10-25-2010, 09:15 PM

Looking to get a new 13 inch MBP 2.66 GHz but i was looking at the hard drives and its 675 more (student pricing) for the 256 GB SSD... is that actually worth the extra 700 dollars? keep in mind I'm a broke college student working a P/T job making about $320 every two weeks.... is the SSD worth a month of working?

10-25-2010, 09:24 PM

In short.... NO

675 can buy you a 500GB 7200rpm HD and 8GB RAM from OWC, as well as apple care, and still leave you a couple of hundred in your pocket

10-25-2010, 09:24 PM

If money is tight..then no it isn't worth it..the SSD will greatly improve access time and so on..but do you REALLY need that kind of performance? If so, then spend the cash..otherwise..save it and go with the HD for now and you can always upgrade to the SSD (same goes for RAM) at a later point when you have the cash to spend on it..

Regards

10-25-2010, 09:28 PM

It can be - it really depends on your needs. I think for the average user, it's a luxury. I also think the technology is still a bit immature - and of course, Apple hasn't implemented TRIM yet, so long term performance may be questionable (although XJ-Linux will likely jump in here and remind me that his has been running great for some time now).

Personally, I think we're going to see sharp decreases in prices over the next year or so. I'm personally waiting until they get down to about $1.25 per GB with a very good controller.

Keep in mind too that you can easily upgrade to one at a later time (as long as it's not a MacBook Air).

10-25-2010, 09:31 PM

To upgrade it do i have to take it to apple or can i just go to any comp store that builds comps?

10-25-2010, 09:34 PM

Step 7
MacBook Pro 13" Unibody Teardown - iFixit

10-25-2010, 09:34 PM

if you know how to operate a small Phillips screwdriver, it's an easy DIY.

10-25-2010, 09:38 PM

wow that guide makes it look really easy

10-25-2010, 09:59 PM

I just put a Seagate Momentus XT in my 15" MBP and it is amazing for only $120. It now boots in about 22 seconds and opens final cut within about 2 seconds. 500gbs, $120.. I'd recommend it to anyone.

10-25-2010, 11:50 PM

It can be worth it if you buy an aftermarket SSD for a good price. Note: keep the original HDD to pop back in, in case you need Apple to do warranty repairs at some point.

10-26-2010, 12:21 AM

any after market SDD you guys recommend?

10-26-2010, 01:43 PM

I'm running an Intel X25M 80 GB SSD. It does considerably increase start-up speed and applications load faster. Also when searching through lots of files they automatically load instead of waiting to view previews. The other advantage is how much more reliable they are than having a spinning disk in there. With a laptop, hard drive failures are common b/c it gets moved around alot. Having the SSD, you could probably chuck this thing at the wall and it would be ok. Considering I dont keep much data on here other than my itunes library and applications, you are limited in space or spend a fortune to get alot of GB, but i'm actually running bootcamp with Windows 7 and still have plenty of space between the 2. All of the big files I have (movies and such) go straight to my 2 TB NAS so I didnt need a large drive in my notebook. I really enjoy the performance and the durability of the SSD. here's the specs.

INTEL SSDSA2M080G2GC:

Capacity: 80.03 GB (80,026,361,856 bytes)
Model: INTEL SSDSA2M080G2GC
Native Command Queuing: Yes
Queue Depth: 32
Removable Media: No
Detachable Drive: No
BSD Name: disk0
Medium Type: Solid State
TRIM Support: No
Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
S.M.A.R.T. status: Verified
Volumes:
Macintosh HD:
Capacity: 53.69 GB (53,687,091,200 bytes)
Available: 25.79 GB (25,794,969,600 bytes)
Writable: Yes
File System: Journaled HFS+
BSD Name: disk0s2
Mount Point: /
BOOTCAMP:
Capacity: 25.99 GB (25,994,199,040 bytes)
Available: 9.2 GB (9,198,149,632 bytes)
Writable: No
File System: NTFS
BSD Name: disk0s3
Mount Point: /Volumes/BOOTCAMP

10-26-2010, 01:51 PM

Also, forgot to mention. I picked it up for about $200, so it's a little more affordable unless you really need alot of space. And if you're looking at the 2.66, you could save some by just going with the 2.4 since you're looking at replacing the HD anyway. There's a $300 gap just for a bigger HD and faster processor between the two 13" models I've looked at.

10-26-2010, 05:13 PM

Originally Posted by Lbatson21

I'm running an Intel X25M 80 GB SSD. It does considerably increase start-up speed and applications load faster. Also when searching through lots of files they automatically load instead of waiting to view previews. The other advantage is how much more reliable they are than having a spinning disk in there. With a laptop, hard drive failures are common b/c it gets moved around alot. Having the SSD, you could probably chuck this thing at the wall and it would be ok. Considering I dont keep much data on here other than my itunes library and applications, you are limited in space or spend a fortune to get alot of GB, but i'm actually running bootcamp with Windows 7 and still have plenty of space between the 2. All of the big files I have (movies and such) go straight to my 2 TB NAS so I didnt need a large drive in my notebook. I really enjoy the performance and the durability of the SSD. here's the specs.

INTEL SSDSA2M080G2GC:

Capacity: 80.03 GB (80,026,361,856 bytes)
Model: INTEL SSDSA2M080G2GC
Native Command Queuing: Yes
Queue Depth: 32
Removable Media: No
Detachable Drive: No
BSD Name: disk0
Medium Type: Solid State
TRIM Support: No
Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
S.M.A.R.T. status: Verified
Volumes:
Macintosh HD:
Capacity: 53.69 GB (53,687,091,200 bytes)
Available: 25.79 GB (25,794,969,600 bytes)
Writable: Yes
File System: Journaled HFS+
BSD Name: disk0s2
Mount Point: /
BOOTCAMP:
Capacity: 25.99 GB (25,994,199,040 bytes)
Available: 9.2 GB (9,198,149,632 bytes)
Writable: No
File System: NTFS
BSD Name: disk0s3
Mount Point: /Volumes/BOOTCAMP

How is the SSD temperature wise?

10-26-2010, 05:55 PM

Not sure on the temp. I downloaded iStats but I dont know much about locations inside the computer and so i only could figure out cpu temp when I checked it out. It had about 8 different places that it was reading a temp so I dont know exactly.