Just ordered new MBP

[slashbinslashbash]

15", hi-res matte, 2.2GHz, HD6750, 750GB/4GB. I'll upgrade the RAM to 8GB and the HDD to a 750GB Momentus XT when they come out (should be soon, according to rumors; I'd *really* like a 1TB/32GB Momentus XT, but a 750GB/8GB will have to do). Really looking forward to this. It'll be a major upgrade over my Core Duo Macbook1,1 from 2006.

Amazingly, though, the MB is currently my daily driver -- job took me on the road, so I haven't used my Mac Pro at all for the past 6 months or so. The MB still works pretty well, but it's annoying as crap when I want to run Parallels and have to quit all my other apps to open up some RAM. 2GB just isn't enough. Plus it's started doing this really annoying thing where it's having trouble waking up from being closed; it goes to a gray screen and I end up having to take out the battery. This happens maybe 1 in 3 times when I try to wake it up. (Maybe the CMOS battery needs to be replaced?) Other than those minor quibbles, it is still amazingly usable for my day to day needs (browsing, MS Word and Excel, FileMaker Pro, OmniGraffle). It is on its 3rd battery and 2nd MagSafe adapter, BTW. (I think the newer in-line MagSafe design should prove to be a lot more durable than the old perpendicular kind. But replacing adapters is a hell of a lot nicer than replacing motherboards because of cracked soldering on the interior power connection, which happened with multiple PC laptops that I've owned in the past. MagSafe is awesome.) But now with quad-core CPU's available, and with Lion being incompatible with my MB, I think it's time to retire it. Maybe make it a kitchen video/music station.

This new MBP will actually be more powerful than my Mac Pro; the i7 at 2.2 should beat the 2.66 Xeons, and the GPU is quite a bit more powerful. Not to mention my MP is stuck in 32-bit mode, grrr (why doesn't Apple release a 64-bit EFI for the 1st-gen MP's?!).

So, yeah. I am psyched. Just have to wait on it (it is backordered from MacMall). It's not so bad though; I've been using this MB for 5 years now, I can wait another week or two.

 

[slashbinslashbash]

Popped 16GB of RAM in this sucker the other day. Only $140 from NewEgg. (Price will vary.)Less than a year ago, this upgrade would have cost more like $1500.

I don't entirely have a use for the whole 16GB, but I am sitting at over 8GB used right now. Parallels/Win7, Word, Excel, Aperture, Firefox, iTunes open and I'm using about 10GB. This thing just flies now. It was an excellent upgrade for the price. I still plan on picking up the Momentus XT 750GB as soon as it becomes more available / drops in price.

 

[TheStu]

If you aren't using the optical drive, put an SSD in there.

 

[bearxor]

I honestly think I'd go with a Momemtus XT over a SSD + HDD. So much easier to manage. I'm glad he upped the SSD on the new XT's but I really would have liked to see at least 12. 16 would be perfect, IMO.

 

[slashbinslashbash]

I'm on the fence about an SSD in the optical bay. I don't use the optical drive *that* much, but lugging an external optical drive would also be less than optimal. By the same token, though, having an internal SSD and an internal optical drive and having to lug an external HDD would be even worse. I think I could have a decent balance with the Momentus XT, but I might go for the optidrive solution.

It will probably be a while before I make a decision on that, though. The 16GB upgrade has really boosted things quite a bit, and since I hardly ever hard reboot (uptimes tend to reach 60-90 days), I'm wondering how much difference I'd really see day-to-day with an SSD, since I am now pretty much leaving all of my commonly used apps open all the time. They're already in RAM, so they won't ever need to be accessed from the HDD/SSD.

 

[alfa147x]

The XT isn't as nice as most people make seem. I have 120GB SSD + 500GB XT in mine.

 

[MrX8503]

I have a 64GB Crucial M4 + 500 GB HDD in mine. I moved the home folder to my mechanical drive and have Mac OSX on the SSD. I can easily reformat/reinstall Lion and leave my personal files untouched because they live elsewhere.

I've never used a Hybrid drive, but an SSD for the OS made my MBP super quick.

