Fast Expresscard/34 SSD options for optimizing MBP performance.

[Dustbak]

It seems Phocus needs truly screaming performance for the way I use it.  

I use a MBP on location where I shoot until stylists have perfected the composition and than take 1 single shot followed by a multishot. During these days we do several hundred of single shots and about a max of 70multishots. During the sessions I process to jpg, do an initial processing via ACR in the Bridge. I also like to have firefox open, listen to music, run Entourage, keep a log of what is happening and if it could I would have my MBP make me an espresso too.

Lately with Phocus my MBP is getting really slow under this load. A downside of newer software that sometimes makes me long to the performance of Flexcolor.

I am already upgrading memory from 4Gb to 6Gb to see if this helps and I have planned to upgrade my MBP (1.5years old) to a new version if/when it comes with i5 processors, preferably quad-cores.

Another thing I plan to do is stick a SSD drive in the Expresscard/34 port. Now most of the fastest SSD cards only do about 30MB/s of write speed which is in the range of the internal HDD. The Photofast SSD card does 60Mb/s according to its spec's. The problem is I can't seem to find too many places where I can buy it.

Does anyone have an idea where I can buy this card? Is anyone aware of Expresscards/34 that are larger than 48Gb and as fast or even faster?

[Andy Johnson-Laird]

Check out the Crucial RealSSD. 355MB/second. http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Crucial/AC256MAG1G1/
I have the Corsair 256GB in an MBP running SL with 8GB (how's that for alphabet soup?), but I'm going to swap it out for a RealSSD. I'll let you know what I find.

You might want to consider running XBench on your Mac if you're going to make any changes just to get a before/after. http://www.xbench.com/

Regards
Andy

[David Grover]

I have one of these puppies...

http://www.memoryc.com/storage/solidstatedisk/48gbfilematesolidgoexpresscardultra.html

I think the main benefit is splitting the OS and Data, so if one craps out, the restoration is not as bad.

Also startup on Snow Leopard is under 30seconds, seems a whole lot faster than standard HDD.

And when my MBP went for repair, I simply took my OS with me to a loan laptop!

[NickT]

You can buy me one of those David and bring it to the DR

[Dustbak]

Thx guys!

I have decided to wait for the next MBP release which ought to be somewhere in the near future and stick one of more 'regular' SSD's in it. The crucial seems the fastest indeed.

[Andy Johnson-Laird]

I think the main benefit is splitting the OS and Data, so if one craps out, the restoration is not as bad.

Absolutely, but remember to move your home directory to the Data partition.
(Hint: use ditto. Nothing else works right.)

A.

[Andy Johnson-Laird]

Geek/dork alert. What follows is not fit for human consumption.
But real geeks like Derek and me will lap it up. <evil grin>

Ray: Here's the data from xBench on my MBP for the original SSD I had, a Corsair 256GB (the model number is embedded in the text below)
.
That data is followed by the xBench data for the same MBP with the Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB unit that I installed today.
The real news is at the end of the xBench data....I'll include here right below to make the comparison easy.

Executive summary: Woooowwwwww.....   
Teenager summary: OMFG! 

However, MBP 17" owners, watch out. There's a tiny "issue" with mounting the disk in the MBP.
See my posting at http://forum.crucial.com/t5/Solid-State-Drives-SSD/C300-will-not-fit-properly-in-MacBook-Pro-17-quot-owing-to/td-p/11012

Hope this helps.
Andy


Corsair 256GB:
      Elements   342.15   1.57 Krefresh/sec
   Disk Test   148.71   
      Sequential   108.43   
         Uncached Write   90.88   55.80 MB/sec [4K blocks]
         Uncached Write   78.25   44.28 MB/sec [256K blocks]
         Uncached Read   97.14   28.43 MB/sec [4K blocks]
         Uncached Read   355.43   178.63 MB/sec [256K blocks]
      Random   236.59   
         Uncached Write   120.55   12.76 MB/sec [4K blocks]
         Uncached Write   162.74   52.10 MB/sec [256K blocks]
         Uncached Read   1520.32   10.77 MB/sec [4K blocks]
         Uncached Read   552.70   102.56 MB/sec [256K blocks]

