Hello Peoples,
I bought a MacBook Pro 17" mid 2009 Core 2 Duo 2.8Ghz 4GB RAM, 500GB 5400RPM, Anti-Glare as soon as it came out in 2009. Been using it ever since.
History: Upgraded the HDD to 500GB 7200RMP, upgraded RAM to 8GB, upgraded HDD to 500GB MomentusXT, then recently to 750GB MomentusXT HDD.
(Buy a Mac for all my employees, they mostly prefer iMAC 27" - huge Apple fan)
I have been waiting patiently for the new MBPs to come out and when they did, I was hugely disappointed there was no MBP17. I then seriously spent my time doing my homework on MBP15 Retina - went down to the Apple Store and spent a good 2 hours looking and using it. Came away even more disappointed than before. The new Retina MBP is pretty sweet but I need the screen size not so much the resolution. I got a closer look at the Retina laptop when a hired a new employee last Friday 15th and decided to get them the new Retina laptop, 500GB, 8GB RAM. Came back to the office and then started getting it all setup, dongle for Ethernet (seriously...fail), Firewire dongle (another fail). To stop the whole dongle wire mess that was starting to happen on the table I connected the Mac to my Mac 27" display and used that for Ethernet and FW. We use large files and WiFi is not going to cut it and looking my new team members face when it hit her that she was going to have to use the dongle all the time, we almost started crying because the Mac is some beautiful and clean. Personally, I'd go nutty if I had to use a screen with soooo much glare (she loves the laptop by the way and like all MBP owners became extremely protective of it very quickly).
I placed an order on Apple shortly afterwards for a Refurb: MBP 17" late October, 2.5Ghz, 4GB RAM, 500GB 5400RPM HDD (with AppleCare), AntiGlare. Also ordered: 16GB Corsair RAM SODIMMs (8GB x2), Samsung 830 SSD 512GB and Speck transparent case.
I can live without USB 3.0 but need my Express34 slot. CPU, RAM and GPU is good enough (Adobe heavy users and some FM12 when I get depressed (telling men what to do always feels good;-) and more recently started using After Effects alot more than before).
Point of this message. Going to keep a small thread here and update it with my progress. For the first time I am not buying the latest Apple gear but slightly older hardware for the simple reason that the MBP15 Retina has a lot of drawbacks for simply a slimer design and better CPU, GPU.
My to-do list of things for my late 2011 MBP17:
1. Check for dead pixels on arrival
2. Ensure system is updated fully using combo standalone update (never use Apple Software update, caused far too many issues for me in the past)
3. Benchmark using Cine and Geek tools (RAM/CPU testing only)
4. Samsang 830 512GB SSD (notebook kit). Connect to Windows using provided USB cable. Update firmware (no benchmarking on SDD).
5. Install 830 SSD
6. Install 16GB RAM
7. Boot off SuperDuper HDD copy of old MBP install and run cine/geek benchmarks to make sure hardware works fine (RAM testing more than anything)
8. Install Lion on 830 SSD. First time in 3 years I'll be re-installing my Mac OS itself
9. Setup/Install the apps and tweaks I use
10. Install SMC fan controller and iStats and ensure my fan speeds remain normal (kext issue conflict can cause some issues)
11. Final benchmark testing before giving it the all clear to use.
12. Copy all my data over (extremely messy dev folders all over the place so should be interesting)
13. Optimise install for SSD (few tweaks that I will be doing, will document everything here, RAM disk tweak though, too risky when working on large files)
On a side note, my work setup is: MBP17", 1x WD Firewire 2TB (SuperDuper daily backup), 1x TimeCapsule 1TB (timemachine backups), 1x WD 1TB USB HDD (weekly backups - every Sunday), 23" Dell Monitor via DVI (monitoring email accounts), iPAD Retina 32GB (FileMaker Pro DB access). PCI Express 34= Gig Ethernet Adapter, iPAD and my iPhone are always connected for charging via USB.
I hope people will chime in with any tips / tricks and comments.
