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2nd Gen Intel SSD's


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Just in case anyone is about to make the switch to SSD, big price drop and some speed improvements for the industry-leading Intel M series drives.

 

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3605

 

EDIT: here's the follow-up performance assessment on the new drives (impressive random read/writes): http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3607

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167016

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167017

 

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"Dude you have some serious thills issues" hehehe I am building my audio pc this week and held out on the ss drive for now and I'm just using a small 2.5" WD drive I found for 39 bucks. It's very quite at boot, but I found out the hard way you can't boot up using hdmi....duuuuh. I guess its been a while since I built a pc :) Now I have to run out and get a dvi-i to vga to finish up. Did you see the http://atechfabrication.com/ for some fanless case ideas. I'm using a slim silverstone case with a low profile fan that I had from a failed project.

 

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As you know, and I only just found out, the combination of Macbook Air and Screen Sharing (AKA VNC) is a phenomenal way to access a headless Mac Mini (or in my case, a 'headless' Macbook Pro) for music playback.

 

No more 'convenience' (aka wireless) listening via Apple TV/Airport Express. Now it's Firewire 24x7x365, plus the external file server is no longer connected wirelessly to the playback machine. The only wireless aspect of my music playback chain now is remote access via Macbook Air, or iPhone.

 

clay

 

 

 

 

 

 

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From the Apple site - check under 'refurbished'.

 

http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/specialdeals/mac

 

1.86 Ghz, 128 Gb SSD.

 

I think refurbished in this instance means 'previous model'. After doing some checking on the differences at www.everymac.com, I decided that this 'refurbished' model was the best deal, even though I could have gotten $100 off the latest model with an education discount.

 

http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook-air/macbook-air-faq/differences-between-macbook-air-mid-2009-and-nvidia-late-2008-macbook-air.html

 

The biggest difference is the increase in battery life from 4.5 hours to 5 hours. IOW, no real difference.

 

If you're not using it as a music player, but as more of a remote (via Screen Sharing) / internet surfing device / etc., you can get the original Macbook Air (1.6 Ghz) for $999, and with a 64Gb SSD for $1199, I think.

 

Additionally, the performance of the most recent models are not as good as expected - another reason to buy the 'refurbished' model.

 

"The late-2008 1.86 GHz MacBook Air was faster than the new top-of-the-line model [2.13Ghz] in 11 of our 18 tests, and as a result, the old system's final Speedmark score was slightly higher. The low-end 1.86 GHz model did a better job versus its predecessor, besting it on most tests and improving on its Speedmark score."

 

http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook-air/macbook-air-faq/macbook-air-mid-2009-late-2008-nvidia-performance-comparison.html

 

enjoy

clay

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Clay-

 

Mahalo for the info.

 

I just upgraded my wife's white Macbook 2.0 GHz with 4Gb of RAM and a 60Gb OCZ Vertex SSD for $247. to test Amarra.

 

If I go with Amarra, I'll probably get a new Macbook Pro to use as a music player and install a 2nd Gen Intel SSD.

 

Aloha,

Dan

 

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Namaste/aloha/et al,

 

A Macbook Pro is definitely the machine I'd get for use as a combo laptop / player. I got the Macbook Air as a replacement for an MBA I was using for work (and which was paid for by m previous employer). I debated between the two for a long time, decided I needed one of each, and bought the MBA first.

 

Currently using a headless 2006 MBP as player (display was broken, and after my 'fatal' attempt to fix it, I didn't bother re-attaching the display when I put "Humpty" back together again).

 

enjoy,

clay

 

 

 

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I ordered and received 3 of the new drives although can confirm with Chris that they're holding off for a couple weeks to update the firmware (drives have an issue if you use bios level passwords). Since i using a mac that uses EFI rather than BIOS shouldn't be affected and they're working great. Will flash them with the new bios when it's available. Newegg is where I got them from and had them in stock right away (and will again I'm assuming as well).

 

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and is a most read for someone looking into SSDs.

 

http://www2.electronicproducts.com/SSD_performance_Benchmarks_that_matter-article-FAJH_Intel_Apr2009-html.aspx

 

Basically, the the sustained sequencial reads and writes mostly publised are important. However, so are the least published reads and writes OIPS spcifications at random 4KB.

 

Quote from the link:

"An SSD with good sequential read and write performance does not necessarily have good random read and write performance. Real-world workloads show that more than 50% of I/O transfers are small file sizes (

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Wake me when they've figured out how to erase data in much smaller chunks than 512kb, say, something much closer to the 4kb minimum page size than to the current 512kb minimum size for erasing.

 

I really want to get one for my music server - I got one with my Macbook Air - but I'm trying to remain on the sidelines until they sort this out.

 

Perhaps a good play is to assume whatever you buy now will only be amortized over 12 months?

 

clay

 

 

 

 

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