Need Advice About SSD

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I am receiving MacBook Pro in two weeks, and I was looking into upgrading with SSD. I was wondering for those who have made the switch what would you recommend. I am leaning towards the OCZ Vertex 4 256GB. I would prefer it to be 256GB SSD. The specs will be below.

Apple MacBook Pro, 15.4" Glossy widescreen display, 2.6GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7 with Ivy Bridge, 8GB 1600MHz memory, 750GB Serial ATA Drive.

Thanks In Advance!
 
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May I ask why you want to downgrade?
 
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I don't know

Honestly didn't know it was a downgrade, but I'm not that familiar with the laptop side of things. I have just been told to upgrade to SSD for optimal results.
 
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Here are the specs and configurations. An SSD self installed will be much cheaper than getting Apple to supply and install. Use a OCZ Vertex in an external caddy and quite happy with it. Also consider OWC.

Apple - MacBook Pro - Technical Specifications
 
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Thank you for the information and yes I've seen plenty of walk-through videos on it. It seems pretty straight forward I was going to do it myself when I do it.
 
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I have just been told to upgrade to SSD for optimal results.

Im guessing that the person who said this used a PC for gaming?
An SSD will give you more speed, but the core i7 i believe your SATA will be plenty fast. (And cheeper)

I believe it is a downgrade as you would be giving up a big hard drive size for more money, i just bought my first big hard drive and i love the feeling of never getting close to going over the limit!
 
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I see now

Ok I see what you mean now. Honestly I don't need anywhere near 750GB though and a few of them were gamers, but they mostly referred to overall speed being much better. Right now I have 455GB HDD and I have 333GB left so I don't know how much HDD I will actually need.
 
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Well if your nearing 350gB now there is no sense in getting a 250 GB sdd,

It may be true you don't need the space, but it is nice to have it.;)
 
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True Story

I haven't had a Mac in awhile so it will probably feel fast already, I think I will stick with the original configuration.

Thanks
 
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l bought an SSD hard drive after l broke the regular one in my old PC. The improvement in speed was really impressive. lts almost 3 years ago, and l bought my mac a little over 6 months later so l don't remember exactly on what it improved the most, but especially opening programs and going through explorer was a lot faster. The startup also was very fast, and the battery life improved significantly too if l remember correctly.
l will definitely go for an SSD drive the next time as well. l dont play games on the computer, just use it for internet, watch movies and for my photos.
l have a 256 GB SSD drive now, and its sufficient space for me. Room enough for plenty of programs and some videos/music/photos. But l have to have my photos and most of my movies on an external drive, which is a bit of a hassle. But its worth it, IMO.
 
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I would wait on that SSD since prices are likely to continue to come down. The machine is plenty fast as-is and it doesn't sound like you have any particular need for the speed boost on this brand-new machine.
 
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Thanks for the help Chas

You guys are right now that I think about it it's not a necessity. I will also take more HDD space over speed any day in a Mac. I think I just got carried away lol.

Thanks to all that helped.
 
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Thanks for the info

l bought an SSD hard drive after l broke the regular one in my old PC. The improvement in speed was really impressive. lts almost 3 years ago, and l bought my mac a little over 6 months later so l don't remember exactly on what it improved the most, but especially opening programs and going through explorer was a lot faster. The startup also was very fast, and the battery life improved significantly too if l remember correctly.
l will definitely go for an SSD drive the next time as well. l dont play games on the computer, just use it for internet, watch movies and for my photos.
l have a 256 GB SSD drive now, and its sufficient space for me. Room enough for plenty of programs and some videos/music/photos. But l have to have my photos and most of my movies on an external drive, which is a bit of a hassle. But its worth it, IMO.

Yeah that is what people were telling me. At this point though I just don't see the point in lowering HDD space for speed because I am told they are quite speedy already.

Thanks for your opinion and good information on your experience.
 
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Im running an OWC Mercury Extreme pro and i get ridiculous boot times and write/read speeds... it is NOT a downgrade. take the ATA HDD out and put it in an enclosure as a external HDD and put the SSD in the HDD bay
 
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MacInWin

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Im running an OWC Mercury Extreme pro and i get ridiculous boot times and write/read speeds... it is NOT a downgrade. take the ATA HDD out and put it in an enclosure as a external HDD and put the SSD in the HDD bay
If you do that, get the kit from OWC that will let you put the HDD into the optical drive bay and move the optical drive to an external enclosure. That will let you have the storage with you with just the machine, and only if you want to read/write CD/DVDs will you need to lug the external enclosure. That's what I have done and I really like the quick boots and tons of storage.
 
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I've only fooled around with installing SSD drives in Win-doze gaming PCs, but I can tell you that an SSD drive will ALWAYS be faster than a mechanical HD in the same system. SATA III SSDs are typically up to 3 times faster on both read and write operations than a mechanical HD. I am unfamiliar with which MAC models and OS versions support the TRIM command (SSD optimization), but I do know that only Windows 7 and Windows 8 support TRIM. TRIM is necessary if you want to not have to buy a new SSD within a year or so - TRIM keeps track of which areas of the hard drive have already been used and erased, which is important considering that most SSDs have a typical life of 10,000 write/erase cycles over the entire drive, and it doesn't write to a previously erased area again until all other areas have been used once - this makes the SSD last several years.

On the other hand, mechanical HDs can be written to and erased for years and years without worry. So you'll need to decide if you want blistering speed (SSD), or long-term reliability (mechanical HD). For me, I prefer the speed, and with regular Time Machine backups, I don't worry about the SSD failing in my MBPS w/ Retina.
 
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Thanks

Thanks for all the good points and sharing your experiences with me. I feel I can make at the least a more informed decision.
 
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chas_m

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I am personally waiting for SSDs to fall to about 50 cents per GB before I will jump on it. I'm aware of the huge speed advantage and (so far) they seem to have strong reliability (though they do eventually wear out, they're designed to do so after you've likely moved on to another machine), but the cost differential for the sizes I want is present just too great for cheapskate me. :)
 
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If you do that, get the kit from OWC that will let you put the HDD into the optical drive bay and move the optical drive to an external enclosure. That will let you have the storage with you with just the machine, and only if you want to read/write CD/DVDs will you need to lug the external enclosure. That's what I have done and I really like the quick boots and tons of storage.


+1 I've down the same. The drive kit for the optical bay from OWC is superb and its an easy install.

OWC sells an external enclosure for pretty cheap when you buy the kit.

BTW my favorite SSD is the Vertex4

This is a great upgrade!
 
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I've only fooled around with installing SSD drives in Win-doze gaming PCs, but I can tell you that an SSD drive will ALWAYS be faster than a mechanical HD in the same system. SATA III SSDs are typically up to 3 times faster on both read and write operations than a mechanical HD. I am unfamiliar with which MAC models and OS versions support the TRIM command (SSD optimization), but I do know that only Windows 7 and Windows 8 support TRIM. TRIM is necessary if you want to not have to buy a new SSD within a year or so - TRIM keeps track of which areas of the hard drive have already been used and erased, which is important considering that most SSDs have a typical life of 10,000 write/erase cycles over the entire drive, and it doesn't write to a previously erased area again until all other areas have been used once - this makes the SSD last several years.

On the other hand, mechanical HDs can be written to and erased for years and years without worry. So you'll need to decide if you want blistering speed (SSD), or long-term reliability (mechanical HD). For me, I prefer the speed, and with regular Time Machine backups, I don't worry about the SSD failing in my MBPS w/ Retina.


trim enabler...

Trim Enabler | groths.org
 

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