17" MBP user with some Q's for you retina folk

[wildatheart]

As a professional photographer, I'm still using my early '11 2.2Ghz i7 17" every day; mainly Lightroom and PS. I'm aware my machine is getting on a bit, but I can't bring myself to get a 15" retina as I have 2x 1TB SSD's in my 17" - I need the space (I work long projects with a lot of images) albeit that about half of it is used for my music and personal stuff. But I just don't like the idea of an external drive. What are other people's views/experiences on this?

Will using LR and PS on the latest 15" feel lightning fast compared to what I'm using now? I don't feel frustrated by lack of speed currently, but then I haven't tried the latest & greatest MBP - speaking of which, if I do upgrade, I imagine I'm better to wait for the Skylake.

I'd greatly appreciate others' views on the above.

 

[Bending Pixels]

Will you Lr and PS CC run faster on a newer rMBP - yes. Personally, I'd suggest waiting for Skylake. I suspect Apple will refresh their MBP's sometime in late October.

I would suggest modifying your workflow and moving your images/projects/workfiles to an external HD (either USB3 or thunderbolt). This is what most photographers (if you follow Scott Kelby, that's his recommended workflow).

 

[robeddie]

Will you Lr and PS CC run faster on a newer rMBP - yes. Personally, I'd suggest waiting for Skylake. I suspect Apple will refresh their MBP's sometime in late October.

I would suggest modifying your workflow and moving your images/projects/workfiles to an external HD (either USB3 or thunderbolt). This is what most photographers (if you follow Scott Kelby, that's his recommended workflow).

Well, in effect, the recommended workflow that suggests using a second external drive is only because the assumption is that most people just have one internal drive. With a second internal drive, you effectively are using that workflow, and the op, understandably, is worried that having to adjust to using an external drive all the time will be a pain in the ass. I agree. That's why I got a mid 2012 non retina macbook pro and outfitted it with 2 - 1tb SSD's, just like the op.
Unfortunately, the days of being able to even replace the hard drives on macbook pro's seem to be a thing of the past, let alone outfitting one with two internal replacement drives - which will never be a possibility again.

 

[Niarlatop]

If you think you can't do with 1 TB and have enough money, you could probably wait a few years more until a 2 TB option is offered on the MacBook Pro. The wait might be long however, prices doesn't go down really fast anymore in the SSD market.

Or you might consider a NAS, to access your music and other files. That would save you from the burden of pluging a cable to your portable Mac, but it'll not be as mobile as an internal or external SSD.

 

[robeddie]

If you think you can't do with 1 TB and have enough money, you could probably wait a few years more until a 2 TB option is offered on the MacBook Pro. The wait might be long however, prices doesn't go down really fast anymore in the SSD market.
.

Well, while prices have dropped considerably in the SSD market (1TB was $1000 a couple years ago and $320 now) greedy Apple continues to charge 2012 prices for their built in SSD's. To make matters worse, still no third party aftermarket options have appeared that are compatible with any macbook pro produced in late 2013 or beyond.
So we either wait for Apple to come up with an extremely overpriced option, or wait (maybe in vain) for a third party solution. Neither option is very good.

 

[Niarlatop]

Well, while prices have dropped considerably in the SSD market (1TB was $1000 a couple years ago and $320 now) greedy Apple continues to charge 2012 prices for their built in SSD's. To make matters worse, still no third party aftermarket options have appeared that are compatible with any macbook pro produced in late 2013 or beyond.
So we either wait for Apple to come up with an extremely overpriced option, or wait (maybe in vain) for a third party solution. Neither option is very good.

To be fair, when you consider the performance level of the SSD they are shipping with their products, especially on the Pro lineup, the price is not so steep. A 400 GB Intel P3500 (another PCIe SSD) go for $600…
It would be good to have two choices, a fast PCIe SSD and a cheaper version with a better storage/cost ratio. But I think I'm dreaming there

 

[xsdeus]

I would think that since the OP is already using SSD's, the speed gains would mostly come from the GPU.

Personally, I think the main incentive to upgrade would be having a more pixel-dense screen, albeit one smaller than what the OP currently has.

