The Need for Speed (Part 5)...
Wednesday, October 28, 2009 at 12:24PM Well it doesn't take a genius to work out that even though I was happy with the performance boost from the 10,000 RPM drive, I wasn't going to settle until I tried out an SSD as the boot drive for the Mac Pro.
I was happy with the drive I acquired for the MacBook Pro, so I ordered another one from Crucial - 256GB Crucial M225 2.5" Solid-State Drive (Part Number CT1018301)
Now as far as mounting in the Mac Pro, I also ordered the optional "Desktop Mounting kit" from Crucial but on delivery, it became obvious that this would not suffice. None of the options would enable me to fix the SSD drive to the Mac Pro disk sled.
After a bit of research, I discovered this:
MaxConnect for SSD/WD VelociRaptor/2.5 inch Drives for Mac Pro Internal Drive BaysThis is a specially designed bracket that replaces the standard Mac Pro disk sled and allows you to attach a 2.5" SSD drive directly to it. It comes with a mountable heat sink and all the screws. Now we were in business!
Installation was simple and I copied across my existing system disk using the Migration assistant via Firewire.
So the results...
First the boot timings:
Comparative timings between 1TB SATA drive & SSD
As you can see, some significant improvements in boot times, but not so much for Sleeping and Waking.
Now for application loading....
Shaves a portion off each application (except Safari)
However, these figures don't really do the SSD drive justice when you consider it was already a fairly speedy machine.
In real life operation, the Mac Pro feels much faster and the difference seems more pronounced. Perhaps not as pronounced as the improvement to the MacBook Pro, but an improvement all the same.
As someone who uses a Mac 9 or 10 hours a day, any incremental improvement I can tweak out of the performance of my machines is well worth it!
Reader Comments (7)
I have decided to get a Crucial SSD based on your experiences and those of some friends with the same or similar drives. I am a bit confused by the product code. For a 256GB Crucial M225 2.5" Solid-State Drive, Crucial cites CT995706 and yet some online retailers (reputable ones!) cite CT256M225. You cite CT1018301. All are described as "256GB Crucial M225 2.5" Solid-State Drive". Are these all referring to the same drive or are there differences? Many thanks for your help!
Hmm, I've just gone back and checked the original order for the MacPro and it reads...
(CT256M225)
256GB M225 2.5" SATA 3.0 Gb/s Solid State Drive
However, the original drive for the MacBook Pro is
256GB Crucial M225 2.5" Solid-State Drive
CT1018301
I figure it's the same drive but they've used a different part number when marketing it as an specific supported upgrade for the MacBook Pro.
Check ioXtreme (http://www.fusionio.com/ioxtreme/) for even higher performance for your Mac Pro.
If you want to be informed when drivers for Mac are available, follow this forum entry http://community.fusionio.com/forums/p/20/106.aspx#106
Now that you've made the change do you "see" any speed change in applications like iMovie (during the rendering/stabilizing phase)?
Hi Rick, Most all operations are speeded up using the SSD although I can't really give you specific feedback on iMovie. Most of my editing is done in FCP.
Don,
I just watched your SSD screencast SCO0224 (the live video integration was really well done btw). I have a friend who uses Final Cut Pro to edit HD video all day. Even though he has a new Mac Pro 2009 "Nehalem" Quad-Core 2.93GHz he wants to speed things up, especially when "scrubbing" on the video timeline. He has 8GB of RAM. What would be his best upgrade for FCP, more memory or an SSD? Thanks for the input.
The SSD will show an immediate difference. Extra RAM will not make any significant difference if he already has 8GB RAM. Use the SSD for the FCP scratch files and a huge improvement should be seen.