Speeding up 13" MBP

[suklee]

Currently have 4GB RAM & 500GB 7200rpm drive.

How can I make ze MBP faster? Typical use:

• Web development (Adobe Cs4)
• lots of browsers & tabs open
• MAMP server (PHP, MySQL, etc.)
• VMware fusion & Windows 7 w/ 1GB RAM allocated (starting to get into .NET)

What's more worthwhile:

8GB RAM for USD 300+
--or
Seagate Momentus XT SSD hybrid drives, USD 140ish for 500GB
--or
Momentus XT and one stick of 4GB RAM for a total of 6GB?

 

[jonesthewine]

seek time is what is slowing things down...a SSD & 4GB RAM sped up my 13 inch MBP considerably...

 

[suklee]

Which SSD do you have?

I would still like a large amount (500GB+) of storage so a straight SSD is kind of expensive for storage/price ratio.. I was hoping a hybrid is a good tradeoff in performance and price.

 

[KeithP]

Which SSD do you have?

I would still like a large amount (500GB+) of storage so a straight SSD is kind of expensive for storage/price ratio.. I was hoping a hybrid is a good tradeoff in performance and price.

Well you could get an SSD and a HD with something like this http://www.mcetech.com/optibay/

You may also want to consider selling the 13" and stepping up an i5 MPB.

-KeithP

 

[Compman55]

You need to sell it and get somthing more powerful. The hybrid hard drive is good for repeated tasks like a typical user does. I do not beleive it will suite you though. I mean how slow is it? If you are comparing it to a desktop, then yes, it will be slower.

 

[jonesthewine]

I have the OCZ Agility 128GB...and it flies. Boot time is about one and 1/2 rotations of the timer. Most programs load instantly. It is snappy & silent, the only moving parts now are the fan, the keypads and the disc spindle when a DVD is used.

 

[JSt0rm]

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/internal_storage/Mercury_Extreme_SSD_Sandforce

grab one of them badboys

 

[suklee]

Well you could get an SSD and a HD with something like this http://www.mcetech.com/optibay/

You may also want to consider selling the 13" and stepping up an i5 MPB.

Is there a similar product to the Optibay made by other companies?
Edit: found one http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/DDAMBS0GB/

You need to sell it and get somthing more powerful. The hybrid hard drive is good for repeated tasks like a typical user does. I do not beleive it will suite you though. I mean how slow is it? If you are comparing it to a desktop, then yes, it will be slower.

I'd like to eliminate as many spinning beachballs as possible I guess. I am not comparing to a desktop though as the MacBook Pro is my main computer.

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/internal_storage/Mercury_Extreme_SSD_Sandforce

grab one of them badboys

Extremely tempted to get one of these smaller ones as a boot drive together with an Optibay...

 

[Monoman]

I have the same computer. I upgraded to 8gb of ram and picked up the momentus XT 500gb. It feels like a new machine! I wish I could upgrade the CPU, but no biggie.

Do you shutdown often? the most time spent on the faster it feels ( Mac memory caching plus SSD on the XT drive )

BTW, you can get 8gb ram from OWC for $249.

Good luck!

 

[Patranus]

----

 

[JSt0rm]

I have the same computer. I upgraded to 8gb of ram and picked up the momentus XT 500gb. It feels like a new machine! I wish I could upgrade the CPU, but no biggie.

Do you shutdown often? the most time spent on the faster it feels ( Mac memory caching plus SSD on the XT drive )

BTW, you can get 8gb ram from OWC for $249.

Good luck!

those momentus drives are really tempting... I might try one in my mac pro. Do they come with a 3.5" adapter?

 

[KeypoX]

those momentus drives are really tempting... I might try one in my mac pro. Do they come with a 3.5" adapter?

i doubt they are faster than desktop drives. But im not sure i would like to see some benchmarks on desktops. Seagates website recommends them only for laptops...

They are very interesting though.

Well anandtech has done a review http://www.anandtech.com/show/3734/seagates-momentus-xt-review-finally-a-good-hybrid-hdd

And it seems i was wrong, they are faster in some ways than desktop drives. Very impressive, not bad prices for the performance either.

 

[KeypoX]

" I'd almost go as far as to say it's a great option for desktop users but unless you're on a budget you're probably better served by a small SSD + 3.5" drive on the desktop." Anand

Very cool, HD makers should start putting some nand in mid and high model desktop drives. 10GB or so could store so much potential. One thing i hate mostly on notebook is after it boots and i gotta wait for stuff to load becasue of slow HD.

 

[suklee]

I have the same computer. I upgraded to 8gb of ram and picked up the momentus XT 500gb. It feels like a new machine! I wish I could upgrade the CPU, but no biggie.

Do you shutdown often? the most time spent on the faster it feels ( Mac memory caching plus SSD on the XT drive )

Which hard drive did you have before? I have a Seagate 500gb 7200rpm and I wonder if the XT will be noticeably faster to be worth the upgrade.

