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jufros

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 26, 2009
44
0
I scored a great deal on one of the new 17'' 2.8Ghz Macbook Pro's and will soon be a proud owner of 3 Mac laptops including a 15'' 2.4Ghz 4GB MBP and my "office" 2.0Ghz Macbook that I basically use to download software updates for the other computers and do anything that requires net surfing. I never ever record audio to my internal HD's and I'm really wondering if a Solid State HD would give me a huge performance boost, especially on the live gigging laptop. Any success stories around here?
 

Cycom

Suspended
Mar 27, 2007
587
888
Commiefornia
I scored a great deal on one of the new 17'' 2.8Ghz Macbook Pro's and will soon be a proud owner of 3 Mac laptops including a 15'' 2.4Ghz 4GB MBP and my "office" 2.0Ghz Macbook that I basically use to download software updates for the other computers and do anything that requires net surfing. I never ever record audio to my internal HD's and I'm really wondering if a Solid State HD would give me a huge performance boost, especially on the live gigging laptop. Any success stories around here?

I use Logic 8 on my uMBP with an Intel SSD. Logic starts up in two bounces, even after a restart. Song files load up like lightning. Read speeds are incredible.
 

jufros

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 26, 2009
44
0
That is exactly the kind of info that I wanted to hear. Very cool man how long have you been running things stably with that drive and which model is it?
 

toonshorty

macrumors member
Feb 11, 2009
46
0
I have an Intel X25-V 40GB running as an OS drive in my custom built PC upstairs (I'm sorry, no trollin please?)

But even on Windows 7 a solid state makes my PC feel like lightning and that is on similar spec to the iMac 2007 I believe:

Intel Dual Core 2.6GHz (Overclocked mine so it's running at 4GHz)

Crucial 4GB DDR2

ATI X850XT (Similar performance to a 9400GT now I guess, cost me £300 back in the day!)
 

jufros

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 26, 2009
44
0
Ok great I'll definitely do that. You think I should return this 2.8Ghz 17'' that I paid $1750 for and wait for the new model or just take the ~$1k that I'd be saving and upgrade to 8GB RAM and get an SSD?
 

Cycom

Suspended
Mar 27, 2007
587
888
Commiefornia
Ok great I'll definitely do that. You think I should return this 2.8Ghz 17'' that I paid $1750 for and wait for the new model or just take the ~$1k that I'd be saving and upgrade to 8GB RAM and get an SSD?

I would just keep it and upgrade to an SSD and extra RAM. A 2.8 is plenty fast for Logic.
 

Arrandale

macrumors regular
Feb 24, 2010
166
1
as i understand it 7200 rpm drives work great with logic

ssd's might give you a little bit of extra speed, but they're usually much more expensive and have lower capacities, and logic projects can get very big indeed, it's always better to have more space fort audio work.... i've accumulated several TB of stuff
 

Cycom

Suspended
Mar 27, 2007
587
888
Commiefornia
as i understand it 7200 rpm drives work great with logic

ssd's might give you a little bit of extra speed, but they're usually much more expensive and have lower capacities, and logic projects can get very big indeed, it's always better to have more space fort audio work.... i've accumulated several TB of stuff

You're right. However, I don't work much (if at all) with audio so my Logic files remain small. I only use software instruments. An HDD might be a better idea for those working with lots of audio. Good advice.
 

Gigazaga

macrumors newbie
Apr 8, 2010
7
0
Midwest
I installed an aftermarket Samsung SSD in my MBP and the boot and program load times improved dramatically.

The amazing thing was putting and SSD into my 1st generation MacBook Air. It is like a completely new machine. Those things had incredibly slow pata driver from the factory.

I had to take a reduction in drive size to go to SSD but it was completely worth it. I can't imagine using a laptop with a hard drive again.
 

Rizvi1

macrumors 6502a
Mar 29, 2006
823
12
Maryland
^ How hard is it go put in an SSD in a MacBook Air? I believe I have the Rev B one, the MACBOOK AIR 13/1.6/2GB/120GB MB543LL/A.

Her computer gets annoyingly slow though even on normal tasks after a little while. She can't watch any videos online it seems, something like hulu. I just wiped everything off and put in snow leopard thinking it might help but still slow.

From your post seems I can put in an SSD. What about upgrading the RAM?
 

Gigazaga

macrumors newbie
Apr 8, 2010
7
0
Midwest
^ How hard is it go put in an SSD in a MacBook Air? I believe I have the Rev B one, the MACBOOK AIR 13/1.6/2GB/120GB MB543LL/A.

Her computer gets annoyingly slow though even on normal tasks after a little while. She can't watch any videos online it seems, something like hulu. I just wiped everything off and put in snow leopard thinking it might help but still slow.

From your post seems I can put in an SSD. What about upgrading the RAM?

The installation is a bit tricky. It's tricky to even buy the right SSD. I followed the instructions on iFixit. It didn't work at first because the tiny pata cable failed and I had to order a new one. In the end I had the drive in and out about 6 times. Now I could replace a MacBook Air drive in about 10 minutes. There a lots of tiny screws!

In the end it was worth it to breath new life into that computer. It would be hard to recommend to someone else.

I made sure I had a good Time Machine backup before I started. It is also trick to restore because you can't connect the superdrive and the backup disk at the same time because of the single USB port. The superdrive has to be connected directly to the port. I reinstalled OSX from disk then did a Time Machine restore. That all worked great.

If you want to take this on, just do the research ahead of time. Otherwise, find someone who has done it before to do it.
 
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