 

[slashbinslashbash]

My wife has a 500GB XT in her 2008-ish MacBook, and I think I can tell a difference. It's fairly snappy.

I don't understand why more companies aren't going further with the hybrid thing. They wouldn't need to do any work on the caching software, even. I'd be quite happy with a 64GB SSD and 500GB HDD, as separate logical drives, on the same 2.5" chassis, using an internal SATA hub or something.

 

[TheStu]

My wife has a 500GB XT in her 2008-ish MacBook, and I think I can tell a difference. It's fairly snappy.

I don't understand why more companies aren't going further with the hybrid thing. They wouldn't need to do any work on the caching software, even. I'd be quite happy with a 64GB SSD and 500GB HDD, as separate logical drives, on the same 2.5" chassis, using an internal SATA hub or something.

Heck, if you are including a significant amount of platter space, you can get way with like 40-50GB of NAND on there.

As my own anecdote, I put a 120GB SSD into my mom's 2006 MacBook, that thing flies now. Boots in no time flat, and stuff launches after one bounce maybe 2.

 

[alfa147x]

I really depends on how you use your computer. I'm guessing my style of work was not ideal for a hybrid. Now the SSD.... AMAZING!

 

[MrX8503]

My wife has a 500GB XT in her 2008-ish MacBook, and I think I can tell a difference. It's fairly snappy.

I don't understand why more companies aren't going further with the hybrid thing. They wouldn't need to do any work on the caching software, even. I'd be quite happy with a 64GB SSD and 500GB HDD, as separate logical drives, on the same 2.5" chassis, using an internal SATA hub or something.

The hybrid thing is a good idea and it works. I think because of software bugs involved a lot of vendors haven't adopted it. HDD manufacturers can't even get an all SSD working right, so I think they're also uninterested in hybrid.

Luckily for desktops Intel has an SSD caching feature.

 

[kalster]

replaced dvd drive on my 2011 mbp 13 with ssd. havent missed the dvd drive so far.

 

[slashbinslashbash]

Heck, if you are including a significant amount of platter space, you can get way with like 40-50GB of NAND on there.

As my own anecdote, I put a 120GB SSD into my mom's 2006 MacBook, that thing flies now. Boots in no time flat, and stuff launches after one bounce maybe 2.

Yeah, I need to analyze my HDD needs in /. The bulk of my storage needs are of course under /Users. Looks like I've only got about 40GB used that's not in my home dir. Of course, I'd like for the Parallels VMs to not be in my home dir, so that's another 40GB or so.

Again, I boot this machine maybe 10 times a year. The rest of the time I just fold it shut, and when I re-open it, everything is there where I left it. (This is much faster/smoother now that I have 16GB, BTW.) I don't have to launch programs more than once per boot; I now just leave them open.

The only app that I ever have to re-launch is Firefox when it crashes. (Although it seems to have gotten much better about this with the extra RAM installed; and also, it is not hogging RAM like it used to. I used to hit 1GB+ in Firefox pretty quickly. Usually, once it hit 1.5GB of bloat (meaning, not directly due to windows/tabs open) I would shut it down and restart. Now I've had this Firefox instance open for a couple of days straight, and it's still at 834MB.)

So again I question how much of a day-to-day boost I would get out of an SSD. Of course if I could pick up a 500GB+ SSD for $250 or less, there'd be no question; I'd just do it. But with pricing and capacities as they are, I'm still on the fence.

 

[MrX8503]

You could use the 750GB you already have in your MBP and add an SSD to it. A lot of the benefits of an SSD is a fast reboot, but you'll see benefits everywhere too.

I can't imagine leaving a laptop running on sleep for months on end. A reboot can clear out the dust bunnies. What I do is when I walk away to do something, I reboot. With an SSD I don't mind waiting anymore.

 

[slashbinslashbash]

I can't imagine leaving a laptop running on sleep for months on end. A reboot can clear out the dust bunnies. What I do is when I walk away to do something, I reboot. With an SSD I don't mind waiting anymore.