 

[VesselA]

As a professional photographer, I'm still using my early '11 2.2Ghz i7 17" every day; mainly Lightroom and PS. I'm aware my machine is getting on a bit, but I can't bring myself to get a 15" retina as I have 2x 1TB SSD's in my 17" - I need the space (I work long projects with a lot of images) albeit that about half of it is used for my music and personal stuff. But I just don't like the idea of an external drive. What are other people's views/experiences on this?

Will using LR and PS on the latest 15" feel lightning fast compared to what I'm using now? I don't feel frustrated by lack of speed currently, but then I haven't tried the latest & greatest MBP - speaking of which, if I do upgrade, I imagine I'm better to wait for the Skylake.

I'd greatly appreciate others' views on the above.

I just upgraded from a 2010 17 inch MBP to 13 inch 2015 - 3 main benefits I see = 1. retina display, greater sharpness and no more colour shifting if moving slightly or angle of display changes 2. much snappier partly due to the new PCIE ssds which read and write data almost twice as fast and the increase in RAM speed (if you have large data requirements you should get the biggest SSD apple offer as there is no 3rd party PCIE SSDs available yet for MBP apparently, however given how fast the new SSDs are, couple this with a thunderbolt external drive and the data transfer will be lightning). 3. this one seems to be with the 13 inch more than the 15 (as 15 inch has more intensive graphics card & processor) - totally silent operation 90% of the time, I can now watch full HD videos on external display, run 4K on external 4K display with laptop totally silent, to me this is actually huge as the fan noise was a great nuisance to me (if you do a bulk import of big images the fans may kick in though)

 

[robeddie]

To be fair, when you consider the performance level of the SSD they are shipping with their products, especially on the Pro lineup, the price is not so steep. A 400 GB Intel P3500 (another PCIe SSD) go for $600…
It would be good to have two choices, a fast PCIe SSD and a cheaper version with a better storage/cost ratio. But I think I'm dreaming there

Standard off the shelf SSD's arent as fast as Apples option, but they are still pretty dang fast. That extra ssd speed Apple gives you doesnt help you much if you cant get it in a big enough capacity to use it the way you want to.

I'd rather have a 'dang fast' ssd that is upgradeable, than a 'super dang fast' ssd that isnt.

 

[austinpike]

...But I just don't like the idea of an external drive. What are other people's views/experiences on this?

Your sig lists a MacPro, what are you using that for if your files live on the laptop? I work on 3 different machines pretty regularly between work, home, and laptop, so I like having everything on an external.

Personally I would hold onto the 17" until it dies or you just can't stand it anymore. I don't think upgrading would get you "lightning" speed increases.

 

[wildatheart]

Many thanks for the feedback everyone - based on the above, I can't currently justify spending >$3k on a laptop that would bring the *significant* downside of an external drive - this might be more of an issue for me than most, as I work on film sets for months at a time and often have to scramble around to find a place to work, or I might suddenly rush over to a director to show some images - to constantly carry around an appendage in this environment would be very tedious, and risky; it seems a lot easier to me to lose an external HD than a whole laptop. Even the idea of working on an aeroplane in an economy seat with another object to manage seems a drag. Here's hoping the next generation of MBP will offer 1,5TB at least. Thanks again all!

 

[VesselA]

Many thanks for the feedback everyone - based on the above, I can't currently justify spending >$3k on a laptop that would bring the *significant* downside of an external drive - this might be more of an issue for me than most, as I work on film sets for months at a time and often have to scramble around to find a place to work, or I might suddenly rush over to a director to show some images - to constantly carry around an appendage in this environment would be very tedious, and risky; it seems a lot easier to me to lose an external HD than a whole laptop. Even the idea of working on an aeroplane in an economy seat with another object to manage seems a drag. Here's hoping the next generation of MBP will offer 1,5TB at least. Thanks again all!