JenBell
I bought a MacBook Pro 17" mid 2009 Core 2 Duo 2.8Ghz 4GB RAM, 500GB 5400RPM, Anti-Glare as soon as it came out in 2009. Been using it ever since.
History: Upgraded the HDD to 500GB 7200RMP, upgraded RAM to 8GB, upgraded HDD to 500GB MomentusXT, then recently to 750GB MomentusXT HDD.
(Buy a Mac for all my employees, they mostly prefer iMAC 27" - huge Apple fan)
I have been waiting patiently for the new MBPs to come out and when they did, I was hugely disappointed there was no MBP17. I then seriously spent my time doing my homework on MBP15 Retina - went down to the Apple Store and spent a good 2 hours looking and using it. Came away even more disappointed than before. The new Retina MBP is pretty sweet but I need the screen size not so much the resolution. I got a closer look at the Retina laptop when a hired a new employee last Friday 15th and decided to get them the new Retina laptop, 500GB, 8GB RAM. Came back to the office and then started getting it all setup, dongle for Ethernet (seriously...fail), Firewire dongle (another fail). To stop the whole dongle wire mess that was starting to happen on the table I connected the Mac to my Mac 27" display and used that for Ethernet and FW. We use large files and WiFi is not going to cut it and looking my new team members face when it hit her that she was going to have to use the dongle all the time, we almost started crying because the Mac is some beautiful and clean. Personally, I'd go nutty if I had to use a screen with soooo much glare (she loves the laptop by the way and like all MBP owners became extremely protective of it very quickly).
I placed an order on Apple shortly afterwards for a Refurb: MBP 17" late October, 2.5Ghz, 4GB RAM, 500GB 5400RPM HDD (with AppleCare), AntiGlare. Also ordered: 16GB Corsair RAM SODIMMs (8GB x2), Samsung 830 SSD 512GB and Speck transparent case.
I can live without USB 3.0 but need my Express34 slot. CPU, RAM and GPU is good enough (Adobe heavy users and some FM12 when I get depressed (telling men what to do always feels good;-) and more recently started using After Effects alot more than before).
Point of this message. Going to keep a small thread here and update it with my progress. For the first time I am not buying the latest Apple gear but slightly older hardware for the simple reason that the MBP15 Retina has a lot of drawbacks for simply a slimer design and better CPU, GPU.
My to-do list of things for my late 2011 MBP17:
1. Check for dead pixels on arrival
2. Ensure system is updated fully using combo standalone update (never use Apple Software update, caused far too many issues for me in the past)
3. Benchmark using Cine and Geek tools (RAM/CPU testing only)
4. Samsang 830 512GB SSD (notebook kit). Connect to Windows using provided USB cable. Update firmware (no benchmarking on SDD).
5. Install 830 SSD
6. Install 16GB RAM
7. Boot off SuperDuper HDD copy of old MBP install and run cine/geek benchmarks to make sure hardware works fine (RAM testing more than anything)
8. Install Lion on 830 SSD. First time in 3 years I'll be re-installing my Mac OS itself
9. Setup/Install the apps and tweaks I use
10. Install SMC fan controller and iStats and ensure my fan speeds remain normal (kext issue conflict can cause some issues)
11. Final benchmark testing before giving it the all clear to use.
12. Copy all my data over (extremely messy dev folders all over the place so should be interesting)
13. Optimise install for SSD (few tweaks that I will be doing, will document everything here, RAM disk tweak though, too risky when working on large files)
On a side note, my work setup is: MBP17", 1x WD Firewire 2TB (SuperDuper daily backup), 1x TimeCapsule 1TB (timemachine backups), 1x WD 1TB USB HDD (weekly backups - every Sunday), 23" Dell Monitor via DVI (monitoring email accounts), iPAD Retina 32GB (FileMaker Pro DB access). PCI Express 34= Gig Ethernet Adapter, iPAD and my iPhone are always connected for charging via USB.
I hope people will chime in with any tips / tricks and comments.
JenBell