off-its-updated-thunderbolt-express-dock-rocking-9-connections-for-399-in-july/

eSata, three USB3 ports, Firewire 800 port. All this with Thunderbolt pass through so it’s not one of the cursed end of chain devices so . . . in effect, using one of those ports doesn’t end the chain either as an adaptor would.

Given devices like this, I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple drops some ports in return for more Thunderbolt ports on next year’s MacPro replacement. This should quell the uproar, in advance, when next year’s box has only one Ethernet port, no firewire port but four Thunderbolt ports. But people will complain about having to use a “dock” to add connectivity and how Apple is abandoning the Pros by leaving such connectivity to third parties.

Gee, Craig sure knows how to go off topic on a thread! Sorry but this is how my brain works. Hmm, maybe it’s why I like FCPX.

[Mark Wilson]

No open slots at this time.

Matrox PCI card
Nvidia 4800 card
Atto express SAS card
Esata card

Mark Wilson
Creative Communications Inc.