How much difference does an SSD make?

~edflorance Jul 30, 2012 Student Traditional Artist

I think I may buy an SSD for my MacBook, but how much of a difference does it really make?

Has anyone with an SSD installed on their computer noticed a dramatic increase? Would you say it's worth the fairly high price?

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Devious Comments

*Abstract-Mindser Jul 30, 2012

However, beware! An SSD is like an SD, limited in the amount it can be used before it runs out of read/write cycles.

But that's actually not that much of a limitation, really.

~genstian Jul 30, 2012 Hobbyist Digital Artist

A good SSD has a transfer speed is around 10x the one on a magnet plate drive, and search time is in nanoseconds, instead of milliseconds. They make no noise, and use very little power.

Difference really depends on what you do. But everything from near instant start up time of applications to super fast compression comes in handy. It feels like a new computer.

`nokari Jul 30, 2012 Professional Interface Designer

1. Shortens boot-up speed to 30 seconds on average.

2. File searching is faster, because there are no moving parts. There is no arm like on an HDD that must move around.

3. File transfer time is cut by as much as 1/3.

4. Faster application loading

5. 2x faster file compilation for programmers

6. Cuts the time spent on routine tasks, like virus scanning, by as much as 50%.

7. Lower power consumption

8. Up to 3x faster multi-tasking with multiple programs

9. 30% faster video rendering

10. Can be taken anywhere safely due to no moving parts possibly being damaged.

The downside is the current high cost and limited sizes. Give it a few years and you'll see 1TB SSDs for close to the same price as HDDs are now.

~edflorance Jul 30, 2012 Student Traditional Artist

Great, thanks for all the info! I think I'll go ahead with the purchase, then use it as an external drive when I get a new computer.

Using it as an external drive, would I get the speed performance that you'd get from using it as an internal drive? If that makes sense... or would I need a Thunderbolt enclosure or something of the kind?

~PR-Imagery Jul 30, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

What SSD are you looking at getting? Plextor, Crucial, Samsung, Intel and Mushkin are highly recommendable manufactures for SSDs.

USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt would give you the best speed as an external drive.

~edflorance Jul 31, 2012 Student Traditional Artist

It looks like I can get either an Intel or an OCZ drive for reasonably cheap.
As my next computer will most likely be an iMac, would I be able to put to use that FireWire 800 with the SSD?

~PR-Imagery Jul 31, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

For OCZ the only model I can recommend is the Vertex 4.

If its a new iMac Thunderbolt or USB 3.0 would be the way to go, new Ivybridge models should be available later this year according to the rumours but current models a Firewire or Thunderbolt enclosure would work fine.

`nokari Jul 30, 2012 Professional Interface Designer

If it's external, then the only limitation would be the transfer rate of the connector cable you are using. I'd recommend usb3, but that means the SSD must have a usb3 port and your computer must also have a usb3 card to take full advantage, otherwise it will be limited to 2.0 speeds. It will be faster than an external HDD because there's no time spent spooling up a disk, but it probably won't be to the SSDs full potential.

~PR-Imagery Jul 30, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

There's an appreciable difference, program load times, boot times, and programs that need to read data from the hard drive often or large amounts of data. General usage doesn't its not as noticeable but it will feel snappier overall.

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