17 inch MBP with 128 SSD and Optidrive HDD?

[foxyfabio]

Hello fellow Macrumors addicts.

I will be upgrading and getting a 17 inch Macbook Pro (late 2011) in a few days. I recently became aware of this thing called "optidrive". Im really interested in running OSX and a few essential Applications off of the SSD and having all my multimedia files on the HD. So my question is: Would it be better (overall) to get the 750 GB HD that comes with the Macbook Pro and then move the OS to the Optidrive SSD----Or should I pay the extra $100 to get the 128 GB SD pre- installed with the computer and add in the HD?

Thanks!!!

 

[TheJing]

Get whatever is cheaper.

Although you will probably find faster and cheaper 3rd party SSD's than the ones Apple are offering.

 

[foxyfabio]

Get whatever is cheaper.

Although you will probably find faster and cheaper 3rd party SSD's than the ones Apple are offering.

I'm kind of a newbie at this Optidrive stuff, but how hard is it to transfer the OS to an Optidrive right out of the box?

 

[tahoeroscoe]

You can just do a clean install on the new SSD, no need to transfer everything. Just create a USB recovery key before you remove the old HDD.

http://support.apple.com/kb/dl1433

You'll probably do best to get the 7200rpm hdd from apple and buy the ssd aftermarket.

Also, you want to install the SSD in the original HDD location and move the HDD to the optibay

 

[foxyfabio]

You can just do a clean install on the new SSD, no need to transfer everything. Just create a USB recovery key before you remove the old HDD.

http://support.apple.com/kb/dl1433

You'll probably do best to get the 7200rpm hdd from apple and buy the ssd aftermarket.

Also, you want to install the SSD in the original HDD location and move the HDD to the optibay

thank you so much!

 

[thundersteele]

If you want a stable and reliable system, I would take the SSD from apple. Then you can still play around with the optidrive.

Many people have successfully installed 3rd party SSDs in their MBPs. Still the number of problems that appear and the tweaking that has to be done is sizable. On the other hand, Apple has been using SSDs in the Air for three years now, and I have yet to see a major issue with those drives.

 

[foxyfabio]

Does anyone know how much disk space is necessary to install lion?

 

[tahoeroscoe]

If you want a stable and reliable system, I would take the SSD from apple. Then you can still play around with the optidrive.

Many people have successfully installed 3rd party SSDs in their MBPs. Still the number of problems that appear and the tweaking that has to be done is sizable. On the other hand, Apple has been using SSDs in the Air for three years now, and I have yet to see a major issue with those drives.

I installed my intel ssd with no problem. There were major issues with 2011 MBPs and aftermarket SSDs for a while, but apple pushed out a firmware update a few weeks/months ago that fixed the problem (AFAIK). If you buy an SSD from a reputable company like intel, owc, samsung, etc you should be fine. Historically, Intel has had the lowest failure rates among major brand names.

I don't know how much space Lion by itself uses, but you will also want to keep your most used apps and games on the SSD too. IMO 128GB is the minimum. You can get by with 64gb but wou will probably have to think about/manage your disk space a lot more closely.

 

[foxyfabio]

I installed my intel ssd with no problem. There were major issues with 2011 MBPs and aftermarket SSDs for a while, but apple pushed out a firmware update a few weeks/months ago that fixed the problem (AFAIK). If you buy an SSD from a reputable company like intel, owc, samsung, etc you should be fine. Historically, Intel has had the lowest failure rates among major brand names.

I don't know how much space Lion by itself uses, but you will also want to keep your most used apps and games on the SSD too. IMO 128GB is the minimum. You can get by with 64gb but wou will probably have to think about/manage your disk space a lot more closely.

Stroke @ the cost of a 512GB SSD