SSD and OS X

[jamesyboy]

Im buying a Macbook Pro 13 along with a SSD (I still love my i7 desktop more than anything, but mac's laptops are second to none in battery life, stability and doing everything i need it to.). I know that OS X doesn't have native TRIM support....has anyone found any alternative ways to trim their SSDs? Or, even better yet, are there SSDs that trim themselves? The vertex supports "garbage collection" is this similar?

I don't want to buy a drive if i cant trim it...and i dont want to trim it if i dont have to (if a drive can do it automatically).

 

[sub mesa]

No you won't have TRIM. You don't need TRIM if you only use a portion of the SSD; leaving the rest unpartitioned and unused. You can do this by making a 60GB partition on a 80GB SSD and leave the 20GB unused.

 

[jamesyboy]

how about a 128gb ssd.....do you think 20gb is enough there too?

 

[sub mesa]

It's on the short side; i would recommend 20-25% space reservation without TRIM. As soon as you can use TRIM (i.e. mac supports it) you can use the additional space again; so assuming that in 6 months apple has added TRIM you should be able to use the space again at that time.

SSDs really are fastest when you give them real dedicated free space; their write speeds really depend on that.

 

[jamesyboy]

Thx mesa. Any personal suggestions on ssd's? I'm looking in the 300-400 dollar range. I can possibly squeeze my wallet out for a 160gb x25m-g2, but if i can get a smaller drive (at least 100gb) for around the same dollar/gb without losing a boatload of performance, then i would prefer that.

Will i notice the performance increase in the real world from say a m225/p128 over a SSD Now V or V+ series?

Basically, im looking for bang for the buck/performance

 

[sub mesa]

Well as the Intels are 10 times faster than cheaper SSD but the price difference is only 5 or 10% per gigabyte; then i feel you can say Intel is the superior choice.

However, sandforce based SSDs are coming in capacities 50/100GB. Those would be a serious contender too, though it wouldn't be cheaper than an Intel.

I would still recommend an Intel X25-M 80GB G2; still very popular SSD at the moment and unrivaled by the cheaper Indilinx/JMicron/Samsung SSD market.