The installation of SSD’s in MacBook Pro’s happens on a daily basis here at the hardwrk office. Therefore we have been playing with the idea of building the world’s fastest MacBook Pro with an SSD-Raid-0 for some time. We wanted to know how fast you could get the machine by using only standard components. After initial tests with different Raid setups and some failed attempts we bundled our know-how and built the ultimate killer machine: the hardwrk SSD 830 biturbo. The monstrous power of a 13″-MacBook Pro combined with 16 GB DDR3 RAM and a 1 TB-Samsung 830 SATA III SSD as the biturbo’s heart bundled in a Raid-0. To put it short: the ultimate rocket machine! And the best thing about it? You can win the world’s fastest MacBook Pro!

Pictures of the hardwrk SSD 830 biturbo

All 5 images ►

Building the fastest MacBook Pro really isn’t complicated at all. You just have to buy a few MacBook Pro’s, a whole bunch of SSD’s and a hardwrk adapter kit to test it. After a few weeks of investigation and research, drinking coffee / Club Mate by the gallon and unnumbered installations of Mac-OS-X you finally get the SSD-Raid-MacBook Pro rocket! The biggest obstacle in all this was the unclear SATA III compatibility in Apple’s MacBook Pros on the DVD drive’s SATA port. Since the use of this port is not intended by Apple we needed to painfully test this out and came to some interesting conclusions during this process (See info box SATA III in MacBook Pro).

hardwrk SSD 830 biturbo specs:

1. Currently fastest Apple MacBook Pro 13″ as base (2,8GHz i7, Status as of 04/2012)
2. Currently maximum possible RAM (2x 8GB Samsung Dimm = 16GB)
3. SSD-RAID-0 for maximum data throughput and access times (the Samsung 830 series already are within the range of the fastest SSD’s on the market – in a Raid-0 the speed while cutting videos or other bandwidth-intense processes is intergalactic!)
4. Engraving plus decent branding (matt black cover with white type labeling)
5. Absolutely suitable for the everyday grind (Battery and heat development on standard level → no dirty hacks / over-clocking,…)
6. Proudly manufactured by German nerds

Part list

Quantity	Description	Price
1	Apple MacBook Pro 13″, Intel Core i7-2640M, 2,8GHz, 4GB RAM	1385 EUR
2	Samsung 830 512GB SATAIII-SSD (Big Thanks goes to Samsung for sponsoring these nice SSDs!)	1227,98 EUR
2	Samsung 8 GB DDR3-1333PC3-10600 SO-DIMM	310 EUR
1	hardwrk SSD/HDD Adapter Kit	79 EUR
	TOTAL:	~ 3000 EUR

Performance

Action	Speed
Mac OS X complete boot up	19,7 sec
Mac OS X reboot	16 sec
MacBook Pro wakeup	3,2 sec
App: Eclipse start	4,3 sec
App: Photoshop start	1,7 sec
Finder: 1GB zip-file decompression	4,9 sec
Finder: 1GB zip-file compression	38,7 sec

Some numbers from our Xbench test:

Memory Test (System)

Allocate	Fill	Copy
8.91 Malloc/sec	22,348.95 MB/sec	14,347.55 MB/sec

Disk Test (Sequentiell)

Uncached Write		Uncached Read
4k blocks	256k blocks	4k blocks	256k blocks
951.25 MB/sec	495.57 MB/sec	33.95 MB/sec	564.11 MB/sec

SATAIII and the MacBook Pro

The MacBook Pro generally supports SATA III on the HDD SATA port since version 8.1 (early 2011). The port of the optical drive supports SATA III since the „late 2011“ models (same version number). The peculiarity though is that SATA III only works stable on the optical drive’s port in the 13″ MacBook Pro. The 15 and 17′ models have significant problems with SATA III SSD/HDD on the optical drive’s port. For the time being, it is not clear if this malfunction will be resolved by a firmware-update by Apple or if this is even caused by a cable which does not specify for SATA III.

Modell	SATA-III on HDD-Port	SATA-III on DVD Port
MacBook Pro 15′ (early 2011)	x	- (SATAIII devices run at SATAII speed)
MacBook Pro 13′ (early 2011)	x	- (SATAIII devices run at SATAII speed)
MacBook Pro 15′ (late 2011)	x	o (possible in theory, many problems in practice)
MacBook Pro 13′ (late 2011)	x	x (fully working! *yeah!*)

See it in action!

How to win the hardwrk SSD 830 biturbo

In order to win the hardwrk SSD 830 biturbo, you have to at least write a comment at the bottom of this blogpost about why you want to win this badly and in addition share our campaign (Twitter, facebook, Google+). Everybody who participates will take part in the drawing of the hardwrk SSD 830 biturbo.

Attention:
Please attach the link to your social media share and a valid email address that we will be able to contact you -> otherwise you will not participate!!

Deadline is April 20th 2012, so be fast!

We’re looking forward to your extroverted statements!

A special thank you goes to Samsung who were so kind to provide us with the SSDs to make this happen.

UPDATE – April 21th 2012

Thanks for participating! Our contest is closed now!!
We will publish the winner of the hardwrk SSD 830 biturbo during the next week and update this blogpost soon.

The hardwrk team