RealSSD C300
      Elements   343.38   1.58 Krefresh/sec
   Disk Test   329.20   
      Sequential   204.53   
         Uncached Write   291.03   178.69 MB/sec [4K blocks]
         Uncached Write   229.57   129.89 MB/sec [256K blocks]
         Uncached Read   107.78   31.54 MB/sec [4K blocks]
         Uncached Read   402.11   202.10 MB/sec [256K blocks]
      Random   843.16   
         Uncached Write   1161.57   122.97 MB/sec [4K blocks]
         Uncached Write   418.22   133.89 MB/sec [256K blocks]
         Uncached Read   1923.81   13.63 MB/sec [4K blocks]
         Uncached Read   1028.49   190.84 MB/sec [256K blocks]


Here's the entirety of both reports:
CORSAIR
Results   193.45   
   System Info      
      Xbench Version      1.3
      System Version      10.6.2 (10C540)
      Physical RAM      8192 MB
      Model      MacBookPro5,2
      Drive Type      CORSAIR CMFSSD-256GBG2D
   CPU Test   218.78   
      GCD Loop   357.85   18.86 Mops/sec
      Floating Point Basic   174.00   4.13 Gflop/sec
      vecLib FFT   146.42   4.83 Gflop/sec
      Floating Point Library   343.43   59.80 Mops/sec
   Thread Test   269.49   
      Computation   314.01   6.36 Mops/sec, 4 threads
      Lock Contention   236.02   10.15 Mlocks/sec, 4 threads
   Memory Test   198.39   
      System   256.91   
         Allocate   492.01   1.81 Malloc/sec
         Fill   196.50   9554.22 MB/sec
         Copy   219.50   4533.77 MB/sec
      Stream   161.58   
         Copy   151.95   3138.49 MB/sec
         Scale   156.92   3241.90 MB/sec
         Add   169.69   3614.74 MB/sec
         Triad   169.26   3620.79 MB/sec
   Quartz Graphics Test   246.76   
      Line   213.72   14.23 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
      Rectangle   285.02   85.09 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
      Circle   242.40   19.76 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
      Bezier   248.98   6.28 Kbeziers/sec [50% alpha]
      Text   254.27   15.91 Kchars/sec
   OpenGL Graphics Test   109.13   
      Spinning Squares   109.13   138.44 frames/sec
   User Interface Test   342.15   
      Elements   342.15   1.57 Krefresh/sec
   Disk Test   148.71   
      Sequential   108.43   
         Uncached Write   90.88   55.80 MB/sec [4K blocks]
         Uncached Write   78.25   44.28 MB/sec [256K blocks]
         Uncached Read   97.14   28.43 MB/sec [4K blocks]
         Uncached Read   355.43   178.63 MB/sec [256K blocks]
      Random   236.59   
         Uncached Write   120.55   12.76 MB/sec [4K blocks]
         Uncached Write   162.74   52.10 MB/sec [256K blocks]
         Uncached Read   1520.32   10.77 MB/sec [4K blocks]
         Uncached Read   552.70   102.56 MB/sec [256K blocks]


