"MacBook Pro 2.5Ghz Penryn C2D with 4GB RAM, running OS X 10.5.5 Patriot PE64GS25SSDR 2.5" 64GB SATA II SSD HD

Drive Specs: Patriot PE64GS25SSDR V.2
Device Type: Internal Solid state disk (SSD)
Width 3.9", Depth 2.8", Height 0.4", Weight 3.21 oz.
Form Factor: 2.5", Capacity 64GB
Interface Type: SATA II
Features: Raid support: 0, 1, 0+1
Certification: FCC/CE/RoHS
Performance:
Max Shock Resistance: 1500G/0.5ms
Max Vibration Resistance: 20G/10~2000Hz with 3 Axis
Random Access - Read: up to 175MB/s
Random Access - Write: up to 100MB/s
MTBF:1,500,000 hours

Big improvement over the Hitachi 7200rpm 200GB drive. System boots quickly and apps open just about instantly. Opening multiple apps at the same time still open just as fast.

This drive is one of the newer V.2 labeled drives and does not exhibit the pausing problems that I have read the OCZ brand drives have which use the same JMicron controller.

All that being said, I'm not sure I'd recommend this drive just yet giving the price point. It was $250 ($179 after rebate) for 64GB? One can easily buy a 1TB 3.5" (desktop drive) for $140 (less sometimes). (Or 500GB SATA notebook drive for under $200.-Mike) Still, I think I'll keep it!

Xbench Results/Scores: (Corrected/Updated)
Disk Test 66.66 (overall score)
Sequential 79.34
  Uncached Write 104.81, 64.35MB/sec [4K blocks]
  Uncached Write 124.30, 70.33MB/sec [256K blocks]
  Uncached Read 36.36, 10.65MB/sec [4K blocks]
  Uncached Read 186.85, 93.91MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 57.48
  Uncached Write 17.49, 1.85MB/sec [4K blocks]
  Uncached Write 104.22, 33.37MB/sec [256K blocks]
  Uncached Read 1434.22, 10.16MB/sec [4K blocks]
  Uncached Read 472.52, 87.68MB/sec [256K blocks]"

SSDs have great random access performance (no moving parts - no heads to move, etc.) and are *much* more rugged than standard hard drives. But personally I'd prefer a 500GB (internal) notebook drive as I'm always running low on disk space and don't like carrying around ext. drives with notebooks for more storage. (My iTunes library alone would not fit on a 64GB drive.) In June 2008 Oliver wrote an article at the main site comparing 32GB MemoRight GT SSD vs WD Raptor and WD VelociRaptor in his Mac Pro (using other disk benchmarks), although his 32GB SSD back then cost quite a bit more than the Patriot drive.

Also a FYI on NoteBook Specials Ending today: 320GB 7200RPM $109.99; 320GB 5400RPM $64.99. (These rebates are available for orders placed by 7PM today (Monday October 6th). Up to 5 Drives per household/customer/location)

"RE: Intel-based Mac: Startup issues after using unsupported version of Windows installer via Boot Camp. (Ref: Apple doc in recent news page)
Also, one should never interrupt the startup process in Parallels and possibly other virtual machines. I had the same problem of inability to startup after interrupting Parallels v 2.x startup. (This was several months ago before Parallels 3.0 was out. I was running Win XP SP2.)
The MacBook was totally locked up/dead with only a black screen. Using a couple of other bootable utilities such as Tech Tool Pro and Deluxe were unsuccessful and finally after using the utility (I assumed a version of Tech Tool) supplied on the install CD that came with the machine was I able to get the machine to boot. It could well be that use of Tech Tool Pro or Deluxe would have been successful but I do not want to duplicate the process to determine if that would, in fact, work!
Regards, Wil N."

Hard Drives:
• SATA Western Digital 1TB ("Black") WD1001FALS in Mac Pro (OS X 10.5.5)
  (includes Quickbench 100MB test results)
• SSD (internal) 64GB Patriot PE64GS25SSDR v2 in MacBook Pro (OS X 10.5.5)
  (filed under "Other" brands - copy of report mirrored above here.)

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