I honestly have never had an issue with only sleeping, running a 12" PowerBook G4 from 2005-2006, a MacBook from 2006-2011, and a 15" MBP 2011-current. Pretty much the only time the machine reboots is when there is a software update that requires a reboot. There are very occasional crashes/slowdowns where I will reboot manually, and maybe a few times when I run the battery completely out. Other than that, it's sleep only.

 

[sygyzy]

I don't understand why you'd go with such a nice laptop and then forego the SSD. I think that a SSD is the single best upgrade you can make on a machine.

 

[bearxor]

I really think the Momentus XT is "good enough" for most people.

I tried replacing my optical with a HDD and used a 60GB SSD. I put my home folder on the mechanical and was quite happy with it, but I ran in to a problem where, if I put the machine to sleep by closing the lid, sometimes the mechanical drive wouldn't wake up again and I need to reboot the whole thing. Got to the point where I was just always shutting it down when I moved. Tried several different mechanical hard drives too.

I think I'd prefer the XT just for the convenience. But seriously, I probably would have went with a SSD + 8GB of RAM over just 16GB of RAM.

 

[alfa147x]

I really think the Momentus XT is "good enough" for most people.

I tried replacing my optical with a HDD and used a 60GB SSD. I put my home folder on the mechanical and was quite happy with it, but I ran in to a problem where, if I put the machine to sleep by closing the lid, sometimes the mechanical drive wouldn't wake up again and I need to reboot the whole thing. Got to the point where I was just always shutting it down when I moved. Tried several different mechanical hard drives too.

I think I'd prefer the XT just for the convenience. But seriously, I probably would have went with a SSD + 8GB of RAM over just 16GB of RAM.

Put the SSD in the Optical spot. Not the mechanical drive. I had that same issue

 

[slashbinslashbash]

Thanks for the input, everybody. Still on the fence. Probably wait a month or two before I make any decision.

 

[bearxor]

Put the SSD in the Optical spot. Not the mechanical drive. I had that same issue

I've got a 2007 MBP (when it decides to work) and the optical drive is PATA, so I think it's kind of defeat the point of an SSD. Isn't the max transfe rate on that like 133/Mbs? The SSD can hit 250 but I think the HDD's all hover around 70-80.

 

[MrX8503]

Put the SSD in the Optical spot. Not the mechanical drive. I had that same issue

The optical spot is only SATA II. You would give up SATAIII speeds if you put it there.

I have my SSD in the HDD Bay and I only have sleeping issues when I connect to my ACD. When closing the lid and opening it, I haven't had a problem with sleep.

 

[alfa147x]

The optical spot is only SATA II. You would give up SATAIII speeds if you put it there.

I have my SSD in the HDD Bay and I only have sleeping issues when I connect to my ACD. When closing the lid and opening it, I haven't had a problem with sleep.

What laptop?

 

[alfa147x]

I've got a 2007 MBP (when it decides to work) and the optical drive is PATA, so I think it's kind of defeat the point of an SSD. Isn't the max transfe rate on that like 133/Mbs? The SSD can hit 250 but I think the HDD's all hover around 70-80.

All unibody mbp have Sata optical drives.

 

[TheStu]

All unibody mbp have Sata optical drives.

He has an 07, the unibody came out in 08/09 didn't it?

Bearxor, in the case of your 07 MBP, a 120GB SSD would be the way to go unless you really needed extra space.

The reason for putting the SSD into the optical bay is because the Sudden Motion Sensor is on the HDD port only. That and as other have pointed out, sometimes you get wonkiness.

 

[alfa147x]

Ah right. 07' seems like yesterday still :\

Vendor: Intel
Product: 6 Series Chipset
Link Speed: 6 Gigabit
Negotiated Link Speed: 6 Gigabit
Description: AHCI Version 1.30 Supported

That's for my SSD in the optical bay. 2011 MBP. Purchased near release date. I think Apple released a EFI update enabling the 2nd SATA port to do SATA 3 / 6 Gbit/s

Vendor: Intel
Product: 6 Series Chipset
Link Speed: 6 Gigabit
Negotiated Link Speed: 3 Gigabit
Description: AHCI Version 1.30 Supported

That's for the hybrid in the mechanical spot