I recently bought a Crucial M4 256GB SSD, and I have been extremely satisfied. Blazingly fast and no issues whatsoever. Even better, on my late 2008 MacBook Pro model, I get SATA II speeds (3Gbps). Most other drives (e.g., OCZ Agility) will only be recognized as SATA I (1.5Gbps) on my Mac. This makes the Crucial drive literally twice as fast in best case scenarios.
As an example of the effects it has had on my computer performance, building my upcoming book (which invokes rake and JRuby) used to take 1m 30s on a 7200 RPM drive. Now it takes 15 seconds. Also, productivity apps like Office open in a split second.
Upgraded my Cr-48 to a 40 gb Intel drive over the weekend. An SSD with room is a marvelous thing. So, I have a late 2008 macbook (white), looks like a very similar processor (core duo 2.4 ghz), and 4 GB RAM, running Lion. I've been looking at the Crucial 256. That or the Intel 160. How long have you been running this drive, and are you running Lion? How did the upgrade go? Did you need anything besides Time Machine? Do you use macports, postgresql, or apache, and if so, any problems after the upgrade?
Also, have you looked into 3g inside your macbook? Is there any way to make that work? A dual function wifi/3g mini PCIe?
I've made a similar transition (to the Intel 160); here's my input, in case it's useful:
> How long have you been running this drive
Since December 2010.
> And are you running Lion
I am now; prior to that, it was Snow Leopard
> How did the upgrade go?
The hardest part was trimming my 250 GB drive down to 160 GB; mostly this just involved wiping out old VMs, disk images, extra programs, etc. and only keeping a subset of my iTunes library (minus TV shows, etc) on the laptop.
> Did you need anything besides Time Machine?
I don't suppose I did, but for the sake of speed I just did an image of the drive (block copy, using Disk Utility).
> Do you use …, and if so any problems?
None at all. Things are generally much more responsive, especially in cases that involve scanning directories. Deleting large directories full of source code is dramatically faster. chown'ing the Linux kernel tree, for example, feels almost instantaneous in comparison.
One issue I did have that's worth mentioning: because I did a direct copy of my Snow Leopard install (which, in turn, had been upgraded from Leopard), I found that the performance of the system was not at all what I'd hoped. It wasn't unresponsive (beachballs disappeared entirely), but it certainly wasn't blazing fast.
When I took my current job, I imaged my SSD to a backup drive and imaged my new work laptop's fresh install to my SSD, and the difference was like night and day. Suddenly, my computer was a speed demon. If it weren't for having to type my password, I feel like it would have gone from power off to loaded desktop in ten to fifteen seconds or so. It was unbelievably fast.
So my suggestion is, image your old drive, do a fresh Lion install on the new drive, and then use the Migration Assistant or Time Machine restore to bring your user directory back (and get rid of all the junk your account loads when it starts up that it doesn't need to have).
Comments
I recently bought a Crucial M4 256GB SSD, and I have been extremely satisfied. Blazingly fast and no issues whatsoever. Even better, on my late 2008 MacBook Pro model, I get SATA II speeds (3Gbps). Most other drives (e.g., OCZ Agility) will only be recognized as SATA I (1.5Gbps) on my Mac. This makes the Crucial drive literally twice as fast in best case scenarios.
As an example of the effects it has had on my computer performance, building my upcoming book (which invokes rake and JRuby) used to take 1m 30s on a 7200 RPM drive. Now it takes 15 seconds. Also, productivity apps like Office open in a split second.
Upgraded my Cr-48 to a 40 gb Intel drive over the weekend. An SSD with room is a marvelous thing. So, I have a late 2008 macbook (white), looks like a very similar processor (core duo 2.4 ghz), and 4 GB RAM, running Lion. I've been looking at the Crucial 256. That or the Intel 160. How long have you been running this drive, and are you running Lion? How did the upgrade go? Did you need anything besides Time Machine? Do you use macports, postgresql, or apache, and if so, any problems after the upgrade?
Also, have you looked into 3g inside your macbook? Is there any way to make that work? A dual function wifi/3g mini PCIe?
> How long have you been running this drive,
About a month.
> and are you running Lion?
Yes.
> How did the upgrade go? Did you need anything besides Time Machine?
I did a clean install and then moved over my data. It was time for me to do a clean up anyway, so I took the opportunity to do so.
> Do you use macports, postgresql, or apache, and if so, any problems after the upgrade?
I use all the typical dev tools with no problems, but I have not installed macports after the switch to this new drive. (I use brew instead.)
> Also, have you looked into 3g inside your macbook?
I haven't.
thanks!
I've made a similar transition (to the Intel 160); here's my input, in case it's useful:
> How long have you been running this drive
Since December 2010.
> And are you running Lion
I am now; prior to that, it was Snow Leopard
> How did the upgrade go?
The hardest part was trimming my 250 GB drive down to 160 GB; mostly this just involved wiping out old VMs, disk images, extra programs, etc. and only keeping a subset of my iTunes library (minus TV shows, etc) on the laptop.
> Did you need anything besides Time Machine?
I don't suppose I did, but for the sake of speed I just did an image of the drive (block copy, using Disk Utility).
> Do you use …, and if so any problems?
None at all. Things are generally much more responsive, especially in cases that involve scanning directories. Deleting large directories full of source code is dramatically faster. chown'ing the Linux kernel tree, for example, feels almost instantaneous in comparison.
One issue I did have that's worth mentioning: because I did a direct copy of my Snow Leopard install (which, in turn, had been upgraded from Leopard), I found that the performance of the system was not at all what I'd hoped. It wasn't unresponsive (beachballs disappeared entirely), but it certainly wasn't blazing fast.
When I took my current job, I imaged my SSD to a backup drive and imaged my new work laptop's fresh install to my SSD, and the difference was like night and day. Suddenly, my computer was a speed demon. If it weren't for having to type my password, I feel like it would have gone from power off to loaded desktop in ten to fifteen seconds or so. It was unbelievably fast.
So my suggestion is, image your old drive, do a fresh Lion install on the new drive, and then use the Migration Assistant or Time Machine restore to bring your user directory back (and get rid of all the junk your account loads when it starts up that it doesn't need to have).