Discussion: 80gb HDD or 64gb SSD???

[ViperrepiV]

I am trying to decide which HDD I should get in this thing….cost aside for the moment.

It would be interesting to see how much space is left on the 64 GB SSD when the computer arrives….I would imagine that there is probably about 60 gigs of useable space, count 15 for leopard and ilife after trimming useless apps (garage band, I’m looking at you, maybe iMovie too), and extra languages. Plus I would like to have most of my music on there, because I will probably want to surf the web and listen to music…lets say 15 gigs if I select my most liked music. So that leaves 30 gigs….then I want some of my more recent / impressive pictures, 5 gigs, plus another 5 of some movies/videos for that rainy day. You’re now down to 20 gigs….lets say you want office, that may be like 2 gigs. So now you have 15-18 gigs to play with….


I am sure it is workable, but I would really miss the added 15 gigs of buffer that the 80 would afford me…..but from the sound of early reports, the SSD sounds much faster, which would boost my enjoyment of the system, since you would notice the speed boost all the time as apps booted, and so on.


I think that clearly a good option would be, as people have mentioned, to get the 80 gig now and swap out later for a SSD once prices come down (i am guessing 64 gig drives will be 1/2 to 1/3 the current price one year from now). But you just never know...

what does everyone else think? Could you make 64 gigs work for you? how much would you trim off the OS?

 

[CJRhoades]

Remember that the Air is not made for storing all of those things. You put all of that stuff on you home computer. The Air is just a take everywhere/travel notebook. Do you really need all of those photos and videos on there?

Both drives have there pros and cons.

The SSD may be smaller but it's way faster that any conventional HD.

On the other hand, the 80 GB drive holds a bit more, but is even slower than a conventional HD. Remember that it is only 4200 RPM. It's a relatively slow drive, even for a notebook.

If you say that cost makes no difference, you should get the 64 GB SSD now, and then when they are cheeper, upgrade to a 128 GB SSD.

If cost does make a difference, you should get the 80 GB conventional drive now, and when SSDs go down in price, upgrade to 64 or 128 GB SSD.

 

[Brianstorm91]

For what you're doing the increase in read speed of a SSD is not worth it.
You can save money, and get more space by going for the HDD.

 

[ViperrepiV]

Remember that the Air is not made for storing all of those things. You put all of that stuff on you home computer. The Air is just a take everywhere/travel notebook. Do you really need all of those photos and videos on there?

Both drives have there pros and cons.

The SSD may be smaller but it's way faster that any conventional HD.

On the other hand, the 80 GB drive holds a bit more, but is even slower than a conventional HD. Remember that it is only 4200 RPM. It's a relatively slow drive, even for a notebook.

If you say that cost makes no difference, you should get the 64 GB SSD now, and then when they are cheeper, upgrade to a 128 GB SSD.

If cost does make a difference, you should get the 80 GB conventional drive now, and when SSDs go down in price, upgrade to 64 or 128 GB SSD.

You're right about the photos.....I host them all online! ahh i forgot.

*smacks head*

 

[sushi]

Remember that the Air is not made for storing all of those things. You put all of that stuff on you home computer. The Air is just a take everywhere/travel notebook. Do you really need all of those photos and videos on there?

Both drives have there pros and cons.

The SSD may be smaller but it's way faster that any conventional HD.

On the other hand, the 80 GB drive holds a bit more, but is even slower than a conventional HD. Remember that it is only 4200 RPM. It's a relatively slow drive, even for a notebook.

If you say that cost makes no difference, you should get the 64 GB SSD now, and then when they are cheeper, upgrade to a 128 GB SSD.

If cost does make a difference, you should get the 80 GB conventional drive now, and when SSDs go down in price, upgrade to 64 or 128 GB SSD.

Completely agree with this.

On a side note, my friend was able to test both models out. He stated that there was a significant difference in speed between the two versions.

So if cost does not matter, go with the SSD and faster processor.

