Reliable Budget Conscious SSD for laptop.

[sYstEmATiC]

I have been using a Samsung 470 128gb for the past month with no issues. I personally like it because the controller and memory were manufactured in house by samsung, and not outsourced from another company. I know I'm probably just being paranoid, but I am going to stay away from anything with a sandforce controller for now, as they seem to have been having a lot of issues recently.

[Praz]

I would use an Inilinx based drive with a Mac such as the Vertex 1. Macs and SSDs are trouble in general.

[Mikesnow]

Eh, I have no idea about achi roms, raid roms, amy of that. :/ It's a 2011 MBP, so, uh, probably newer then 2008 I'd say, Sandy Bridge board and all, so, probably mostly all pretty new stuff.

this is why you should research with the manufacturer of your MB to see which they use. Most of the newer SandyBridge boards should come with the latest updates and ROM's but theres no way of knowing untill you ask them. Your roms for your controllers should match that of the latest drivers so if you have something older on the driver disk then intel has for your chipset on their website chances are your rom's are out of date at minimum, and are likely in need of updating. It would be a simple bios update to update the roms, check with your board manufacturer for any bios updates and if it don't list what rom's you have you can ask them or email them asking.

 

Personaly, I know EVGA has gone back and rebuilt their entire MB lines Bios's to include all new ROMS. As they were using older versions that were bricking peoples SSD's after only a few months. The new roms also gave slight boosts to performance as well, which is always good. Gigabyte is also another great board manufacturere that keeps thier bios's updated with newest roms. Alot of others don't so thats why I suggest checking with them. I promise you it sucks spending 1200 dollars or even 300 dollars on SSD's and then you can't use them or have to RMA them because your MB manufaturer is lazy. It took 100's of people complaining to EVGA and like 9 months for them to fix their issues.

[DanTheGamer11]

Can't you see other people who have ur lappy and see what ssd's they use?

[klinic]

this is why you should research with the manufacturer of your MB to see which they use. Most of the newer SandyBridge boards should come with the latest updates and ROM's but theres no way of knowing untill you ask them. Your roms for your controllers should match that of the latest drivers so if you have something older on the driver disk then intel has for your chipset on their website chances are your rom's are out of date at minimum, and are likely in need of updating. It would be a simple bios update to update the roms, check with your board manufacturer for any bios updates and if it don't list what rom's you have you can ask them or email them asking.

 

Personaly, I know EVGA has gone back and rebuilt their entire MB lines Bios's to include all new ROMS. As they were using older versions that were bricking peoples SSD's after only a few months. The new roms also gave slight boosts to performance as well, which is always good. Gigabyte is also another great board manufacturere that keeps thier bios's updated with newest roms. Alot of others don't so thats why I suggest checking with them. I promise you it sucks spending 1200 dollars or even 300 dollars on SSD's and then you can't use them or have to RMA them because your MB manufaturer is lazy. It took 100's of people complaining to EVGA and like 9 months for them to fix their issues.

I can't find . all about who makes the MBP Logicboard or Motherboard. :/ I didn't think that it was apple it self manufacturing it... But more likely that they outsource it and pay whoever makes it to not brand them or reveal that they make them. :/ I'll keep looking, but nothing so far. >_>

 

 

 

Can't you see other people who have ur lappy and see what ssd's they use?

 

Yes, I can. That doesn't tell me anything though. Just because people DO use them, doesn't mean they're reliable. Lots of Vertex 3's or toshiba and hitachi drives which are what apple offers (at a huge price premium) in their store. I hear lots of stories of failures and lots of success stories. I don't really want to risk it.

[DanTheGamer11]

So how are you going tp make a decision then?

[My_Inner_Fred]

I recommend a OCZ SSD because well.... I have a OCZ Vertex 2 and I've never had any problems with it. Its lightning fast at starting my programs and booting up the PC.

[klinic]

So how are you going tp make a decision then?

By asking a bunch of knowledgable people on an overclocking website, clearly.

 

I'm not even completely joking. The fact is, most people on a Mac website are probably not going to know very much at all about which SSDs are the best/ going to work the best with their hardware. Whereas here, people tend to be a bit more knowledgable.