I hardly ever shut down/reboot.

 

[Monoman]

Which hard drive did you have before? I have a Seagate 500gb 7200rpm and I wonder if the XT will be noticeably faster to be worth the upgrade.

I hardly ever shut down/reboot.

I had the default, 250gb 5400rpm.

I do a lot of VM prototyping, and I can assure you it was one helluva upgrade. I don't shutdown/reboot often.

From the 500gb 7200 I don't think it will be as huge as mine, but the benchmarks say it's still an upgrade.

 

[Kmax82]

I felt a huge improvement when using VM's with the 8GB RAM upgrade. This week I'm having to use an older laptop with only 4GB and let me tell you, I can definitely feel the difference. Lots of beach balling. I'd imagine a faster HDD would help that too though.

 

[suklee]

I felt a huge improvement when using VM's with the 8GB RAM upgrade. This week I'm having to use an older laptop with only 4GB and let me tell you, I can definitely feel the difference. Lots of beach balling. I'd imagine a faster HDD would help that too though.

Was the 8GB machine the hackintosh in your sig? and What are rough specs of the 4GB laptop?

btw, I've been looking at the newmodeus optibay for about $50 shipped, seems it's a much better deal than the mce optibay.
http://newmodeus.com/shop/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=2_27

PS. anyone ever hear of Mach Xtreme? http://www.mx-technology.com/en/index.html Apparently they are a new company as of Jan 2010. I found 8GB of their SO-DIMM to be cheapest (for me, since I don't live in the US) at US$280 but it's 1333MHz.

 

[suklee]

actually this Wintec RAM 2x4GB is really cheap. $240 CAD. Timings are: 9-9-9.. would this work okay in my MacBook?

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...366&Tpk=wintec (nm, this is DDR3 1333)

 

[Kmax82]

Was the 8GB machine the hackintosh in your sig? and What are rough specs of the 4GB laptop?

Yes and no. I have a late 2009 Unibody that I had put 8GB into that I just recently sold (2.53 Ghz C2D, 500GB 7200rpm HDD). I didn't notice as big of a difference on the Hackintosh, but it did make a difference when running Windows 7 in VM and Aperture+Photoshop, etc...

This week I'm using a 2.4Ghz C2D, 4GB RAM, 250GB 5400rpm HDD.. so I'm thinking a lot of my speed woes are also HDD related.

Just mainly throwing in my .02 cents.. if you can afford a SSD, I would more than likely go that route first.

 

[suklee]

I could afford a 120GB SSD, but I wouldn't be able to upgrade the RAM at the same time...

For roughly US$ 450, I can get either:

• 120GB OWC SSD + Optibay-equivalent (4gb RAM; 620GB storage total)
• 500GB hybrid drive + 8GB RAM

Which would you choose?

Edit: Kingston SNV425-S2BN/128GB is the cheapest SSD I've found so far. This would bring the SSD+Optibay cost down to $340.

 

[Kmax82]

Hmm.. the Hybrid Drive seems to be pretty darn close to SSD speeds once you've used it for a while.. so I would personally lean toward the Hybrid + 8GB. But others might feel differently.

 

[tokie]

Get the SSD. Forget about the Momentus XT, you will be wanting to upgrade that in another year or so.

 

[hawk7000]

Get the SSD. Forget about the Momentus XT, you will be wanting to upgrade that in another year or so.

While I agree that the Momentus XT is not at all a full substitute for an SSD, if you need massive storage capacity an SSD is still prohibitively expensive for most (hence the popular ssd+hdd setup popular for desktops) and with that in mind these drives seems to be an interesting option at a modest premium compared to a regular drives.


If one needs the capacity I think it's a valid option to consider getting a Momentus XT now and even if, as you suggest, that only lasts a year before you want something more fancy, then you have had several times more storage capacity at a fraction of the cost with some great benefits compared to a regular drive for that year and can check the new offerings for hybrid and SSD options are at that point.

Of course, if the SSDs you can afford have enough capacity for your needs that is of course the best option.

 

[tokie]

The reason I said the Momentus XT was not worth considering was because of the fact that 500GB 7200rpm drives by Seagate are pretty bad with vibrations.

What I would suggest is getting a SSD, and if you need more storage space get a FW800 external drive. No disk-based hard drives currently saturate FW800 (except for massive file transfers on top-performing 7200rpm desktop drives).

 

[Narse]

The reason I said the Momentus XT was not worth considering was because of the fact that 500GB 7200rpm drives by Seagate are pretty bad with vibrations.

What I would suggest is getting a SSD, and if you need more storage space get a FW800 external drive. No disk-based hard drives currently saturate FW800 (except for massive file transfers on top-performing 7200rpm desktop drives).

I cannot tell the difference between the XT and the stock drive when it comes to vibration. The XT is tons faster than the stock though.