 

[zippster]

im having a dilemma at the moment as i have ordered the 1.8/80gb pata, ive sold my 2 month old MBP 2.4 for the Air and wondering for what i do would i really notice the performance difference considering i have gone for the faster cpu??

what i really need to know is how does the 1.6/80gb compare to a 1.8/80gb compared to a 1.8/64ssd??


and is it really £600 in performance difference for us UK'er that pay these crazy prices?



Cheers


Andy..

 

[ViperrepiV]

I think you would notice a performance difference....what i have read is that opening itunes with the SSD takes <1 bounce of the dock icon, while with the 1.6/80 it takes 2-3 bounces....since this action is mostly reading from the HDD and not processor intense, you can infer that the SSD is much faster

 

[Salty Pirate]

The SSD is wicked fast. Programs load almost instantly. Faster than on my MBP 2.4 with a 200GB 7200 disk.

I have changed my mind and I am gonna get the SSD

 

[zippster]

thanks all for the quick replies, so what im thinking now its it worth the price jump from £1454(+superdrive) to £2093(+superdrive) for the 1.8/ssd vs 1.8/hdd

or would i be better just buying a ssd when they come down in price and upgrading it myself?

 

[MRU]

or would i be better just buying a ssd when they come down in price and upgrading it myself?

That's what I'm doing... I'm sure in 6 months the 64GB will be half the price and in 12 months the 128GB will be down to around the same.

Sure opening programmes and boot times are improved, but I would rather put up with an extra few seconds loading at the moment and save myself a bundle of £££ in the long run.

 

[bjdraw]

Was just at the Apple store playing with the 1.8 SSD. I downloaded xBench and ran the test. The overall disk score was 48, which is faster than any Apple laptop benched recently by Engadget .
http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/24/first-benchmarks-macbook-air-is-the-slowest-apple-machine-on-th/

This makes it twice as fast as the 80GB model.

The total formated size was 53GB and about half of it was free.

If you have xBench for OS X you can download the attached file and see all the results.

 

[loghyr]

Sure opening programmes and boot times are improved, but I would rather put up with an extra few seconds loading at the moment and save myself a bundle of £££ in the long run.

So how hard will it be to get OS X on the new drive?

 

[zippster]

So how hard will it be to get OS X on the new drive?

no more difficult then inserting the cd into a superdrive and booting to install OSX as you would any other mac with a new replaced hdd(sdd in this case)

 

[Anderson3133]

On the other hand, the 80 GB drive holds a bit more, but is even slower than a conventional HD. Remember that it is only 4200 RPM. It's a relatively slow drive, even for a notebook.

I would have to disagree. On my Acer (which i have photoshop, running BOTH XP and VISTA, the MS Office Suite etc.) I have a 40 GB HDD that is a Seagate 4200 RPM drive. All of these programs run absolutely smooth.

 

[JML42691]

Personally, if you already have a perfectly operational computer, then wait until the first update of it. SSD prices will probably come down and greater sizes may be available. And plus, there are always going to be those somewhat big problems on first generation products that will take at least one update before fixing; like the yellowing palm-rest issue when the first MacBooks came out, if you wait for the update in several months to half a year, then you may be in a better situation. And there may even be more options too, faster processors, memory options, ect.

 

[zippster]

, if you wait for the update in several months to half a year, then you may be in a better situation. And there may even be more options too, faster processors, memory options, ect.

you could keep waiting and every 6/8 months there will always be another model revision on the horizon. then you would be in the same boat then. oooh a macbook pro Air 2 comming out.....best wait for Rev.2 and so on...

 

[Sandy Santra]

Was just at the Apple store playing with the 1.8 SSD. I downloaded xBench and ran the test. The overall disk score was 48, which is faster than any Apple laptop benched recently by Engadget.
This makes it twice as fast as the 80GB model.

So true. It's a FAST machine, the one with the SSD. I tried it this morning at 5th Ave NYC and was blown away.

