I like to share with my readers the process in which I became a SSD (“Sold State Drive”) user.
The price of SSD drive is still way more expensive than a regular HDD, especially when you compared the cost per GB (Gigabyte).
In Hong Kong on average one can find a reasonably fast 7200rpm 1TB (Terabyte) 3.5″ internal drive for about HKD790.00. Even if you purchase a USB capable external enclosure that is only an additional HKD120.00. Giving you a cost per GB of HKD0.91/GB.
On the other hand the Intel SSD X25-M 160GB cost me HKD3770 at the beginning of January, giving me the cost per GB of HK23.56/GB. This means using a SSD cost 24.89 times more.
How I come to decide on purchasing the Intel SSD X25-M? Partially it is because of the reviews and information gather from AnandTech’s web site, plus the feedback from various people about Intel and OCZ SSD.
The reason I compared the 2.5″ SATA II SSD internal drive to a Western Digital Caviar Black 3.5″ high performance SATA II drive, is because that’s what I would have purchased as an additional drive for my MacBook Pro. Now that I purchased the SSD, I converted the original 320GB drive into an external backup drive with an external enclosure.
So is the 160GB SSD installed in my 2.66GHz MacBook Pro 15″ (Mid 2009) with 4GB of RAM 25.89 times faster than when I had the original 320GB 5400rpm HDD installed? I use the program XBench 1.3 to test my MacBook Pro prior to and after swapping the new SSD for the HDD.
The following are the summary of the scores.
| Type of Test | HDD Score | SSD Score |
|---|---|---|
| Overal Results | 116.48 | 191.49 |
| Disk Test | 35.69 | 282.17 |
These results show that my MacBook Pro improved its overall XBench score by 1.64 times and its disk performance score by 7.91 times. Due to Write Amplification I believe more RAM will help further improve the overall performance of my MacBook Pro.
Sure happy with the new purchase 🙂 only as you said should try with more RAM and see if performance improves more. Enjoy the new SSD