SSD Question

[Don]

I can get a "MAC Series SSD" with free shipping for a very reasonable
price. Can I install and use the SSD in my HP laptop? What's the
difference between a MAC series drive and a regular drive anyway?

Thanks,
Don

 

[John Doe]

I can get a "MAC Series SSD" with free shipping for a very
reasonable price. Can I install and use the SSD in my HP
laptop?

Are you in touch with Hewlett Packard's web site and the data
pages for your laptop?

 

[Hench]

I can get a "MAC Series SSD" with free shipping for a very reasonable
price. Can I install and use the SSD in my HP laptop? What's the
difference between a MAC series drive and a regular drive anyway?

Thanks,
Don

Is it because Macs do TRIM different than Windows?

 

[Paul]

Is it because Macs do TRIM different than Windows?

I don't see any hints here, that they're different.

http://www.ssd-for-mac.com/

And this site is where symptoms get collected for these things.
If a Mac user has a problem using PC hardware, it might show up
here. In this thread, an early version of TRIM support
is turned on, and apparently not all Mac users are happy
with the result on their SSD.

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/archives/jul11/070811.html

But does that mean a Mac SSD is "designed different" ?
It shouldn't be. It should be designed to the ATA/ATAPI spec
that covers SSD functions (such as the new SSD SMART parameters
and the like). Both Macs and PCs should be using ATA/ATAPI
the same way.

I can use standard IDE drives in my G4.

The Mac G5 has a problem with the spread spectrum setting
on the SATA cable (some SATA drives, you have to insert
the Spread Spectrum jumper for the drive to work with the G5).
That's the only interface issue I've heard of. What's broken
there, I haven't Googled it.

Paul

 

[Yousuf Khan]

I can get a "MAC Series SSD" with free shipping for a very reasonable
price. Can I install and use the SSD in my HP laptop? What's the
difference between a MAC series drive and a regular drive anyway?

I think the only difference between a Mac-series SSD and a PC one is
that technical support may not automatically just hang-up on you if
you're using a Mac operating system rather than Windows.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Michael Black]

I think the only difference between a Mac-series SSD and a PC one is that
technical support may not automatically just hang-up on you if you're using a
Mac operating system rather than Windows.

That's possible. There was a time when modems had wording on the box
about how they could be used with Macs or IBM PCs, it wasn't about a
technical issue, just a way to make it easy for the non-technical to see
it would work with their computer.

There was a time when the Mac required special disk drives. I'm not even
sure if it was something important, or just that the Mac software looked
for something to indicate a "Mac drive" before it would work.

On the other hand, in that same time period, "IBM PCs" required RAM that
had an extra bit per every 8bits for parity checking. Except for a couple
of top end Macs, they didn't need the parity bits. But you tended to see
RAM specifically for the Mac, I seem to recall at a premium price. The
"secret" was that RAM with the parity bit would run fine in a Mac, it just
never noticed there was a parity bit. So anyone could buy RAM for the IBM
PC and use it in the Mac, probably cheaper since there was more demand for
it. It "cost extra" to leave off the parity bit.

So "Mac COmpatible" may mean nothing, just a selling point which likely
carries a premium price, or there may be something significant, but one
has to actually look to figure that out.

Michael