ViperrepiV, this is not the machine to run iPhoto, GarageBand, or iMovie. I have probably 3-5 TB of external drives connected to my MacBook Pro dedicated to content for these programs--and I need it. For these type of apps and substantial picture, video, and audio work, you really need external drives to manage all the storage (including extra drives for backup); a mini-network, if you will.

I think the MacBook Air is going to be a machine for a new type of niche: light, fast, simple, business and Internet work. Don't get me wrong, I love producing audio and video, but it's time- and resource-consumptive. I want the MBA for pleasure: light, portable, always-there simple computing. Managing appointments and contacts, and maybe MS Word for writing.

 

[uber gorilla]

80bg HDD for now

Hmm, I just couldn't quite justify forking out the extra grand for the SSD, even if it is significantly faster. I mean, while I purchased the MBA, I also bought a lot of other things (Ipod, mouse, Office 2008), so in the end it cost me quite a bit. If I wanted the speed, I could have bought a MBP for around the same price as the SSD MBA.

But speed isn't too much of a factor for me. I'm not too impatient with technology in terms of its operational speed...although my current Toshiba Satellite, ticking over to about 8 years old now, is driving me up the wall (but that's probably coz it's running Windows ME...grrr).

So yeah, I opted for the regular 80gb. I also feel a little more solace in knowing that I have just that bit more space to play around with.

Just a question: are we absolutely SURE that we'll be able to upgrade the regular HDD to a SSD when prices go down and that form of technology is more affordable?

 

[robby818]

I would have to disagree. On my Acer (which i have photoshop, running BOTH XP and VISTA, the MS Office Suite etc.) I have a 40 GB HDD that is a Seagate 4200 RPM drive. All of these programs run absolutely smooth.

Running smoothly and running quickly are two different things. Drop a 7200 rpm drive into that Acer and you will feel a BIG difference. Most people add ram to improve performance but what really makes a noticeable difference in everyday tasks is hard drive speed.

 

[BWhaler]

I went with the SSD.

Maybe it was a bad decision, it certainly was an expensive one, but my thinking was:

1. Faster. It gets rid of the 4200 RPM bottleneck

2. Better battery life. Six hours on a plane would be dream

I wouldn't be surprise if I just overpaid and these two assumptions proved wrong, but since I am going to fly great distances with this MBA, I didn't want to be stuck with a slower computer and worse battery life than I could have had.

But time will tell. I am excited about this purchase.

 

[netdog]

I would have to disagree. On my Acer (which i have photoshop, running BOTH XP and VISTA, the MS Office Suite etc.) I have a 40 GB HDD that is a Seagate 4200 RPM drive. All of these programs run absolutely smooth.

On a 1.8" single platter?

 

[ahaxton]

I went with the SSD.

Maybe it was a bad decision, it certainly was an expensive one, but my thinking was:

1. Faster. It gets rid of the 4200 RPM bottleneck

2. Better battery life. Six hours on a plane would be dream

I wouldn't be surprise if I just overpaid and these two assumptions proved wrong, but since I am going to fly great distances with this MBA, I didn't want to be stuck with a slower computer and worse battery life than I could have had.

But time will tell. I am excited about this purchase.

I think we'll get both of those things. Faster, we already know. I bet battery life is better, I can't imagine it being so similar to the HDD version.

 

[boyhandsome]

I really think the additional 15G space might be btter so I will take 80GB HDD first then upgrade to 128GB SSD when price appropriate.

 

[fosters2]

I went with the SSD because I often fly a small plane above 10,000 FT. Above that altitude, hard drives notoriously crash, so an SSD is required. I was in a process of adding an SSD to a Fujitsu P1610 tablet PC, when the MBA was announced.

Fits my requirements perfectly.

 

[Brianstorm91]

I went with the SSD because I often fly a small plane above 10,000 FT. Above that altitude, hard drives notoriously crash, so an SSD is required. I was in a process of adding an SSD to a Fujitsu P1610 tablet PC, when the MBA was announced.

Fits my requirements perfectly.

I've finally figured out who the MBA is targeted at!
Obvious now, isn't it!