MTron Pro 7000 64gb Solid State Drive (SSD) in my Mac Pro: Am I the first?

All -
Just purchased the MTron Pro 7000 64gb 3.5" SATA SSD drive a couple of days ago and popped it into Bay 1 of my Mac Pro (2.66ghz Quad - 4gb Ram).
Installed Leopard on it -- unbelievable! Boots in about 6-8 seconds! (I don't even see the swirling wheel appear under the apple symbol!).
Used bootcamp to partition it evenly (32gb/32gb) and installed Vista Ultimate and it is working nicely as well.
Under Vista, I've run into the Intel speed "Cap" and the drive tops out at about 75-78MBps (almost 10MBps slower than the Raptor it replaced) -- but with such low latency (.1 ms) it definately seems snappier than the Raptor was. I hope Intel issues a driver fix for this.
Under Leopard however, using XBench, I am seeing sequential reads in the 99-100MBps range!!! This is why I think the problem under Windows is an Intel driver issue.
Anyway -- just wanted to share my findings with you guys -- happy camper here!
Aaron
Message was edited by: NYCubby

Here's Xbench results for my RAID 0 SSD drives using a Mac Pro RAID card:
Results 379.72
System Info
Xbench Version 1.3
System Version 10.5.2 (9C31)
Physical RAM 4096 MB
Model MacPro3,1
Drive Type APPLE RAID Card
Disk Test 379.72
Sequential 267.53
Uncached Write 431.98 265.23 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 385.73 218.24 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 121.23 35.48 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 557.09 279.99 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 653.98
Uncached Write 710.63 75.23 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 329.15 105.37 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 2581.19 18.29 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 779.03 144.55 MB/sec [256K blocks]

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Would the G4 be able to boot into OS 9 with the SSD?
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[http://eshop.macsales.com/item/ACARD/AEC6880M>
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Would a controller card need to be installed for an SSD to work in this machine?
One like this:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Sonnet%20Technology/TSATA/
Would the G4 be able to operate in Classic mode with the SSD?
Yes.
Would the G4 be able to boot into OS 9 with the SSD?
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Hello everyone,
New here and was trying to find the link to download the free NTI clone software to clone my old mechanical drive to my new SSD. Could you please post the link here.
Thanks

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Message was edited by: RanChanGT

Considering a MacBook Pro... solid state drive for high altitude?

My 2.5 year old 13" MacBook just crashed its second HD in five months! I think it's time for a new setup, and I'm considering a MacBook Pro.
I'm an amateur photographer, and I use my computer almost exclusively for Photoshop, editing & printing large photos.
Here's what I need:
- LOTS of space for graphics files
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- large, high resolution screen (but doesn't have to be 24")
- durable... I'm tired of crashes, and our altitude (above 7000') makes me consider going to a solid state drive... Would I get considerably less space to store files that way?
- portable would be nice, but less important than durable... I'd buy an iMac plus a mini laptop if Mac offered something like the 9"!
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iMac + MacBook Air (or 13" MBP?)!
haha! That would be nice, but probably overkill for my purposes. If we went with the iMac instead of MBP, I might look for a glorified handheld for internet access and photo & document viewing (at least) on the road.
Kappy wrote:
Your altitude is not a relevant factor. Typical notebook hard drives (not SSDs) have a maximum operating altitude above 30,000 feet.
That's reassuring, as far as bringing a new computer up here. We hadn't had any crashes in the last decade, but we've had three since we moved up here a year ago. (The first was my brother's laptop when he came for Christmas.) We aren't throwing around our computers by any means. The only other difference (besides environment) is more usage hours, as I've started using Photoshop, and more JPG & PNG files on the disk. None of those would have affected my brother's laptop, though.
Would the iMac have better resistance than a laptop to whatever might be causing the crashes, whether it's the environment or usage issues?
Message was edited by: Pato7456

Upgrade my Macbook Pro 17" with solid state drive and RAM?

My MBP is a 17" mid-2009, 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, Memory 4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3, Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT 512 MB.
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2. Which SSD GB option should I purchase? I chatted with OWC online and was given this variety of SSDs.
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/internal_storage/SSD/Mercury_Electra_3G_Solid_Sta te
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http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/YSSDMP240/
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1. OWC or Crucial are recommended sources for memory. You can usually find a 5% off and free shipping code for Crucial on retailmenot.com. On crucial just key in your system information in their memory selector.
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Installing a Solid State Drive (SSD)

Hi,
I am helping a friend instal a SSD into their Mac Pro. I have changed out drives before, but it has been a long time. From what I have seen on the web, it looks like a fairly easy process. There are no ribbon cables to attach, nor power cables.... wow, it's almost like hot swappable.....
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(2) Do I need to set the jumpers so that the SSD is the master and the older HD is the slave?
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There are no master/slaves in an SATA relationship.
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http://www.macsales.com/ssd

Is lost data retrievable on a Solid-State Drive (SSD)?

