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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

Showing 12 responses by perrew

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
perrew
299 posts
 
I still kind of fail to see what the SSDs do for sonics, are they having lesser electrical noise?
You say the drive dont matter because it all is loaded into memory so why then use a SSD?
How do you play High-Res files?
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
perrew
299 posts
 
03-07-11: Almarg

..it would certainly seem conceivable that replacing an hdd with an ssd might affect (and hopefully improve) jitter levels and noise levels on the signal supplied to the dac.

The keys in that senetence are "might" and "hopefully", those are not reassuring words.
When you optimize the computer for music playback the access speed of the drive might be a non issue so controlled test with SSD vs. HDD should be made, one easy way would be to take once Mac mini with regular internal HDD and connect an external SSD. If the external sounds better we might extrapolate that to an internal SSD sounding better, but if the external SSD sounds worse or equal it might be the interface connecting the drive. Since Macs use USB or FW for external I would wager the internal HDD on Sata might outperfom.
perrew
299 posts
 
Dmccombs,

have you tried a linear PS and can you elaborate how the sound changed when going from a HDD to a SSD?
perrew
299 posts
 
Its the first post by PeterST Im referring too, he is Not advocating what you say thats what Miska says, Peter says to deal with all small spikes.
Also he is saying in other places that he has designed his software after several trials so that now Ramdisk and SSD makes the sound worse.

All Im trying to say is that the story on SSD having superior sound is suported by some but some others dont support it, so I figure if you really wanna know what your own ears detect youre gonna have to give it a go or just ignore it and be happy with the sound you have know and improve the sound elsewhere, IF, you think its doing something wrong.
perrew
299 posts
 
I would find big sticks less convenient than a HDD/SSD, it would be like partitions or catalogs and then would they be running of the USB bus or what?
Im waiting for my Mac Mini 2010 server version, to compare to the PC I built, both with HDDs, to see if there is a difference between the two. But my wager is that a Linear PS or battery would make a larger impact than the drive which I dont think will infuluence as much. Several builders of Dacs also report better sound with using a PC alsthough the Mac is a very nice solution. I like Macs and would love if they had the equal sound as PC but I dont count on it.
perrew
299 posts
 
Dmccombs,

Extrapolating from the mach2 you are saying the Linear PS is worse than the switching inside the mac mini but the ssd makes a big enough difference?
Could you please elaborate on the sonic differences between the SSD vs. the HDD?
perrew
299 posts
 
Tbg, agree, I would love the convenience of just using Itunes. Imagine if it had the capability of the Sooloos with grouping and searching.
As for FW Im not convinced by what Ive heard.
I use a Plextor, one of the old really well built ones for ripping. And have a BR drive for movies since Steve dont fancy the BR format.
I have ordered the Server version of the mini which has 2x500Gb 7200rpm drives inside so that should be able to hold most of the music, extremely convenient. Then I have Plex with external drives for movies.
perrew
299 posts
 
Darrell,

I just extrapolated from that the mach2 has switching PS you preferred that?

So if I understand you never A/B the internal HDD vs. internal SSD?, couldnt this have been easily done by having a stock vs. a Mach2?
I dont see why youd wanna use external drive for playback when you can use internal?
Cheers P
perrew
299 posts
 
Dmccombs, thats not my intention:-)

Without extrapolating then, why do you not have linear PS or battery on the server?

So how did the internal HDD compare to an internal SSD?

SSDs are getting quite large so with two of those you can cover quite large librarys.

Im just trying to learn here how to best optimize my server.
perrew
299 posts
 
Here is an interesting take by someone saying SSDs cant improve sound. http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/Software-Hardware-Comparison?page=1
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