-----
CRUCIAL C300
Results   241.36   
   System Info      
      Xbench Version      1.3
      System Version      10.6.2 (10C540)
      Physical RAM      8192 MB
      Model      MacBookPro5,2
      Drive Type      C300-CTFDDAC256MAG
   CPU Test   219.11   
      GCD Loop   358.90   18.92 Mops/sec
      Floating Point Basic   177.09   4.21 Gflop/sec
      vecLib FFT   144.71   4.77 Gflop/sec
      Floating Point Library   343.41   59.80 Mops/sec
   Thread Test   341.09   
      Computation   416.94   8.45 Mops/sec, 4 threads
      Lock Contention   288.58   12.41 Mlocks/sec, 4 threads
   Memory Test   202.68   
      System   262.32   
         Allocate   518.74   1.91 Malloc/sec
         Fill   198.15   9634.60 MB/sec
         Copy   224.12   4629.10 MB/sec
      Stream   165.14   
         Copy   153.99   3180.59 MB/sec
         Scale   158.64   3277.36 MB/sec
         Add   175.33   3734.84 MB/sec
         Triad   174.80   3739.49 MB/sec
   Quartz Graphics Test   211.35   
      Line   186.19   12.40 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
      Rectangle   234.96   70.15 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
      Circle   204.99   16.71 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
      Bezier   221.57   5.59 Kbeziers/sec [50% alpha]
      Text   215.59   13.49 Kchars/sec
   OpenGL Graphics Test   111.45   
      Spinning Squares   111.45   141.38 frames/sec
   User Interface Test   343.38   
      Elements   343.38   1.58 Krefresh/sec
   Disk Test   329.20   
      Sequential   204.53   
         Uncached Write   291.03   178.69 MB/sec [4K blocks]
         Uncached Write   229.57   129.89 MB/sec [256K blocks]
         Uncached Read   107.78   31.54 MB/sec [4K blocks]
         Uncached Read   402.11   202.10 MB/sec [256K blocks]
      Random   843.16   
         Uncached Write   1161.57   122.97 MB/sec [4K blocks]
         Uncached Write   418.22   133.89 MB/sec [256K blocks]
         Uncached Read   1923.81   13.63 MB/sec [4K blocks]
         Uncached Read   1028.49   190.84 MB/sec [256K blocks]

[Dustbak]

That is a pretty big difference between the Corsair and the Crucial!  The write speed of the the crucial is great, a factor 10 above the peak write speed I currently get with the drive in my MBP. Interesting that the read speed with small chunks is lower than the write speed though that is quite logic when you start thinking about it but initial a bit hard to believe.

On average above 130MB/s that would mean 2sec's for a MS raw file

Any data insights on performance degradation over time? Are any of these newer drives 'cleaning up' after themselves? Than again even if it drops 50% over time it will still be 5 times as fast as a fairly fresh S-ATA drive.

[Andy Johnson-Laird]

That is a pretty big difference between the Corsair and the Crucial!  The write speed of the the crucial is great, a factor 10 above the peak write speed I currently get with the drive in my MBP.

Yes....amazing increase at 10x. You don't often see that much improvement, but the MBP now just feels "zippier" (technical term, Derek will explain ) in its overall performance when just doing general work. Final Cut Pro loads faster than on my MacPro with a Raptro 10K rpm drive!)

Interesting that the read speed with small chunks is lower than the write speed though that is quite logic when you start thinking about it but initial a bit hard to believe.

Yeah....I noticed that but it's to do with the weirdness of how flash memory works in terms of needing to read/write data.
Good explanation at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_memory (click on "Block erasure" in the Index)

On average above 130MB/s that would mean 2sec's for a MS raw file

Indeed. That's zippy.

Any data insights on performance degradation over time? Are any of these newer drives 'cleaning up' after themselves? Than again even if it drops 50% over time it will still be 5 times as fast as a fairly fresh S-ATA drive.

I don't know. I was planning to do a monthly xBench on the drive just to see how performance degraded with respect to time and usage.
The data sheet is at http://www.crucial.com/pdf/Datasheets-letter_C300_RealSSD_v2-5-10_online.pdf
and it says it has the ATA-8 w/TRIM command set. Now the question is whether there is a way from the OS of executing the TRIM to clean up the drive.

The MTBF is shown as "TBD." That really means "to be determined by Andy, Derek, and Ray" so you guys better cough up the pennies and upgrade to this drive.

Absolutely gorgeous spring day here in Portland, spring flowers, 65F. I think I'm going to have a late lunch and a glass of good wine.
Let me know if you get one of these superfast SSD beasties...

Regards
Andy

[Dustbak]

We had the first nice spring day over here yesterday after the longest and coldest winter in 14 years for Dutch standards. I truly hate the cold and grey weather

I will definitely test the crucial the moment I get my new MBP. It is taking Apple a long time to finally cough them up.