Since a SSD is only RAM, I'm wondering if data is retrievable once a file is deleted just like on a conventional hard disk drive.
Then if data is truly retrievable, how to make these deleted files for ever? Do you need to use the same techniques found on the Disk Utility to remove them securely (i.e. 7 times erase and 32+ times erase as suggested also by NSA).
Thanks for sharing your knowledge,
JMF

as with an hdd, deleting a file on ssd simply removes references to it in the directory structures and returns its data blocks to the free list - so until the data blocks are rewritten the original content will still be there
with an hdd, traces of the original magnetic field can still remain after rewriting, which is why multiple rewrites are used to try and eliminate any chance of retrieval, older clunkier drives needed many more passes, i think you can use fewer with modern units
data remanence in an ssd will depend on the design of the memory cells within the flash devices, but you can use multiple overwrite to erase files/empty space just as on a conventional hdd
try to rewrite with random data, not zero's, pseudo-random data on a few passes should be fine, but i believe ssds try to even out write cycles across pages, in that case there's a chance of your rewrite occurring at the time a page is 'rested', so that your original data on the page are not overwritten and instead you end up rewriting to a fresh page
unless you are expecting to come under some serious scrutiny, even a single pass is enough
rewrite will be ineffective for data that are on bad blocks that have been mapped out (affects both ssd and hdd), and also any caches or swap blocks with the data in are also going to escape your rewrite (although they'll probably get rewritten passively by the os in the course of normal operation)
for disk/memory/whatever that has failed or is no longer required, physical destruction of the magnetic surface or the chip is the best way, if i discard a sim or smartcard i always make sure the chip is destroyed

W510 Solid State Drive (SSD) Gets Stuck Causing BSoD. Why?

Hey guys, this has been a problem for a while now, and it is really mind boggling ... I have a Lenovo ThinkPad W510 laptop with a 256GB Crucial M4 SSD drive. Ever so randomly the drive just hangs, the LED light that the drive is trying to load something stays "ON" for up to 5 minutes or so before it finally goes into a Blue Screen of Death (BSoD). Once it goes into BSoD the laptop reboots and it gets stuck on the ThinkPad motherboard logo, eventually it will display "ERROR 2100: HDD0 (Hard Disk Drive) initialization error (X)" Where X is usually 1 or 2, sometimes 3 but rarely. It will not function again until I physically turn it off and back on using the power button.
A little bit of background about the problem, this is my 3rd Crucial 256GB M4 SSD, Crucial has been very helpful and they went as far as replacing the drive twice, i am starting to highly doubt its a drive issue, I think it could be something from the laptop itself. To be more clear, my laptop has also been serviced back in March (Motherboard was swapped as well as keyboard), parts failure. It was all done in very timely manner and everything was OK after the swap.
A representative from Crucial told me that this is a classical problem with the SATA controller driver handling TRIM, he said the drive is getting stuck in an infinite TRIM state which causes the BSoD, after that the drive goes into some sort of a "panic" mode to protect itself and doesn't function again until a full power cycle. (thus the need to turn off and then on the laptop) he also added it could be fixed by installing the correct SATA controller driver.
I have tried to use the default windows SATA controller driver, and I have tried to use the Intel one too, and it seems to happen less often with the windows drivers, but overall, it happens at least once a day. It is really frustrating and I am not able to get anywhere with it.
Any help or advice is highly appreciated. I am considering getting rid of the Crucial SSD altogether and just using Intel SSD instead, but I am really doubtful that it is the SSD's fault especially that its the 3rd one I use. I also know a couple of friends who own ThinkPads with Crucial M4 SSD inside them, and they seem to be working very well for them.
Thanks in advance,
Al.

Hi again,
Ok so I have applied the fix you have mentioned above, and it did improve (lower) the frequency of the problem happening. It really improved a lot significantly when I uninstalled the Intel drivers and used the Windows 7 built in SATA controller drivers.
However, ... it still happens ... less frequent, but it still takes place, my SSD still gets stuck at least once in 3 days now, or once in 2 days (after severe testing) and the same scenario happens. I am really stuck at this point, and not sure which direction to take.
Any help would really be appreciated, if you have / know any method to debug the BSoD's I get and a way to locate the source of the problem I am willing to go through it 1 by 1 and solve this problem before deciding to finally just giving up on the drive altogether.
Sincerely,
Al.

MTron Pro 7000 64gb Solid State Drive (SSD) in my Mac Pro: Am I the first?

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