 

So, I can find out what is most commonly used, but that doesn't mean it's the best.

 

Unfortunately, I've been unable to find out who exactly makes my motherboard... So it looks like I might just have to go with the more reputable brand.

 

 

Which seems to be almost unanimously OCZ, with horror stories every now and then. I guess I'll have to see what their warranty is like in Australia.

 

 

I would use an Inilinx based drive with a Mac such as the Vertex 1. Macs and SSDs are trouble in general.

 

 

Hi Praz, I missed you before somehow. I hear you have a very solid rep. So would you possibly be able to expand on the SSD troubles a bit? I understood that Apple were pushing towards SSDs, so I wouldn't have thought that they would be much of a problem, especially seeing as their flagship laptop uses them exclusively. Do you know if this is an old issue, or a confirmed current one? And are Vertex 1s going to be reliable at all? I've heard very bad things about early SSDs.

[El_Capitan]

I've used probably 8 different types of SSD's, and none of them so far have had issues.

 

I've only used two SSD's on laptops:

Corsair P128 - Solid, never had issues for 2 years (my friend bought the laptop from me with the SSD, and he has no issues, yet).

OCZ Vertex II 120GB - I've been reluctant about getting an OCZ SSD with all the problems I read about in the past... except the company I work for got it for me for my work laptop. I did my usual tweaks, and changed the power settings so the laptop won't ever go to sleep or hibernate mode (the research I've seen say it might be the computers going to sleep or hibernating causing issues on the OCZ SSD's, so I'm not taking any chances).

 

Just pick one and hope you don't get unlucky.

[tkrow21]

Hi! I also recently wanted to buy an SSD, which you can see here. Most people recommended the Corsair Force series, and while I can't comment on the long term lifespan of the drive (as I've had it for only about three months), I can say that:

 

I had no problems setting up the hard drive.

I noticed a ridiculously faster boot time.

Other people who own the hard drive have a good experience with it.

 

Corsair has put out a new hard drive in the same line and offers it in a 120GB version, which you can see here. I would also ignore the Newegg reviews that are referring to BSOD's, as those are in reference to an older batch of the hard drives.

 

But the other suggestions in this thread are also great. Most reliable companies are going to get you customer service and performance for the drive that's more than adequate.

[Mikesnow]

What you might try if you can't find that info is to find a drive your interested in, then call the company that makes that drive, on thier tech support number and make sure it is going to work,or if they have tested it on you model mac book. If they have tested it to work then your ok, you said it's new so it's likely new enough for an ssd. do you have thunderbolt on it? if it's new enough for that to be on it I would imagine you could run almost any ssd. Maybe try Corsair's Forums, and OCZ forums, you will be much better informed there for what your looking for then here tbh. Think about it everyone there prolly has that manufacturers ssd's and knows the ins and out of them, plus their tech guys that can answer questions. I would think your prolly ok with just about anything tho with how new your stuff is. and if i had to guess i would say your board is prolly a foxconn or asus, they make alot of oem boards. you would have to tear apart your mac book tho to find out.

[klinic]

What you might try if you can't find that info is to find a drive your interested in, then call the company that makes that drive, on thier tech support number and make sure it is going to work,or if they have tested it on you model mac book. If they have tested it to work then your ok, you said it's new so it's likely new enough for an ssd. do you have thunderbolt on it? if it's new enough for that to be on it I would imagine you could run almost any ssd. Maybe try Corsair's Forums, and OCZ forums, you will be much better informed there for what your looking for then here tbh. Think about it everyone there prolly has that manufacturers ssd's and knows the ins and out of them, plus their tech guys that can answer questions. I would think your prolly ok with just about anything tho with how new your stuff is. and if i had to guess i would say your board is prolly a foxconn or asus, they make alot of oem boards. you would have to tear apart your mac book tho to find out.

 

Thanks for your reply, yeah, it has thunderbolt. It's the 2011 MBP as it says in the OP. I know that I can at least RUN almost any SSD, I'm just not sure how well. I know it will at least work off the bat. But I don't want to lose an important project later down the track. I'm pretty religious with backing up though, so I imagine it won't really be an issue,