SSD with SATA interface: a recommendation?

[Part-Time Audiophile]

Anyone able to recommend an SSD drive that will work with my Mac G5 (M9032LL/A)? I'm looking to not spend a fortune, but I need at least 64MB ...

 

Thanks in advance!

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Here are the latest drives I recommend. OCZ Vertex Turbo. They are out of stock in many places.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=ocz+vertex+turbo&x=0&y=0

 

[Part-Time Audiophile]

AFAIK, my G5 supports an SATA connection, but the drives you mention are SATAII -- are the SATAII drives "backward compatible" with the older SATA interface? Or does that even make sense?

 

edit: a little research, and yes, it seems the drives are backward compatible even if the advantages of the increased speed will not be realized. Interesting. Would it be worth it then?

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

SATA I speed is 1.5 Gbit/s v. SATA II at 3 Gbit/s. Chances are pretty low you will saturate the SATA I interface with over 1.5 Gbit/s running a music server. Other than speed the benefits are lower heat, removing a major moving part in the computer, and many of us hear a big sonic impact moving to SSDs.

 

[cfmsp]

 

"...many of us hear a big sonic impact moving to SSDs."

 

what exactly sounds better?

 

I don't think I've ever heard anyone report anything other than that it's better.

 

thanks

clay

 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi Clay - What I hear is a combination of low level detail likely brought out because of less background "noise" and a much clearer presentation. I know it may sound weird but things are much clearer. Almost like spinning drives muddy the waters so-to-speak and NAS drives make the waters even muddier.

 

I will say that the sonic differences are more apparent on more resolving systems. For example the Magico M5 & Boulder system at the Symposium made this difference very evident. A month or so before the Symposium I was listening to Magico Minis with Pass Labs amps and a Pacific Microsonics Model Two DAC and the difference was also readily evident to those of us listening. On the other hand, some lesser quality tube based systems I've used can make it hard to notice a sonic difference.

 

In general an SSD should not hurt the sound and can only improve upon a spinning HDD.

 

 

 

[sandyk]

"What I hear is a combination of low level detail likely brought out because of less background "noise" and a much clearer presentation. I know it may sound weird but things are much clearer. Almost like spinning drives muddy the waters so-to-speak and NAS drives make the waters even muddier. Chris"

 

Chris

Is that not what both Siverlight and myself have been claiming with respect to noise and vibration deadening of the Optical Drives and HDDs etc. ?

SandyK

 

"The differences were often quite subtle, but many members reported hearing improvements in soundstage,

the improved separation between instruments and voices, as well as a frequent comment about improvement in low level detail, and voices etc taking longer to fade out, due to what appeared to be an improvement in signal to noise ratio."

 

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/PC-Performanceupgrades-impact-sound-Honest-Canvass-Opinion#comment-24376

 

 

SandyK

P.S. There are much more indepth follow on replies by Silverlight in another thread.

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/CD-Japan-server

 

Also a very interesting article on jitter : Thu, 11/13/2008 - 10:42 — Cavaille

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/Best-Sounding-Software

 

[Wavelength]

Gang,

 

Any of the OCZ Vertex drives or the SuperTalent UltraDrives will work. Newegg as Chris mentioned is a great site to look for these as they give the raw speeds. Look for the highest read/write speeds which should be like 220 or better for read and over 125 for write. You don't have to get the MAC versions as these are just formatted and partitioned for MAC os. You can easily do all this in the disk utility.

 

I am not sure though if you maybe better just holding off and going to the Intel platform for better results.

 

Thanks

Gordon

 

[Part-Time Audiophile]

Does anyone have any experience running a "new" SATA2 drive in "backward compatibility mode" (assuming that there is even such a thing) on an older SATA-only interface?

 

I was wondering if getting an OCZ SATA2 drive with all the bells and whistles would simply be a waste if the drive cannot perform well in a machine that doesn't support the high throughput rates. But if it throttles down to interface limits, well, that might not be bad at all.

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Yes, I was doing just that until Apple released a firmware upgrade to make the SATA controller SATA II enabled on my new MacBook Pro. It worked great.

 

Get SATA II. Not many SATA I drives around. SATA III is coming out in 2010 though.

 

[Elprior]

What about playing from memory directly ?

 

Elp

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

I created a little app that creates a 1 GB RAM drive on a Mac. It doesn't install anything, can be ejected like an external hard drive, and disappears upon reboot.

 

 

Here is the download for anyone interested 1 GB RAM Drive.

 

 

 

 

[Elprior]

Nice

 

How does that sound compared to ssd ?

 

Elp