P256GB beginner's guide Macbook Pro

[aublumberg]

Hey there,

 

I've bought a P256GB yesterday and was getting confused by a variety of individual posts and comments on this Forum, and was wondering if there is a simple, convenient guide for like-minded people that tell simple things like e.g. (1) how to format your new drive, (2) tell you to do a fresh install rather than an image clone, (3) what tools to use to check the performance and healthiness of the P256GB and with a URL where to download these tools etc. etc.

 

I think I got there in the end but given I'm a newb you never know. Anyway, as a starting point here's what I did and I look very much forward to any corrections / improvements:

 

(1) Do a fresh install of the Mac OS from the installation DVD, do not clone an existing disk image

 

(2) Use default disk format Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

 

(3) You can check your disk healthiness, in particular CRC error count, after your installation by using a tool called SMART Utility for Mac OS X (http://www.volitans-software.com/smart_utility.php). Mine shows a CRC Error Count of 60. Is that bad or within reason? Some guidelines on a suitable CRC error range would be helpful for us beginners. Overall SMART Status shows "PASSED".

 

(4) From this tool, if you click on [Drive Information "More Info"] you can also see the SSD firmware. Mine is VBM18C1Q. Is this the correct / latest one?

 

(5) To check throughput you can use a tool called Xbench (http://xbench.com/). The tool can check many components of your computer, but if you check only the disk aspect you will get something like

 

Results 234.40

System Info

Xbench Version 1.3

System Version 10.5.8 (9L30)

Physical RAM 4096 MB

Model MacBookPro5,1

Drive Type CORSAIR CMFSSD-256GBG2D

Disk Test 234.40

Sequential 193.92

Uncached Write 267.38 164.17 MB/sec [4K blocks]

Uncached Write 270.54 153.07 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Uncached Read 93.85 27.47 MB/sec [4K blocks]

Uncached Read 394.45 198.25 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Random 296.23

Uncached Write 120.44 12.75 MB/sec [4K blocks]

Uncached Write 340.50 109.01 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Uncached Read 1874.88 13.29 MB/sec [4K blocks]

Uncached Read 578.11 107.27 MB/sec [256K blocks]

 

Again, broad ranges for key dimensions in the above list would help beginners to better judge where they stand.

 

I run a Macbook Pro5,1 (Late 2008) with 2.8Ghz, 4GB RAM.

 

Any input much appreciated - thank you.

 

Andre.

[RAM GUY]

Great post and I think this will be great help to some one else.

 

(1) Do a fresh install of the Mac OS from the installation DVD, do not clone an existing disk image

A: Agreed, its always best to do a fresh install and I am pretty sure the MAC O.S. will allow you to update or do it Automaticly..

 

(2) Use default disk format Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

A: Agreed just use the default steps and by default it will do a quick format Never do a full format on SSD Drives.

 

(3) You can check your disk healthiness, in particular CRC error count, after your installation by using a tool called SMART Utility for Mac OS X (http://www.volitans-software.com/smart_utility.php). Mine shows a CRC Error Count of 60. Is that bad or within reason? Some guidelines on a suitable CRC error range would be helpful for us beginners. Overall SMART Status shows "PASSED".

A: I would suggest check on this on the Mac/Apple Forum and see what they say.

 

(4) From this tool, if you click on [Drive Information "More Info"] you can also see the SSD firmware. Mine is VBM18C1Q. Is this the correct / latest one?

A: Yes that is the latest version, and just F.Y.I. if there is an update you would have to reformat and install the O.S. so if the system is working with out problems dont worry about doing a firmware update on your SSD.

 

(5) To check throughput you can use a tool called Xbench (http://xbench.com/). The tool can check many components of your computer, but if you check only the disk aspect you will get something like

A: Great information and sounds like the tool to use with any Apple or Mac.