2. digital
  3. 1299442809

Your experience & thoughts on SSDs for MacMini

I have a 2007-2008 MacMini that I use exclusively as a music server on a third system with the stock HD. I am considering replacing the stock HD to an SSD. The stock HD makes noise that is audible often enough to draw unwanted attention to itself.

I'm looking for experience-based thoughts and commentary on the various SSDs that are available for this replacement. I'm using SnowLeopard and iTunes 10 with Pure Music for playback of AIFF files from a peripheral HD (which is silent).

So far, my research on this seems to get a bit confusing. For example, Other World Computing offers two levels of SSD, one over 50% more $ in price (and 25% larger 40 Gb vs 50 Gb than the other (offering a longer warranty, etc.) And I know there are several other manufacturers of SSDs out there with varying price points and related benefits.

This MacMini isn't used for anything else than serving music, ripping files, streaming audio, playing Netflix downloadable movies, and the occasional download from iTunes.

Your points of view are appreciated.

:) listening,

Ed
istanbulu
perrew
299 posts
 
Prpixel,

I thought regular HDDs did sequential (what most programs do) loadings faster than SSDs?
Do you copy the music from the external to the internal when you want to listen a song? What type of power supplies do you run, battery or Linear PS?
Cheers P
buff's avatar
buff
210 posts
 
I have been enjoying Adele's latest release "21" as of late.
buff's avatar
buff
210 posts
 
Ooooppps, meant to post that in the "best female vocalist thread" - my apologies.
4est
507 posts
 
Sonics aside, faster boot and silent operation!
almarg's avatar
Ag insider logo xs@2x
almarg
9,670 posts
 
03-07-11: Perrew
I thought regular HDDs did sequential (what most programs do) loadings faster than SSDs?
That was true in some cases a few years ago, but no longer. As a rough ballpark, I would expect a typical SATA2 SSD today to provide sustained read transfer rates of around 200 MB/sec. I'd be surprised if the stock HDD in the OP's several year old Mac Mini could do more than around 50 MB/sec, and perhaps even less.

And of course in terms of random access times, which are particularly important for an operating system drive, the SSD would probably be more than 100x faster.

Regards,
-- Al
More to discover