I checked a few days ago and the 13" can be configured to 1TB ssd - you can also get 120GB usb thumb drives now which hardly stick out from the port and are designed to be used as part of the laptop I think.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/computers/dp/B00YFI1EBC/ref=pd_sim_147_6?ie=UTF8&refRID=0R8VX6CEQAXZM2SVDKS1

in terms of efficiency howking a 17 inch heavy laptop about is awkward as it is and I don't know how you fit that on an airplane table, unless you are first class, that would make sense

 

[wildatheart]

Good call on the USB memory - if they were available in 256Gb, I'd really be getting somewhere - maybe that will happen.

in terms of efficiency howking a 17 inch heavy laptop about is awkward as it is and I don't know how you fit that on an airplane table, unless you are first class, that would make sense

Yes, I definitely prefer one 17" to a 15" with a Lacie Rugged, which I imagine is the kind of appendage people might use - and re. 1st class; I wish! Emergency exit rows for me

 

[venom600]

I went from a 2011 17" 2.2 with 16GB of ram and a 750gb Samsung 840 Evo to a current 2015 15" with 16GB of RAM and the Samsung SM951 1TB SSD. I also use a 2013 13" with a 128GB SSD and 8GB of RAM at work. I didn't think I would notice any significant difference since I don't do much heavy work on this machine. I was wrong

The difference is night and day. Not the processor intensive stuff, but the disk based stuff. Everything is faster. Booting up takes seconds. The difference is staggering, especially in Windows. I've still not seen a single drive solution that can match the disk speeds of this thing.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Many thanks for the feedback everyone - based on the above, I can't currently justify spending >$3k on a laptop that would bring the *significant* downside of an external drive - this might be more of an issue for me than most, as I work on film sets for months at a time and often have to scramble around to find a place to work, or I might suddenly rush over to a director to show some images - to constantly carry around an appendage in this environment would be very tedious, and risky; it seems a lot easier to me to lose an external HD than a whole laptop. Even the idea of working on an aeroplane in an economy seat with another object to manage seems a drag. Here's hoping the next generation of MBP will offer 1,5TB at least. Thanks again all!

I can't see why an external will be a significant downside, the 15 inch rMBP and an external thunderbolt will be both a significant upgrade with a far better screen, just as much real estate and be much slimmer lighter and smaller to carry around than your 17 inch. Keep your personal stuff on the external (you mentioned that was about half your storage) and what you are working on on the internal and you should actually find it much easier to "scramble around to show the director".

 

[venom600]

I can't see why an external will be a significant downside, the 15 inch rMBP and an external thunderbolt will be both a significant upgrade with a far better screen, just as much real estate and be much slimmer lighter and smaller to carry around than your 17 inch.

The beauty of the 17 was the screen size (the same reason why people like bigger monitors or TVs) and the ability to keep everything internal. Not everyone has to carry around a notebook all the time.

Also, there's zero need to use an external thunderbolt drive. The enclosures and drives are grossly overpriced compared to USB 3, which in practice is more than fast enough for any SATAIII drive, including SSDs. A fast UASP enclosure is less than $20 and 2TB drives routinely go for less than $100. A 1TB Thunderbolt drive is going to cost you almost $200.

 

[Freyqq]

Good call on the USB memory - if they were available in 256Gb, I'd really be getting somewhere - maybe that will happen.



Yes, I definitely prefer one 17" to a 15" with a Lacie Rugged, which I imagine is the kind of appendage people might use - and re. 1st class; I wish! Emergency exit rows for me

http://www.amazon.com/PNY-Turbo-256GB-Flash-Drive/dp/B00JN1TOHM/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1442451757&sr=8-2&keywords=usb+drive+++256gb

256GB thumbdrives exist.

If you got a 1tb internal for active projects and then had a large hard drive for long-term storage, it could also work.

 

[wildatheart]

http://www.amazon.com/PNY-Turbo-256GB-Flash-Drive/dp/B00JN1TOHM/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1442451757&sr=8-2&keywords=usb+drive+++256gb

256GB thumbdrives exist.

Thanks but that sticks out too much.. and I *would* lose it!

 

[venom600]

Another thing to consider is that if you are in one or two places (say the office and home) most of the time, you may want to look into getting a NAS. That would give you the extra storage you need without having to tether a USB drive.