SSD boot disk?

[firestarter]

Wanted to get a few opinions from Teh Private hive mind.

I've got a MacPro, which I use for general computer type stuff - plus creative stuff (Lightroom, Logic and Final Cut).

For the last couple of years I've been running a 150GB Raptor as main HDD, with (currently) 1.5 and 2GB drives in the other 3 slots. Since I decided to digitise all my DVDs, they're pretty well full. My iTunes library is pretty big too, since I like to use Apple Lossless.

I'm really feeling out of space on my boot drive, and running it at 80% full isn't helping speed at all. My Raptor is now 2 generations old - so I could easily jump to a 300GB or one of the new 600GB drives (I probably wouldn't replace it with a regular 7200rpm drive). Going for the 600GB means I could probably run the drive less than 50% full all the time, which would help speed too.

Trouble with paying for the 600GB raptor is that it's not a whole lot cheaper than the lower end SSD drives (and buying the cheaper last generation 300GB feels wrong with a newer drive out). But a 120G SSD is smaller than my current drive - and unfortunately a lot of my disk usage is stuff that apps like hiding in library directories - difficult to move off the boot disk.

My computer is on 24/7 so I don't care about boot times. I know the increased read and write speed of the new Raptor will be nice with Lightroom. SSDs do great on highly multitasking/lots of small file workloads - and I'm not really convinced that that describes my situation.

Cost is a consideration. If it wasn't, I'd get a 256GB Crucial C300 SSD and have done with it.

Anyone running with SSD and liking it? Any other thoughts?

[robbieduncan]

Tests 600Gb 'raptors in RAID and non-RAID configurations vs a SSD: http://www.storagereview.com/western...sd_alternative

The SSD destroys a single 'raptor in real-world usage tests.

[jessica]

I'm running an intel g2 as my boot disk in my early 2008 MP. I love it. The speed is great and I try not to run it more than 70% full. I'm not sure I could go back to anything under 10,000 RPM if I had to return to a HDD

[firestarter]

Tests 600Gb 'raptors in RAID and non-RAID configurations vs a SSD: http://www.storagereview.com/western...sd_alternative

The SSD destroys a single 'raptor in real-world usage tests.

Hmm. I'm not sure that high transactions per second database or web server loads are the same sort of 'real world' tasks that I do. I am slightly suspicious of some of these benchmarks to be honest. Tech Report's 'real world' comparisons seem closer.

Thanks for the link though. I'd read StorageReview's review of the original drive, but not the RAID comparison - very interesting to see increased throughput overcome the latency disadvantage of mechanical storage. I'm having some doubts whether Apple's software RAID would perform as well as a dedicated card.

I do find myself running background tasks (like Handbrake) so that the resultant files stream onto a non-boot disk. I think if you're careful you can avoid a lot of the 'disk head skipping around' scenarios which make mechanical drives perform so much worse than SSD - since it's that latency caused by head movement that's the real letdown.

I'm running an intel g2 as my boot disk in my early 2008 MP. I love it. The speed is great and I try not to run it more than 70% full. I'm not sure I could go back to anything under 10,000 RPM if I had to return to a HDD

I just think I'd have difficulty staying under 70% - although the extra space on the 160GB Intel drive would make that easier. Have you resolved the disk error issue with that?

[Cynicalone]

I'm running an Intel G2 160GB in my 09 Mac Pro. It stays close to 75% full most of the time. Very good performance.

To make up for the loss of storage space I loaded bay 2, 3, and 4 with 2TB WD Caviar Black drives.

I had the same disk errors as Jessica but after booting off of the Snow Leopard disk and repairing the drive I've had no problems with it.

[firestarter]

I bought the Raptor 600.

Reasoning...

I think this is going to provide me with the best overall experience right now. It'll totally cure my space issue. My current speed is OK with the Raptor 150GB - but it starts to bog down at over 80% full. This new drive is supposedly over 40% faster, plus it'll be less full so it should feel a lot better.

I'm using Lightroom a lot, and LR3 can also benefit from over 50GB of disk cache - so actually having that much space free means I can get a good speedup in this app in particular. With the SSD I wouldn't be able to do that.

Thanks for your help folks. I think this Mac Pro is a long term keeper (had it for 2.5 years, but the cost of a new one means I won't be upgrading any time soon). I'll definitely end up with an SSD fitted at some point in the future - but for now another Raptor looks like what I need.