Does the SSD in an MBP fit into th same space as the HD so it is upgradeable in the furture when SSDs get a bit cheaper?
yes they do as long as the ssd's specs say it is 2.5" (there are some 1.8", which are not very common, and I dont know if they could fit with an adaptor or something, however 2.5" will)
I'm reading so much hyperbole about these MLC SSD(s), and they're not all that great -- in fact, SLC(s) aren't much better. I've tried the OCZ Cores V2. OCZ SLC Sata II, MTRON Mobi 3500 (SLC SATA II), Memoright SLC (SATA I, 1.5Gb/s -- and far superior to any of the foregoing) and the Intel X25-E. The only one that impressed me long term is the X25-E -- whatever problems the X25-M has, the X25-E just seems to get better with age.
If you're just serving the net -- SSD (MLC or otherwise, I'd guess) will be great; if you're just running 4-5 normal OS X applications at a time and you're more concerned with launch times than things like hangs, MLC SSD(s) would probably do the trick. But if you're a power user and are more concerned with multi-tasking, forget MLC(s) altogether -- stripe fast HDDs or X25-E(s). If you can do external and you don't have to boot in 15 seconds, the V-Raptors are hard to beat for multi-tasking.
Straight up -- 1 X25-E easily outperforms 2 striped MLC(s) (including, even, the mighty, might Samsung 256GB). I've looked at the Xbench(es) and Disktest(s) for striped Samsung MLC 256GB(s) [which tests have sometimes shown in excess of 150 MB/s sequential throughput -- because 150 MB's is the theoretical max throughput for SATA 1.5 GB/s (a/k/a SATA I), I assume that the users are using the MCE Optibay, since i can't find anything that indicates that the MacBook Pro UniBody has a SATA 3.0GB/s a/k/a SATA II bus]. 1, repeat, 1, X25-E outperforms them consistently. Spend your money wisely and in accordance with your needs -- have patience. The SSD(s) of today are not the SSD(s) of tomorrow (or next month). And remember, review sites have advertisers even if their sometimes negative reviews seem impartial.
Pal, you are missing the point, there is no way you can put one of those extremely fast HDD in a MBP, not to mention it would be impossible to put the stripped (if you could get a 2.5") unless you remove the optic drive, and spend like $50 in an adapter, at the end you will end up with a project that cost you $300+ (2 drives + adaptor) which is the same as a nice SSD, yes you get better storage (if you could do this) but then your battery life would suck, not to mention you'd lose the optic drive as well as increasing considerably the data loss risk.
Also the fact that cheap SSDs are comparable (I am not saying better, they are better in some things like read speeds of large files, as they are worse in some things like writing....) is remarkable, to begin with, there is no Notebook HDD that can be compared to a regular 3.5" HDD (the momentus, which is arguable the fastest 2.5 HDD out there today, is not much faster than a $50 500GB ramdom HDD, therefore cannot be compared with a raptor) also keep in mind that raptor HDDs are not cheap either, when i bought mine (74Gb it cost me $150 just $70 less that what my SSD cost me, and have ~40GB less capacity, todays 300GB raptors are cheaper but still you cannot put them in the MBP so I dont know why are we having this discution, I just mentioned it to COMPARE....
Will 128gb be enough space to load the programs? I know CS4 already uses about 15gb. I'll probably get an external HDD for most of my files, anyhow, but is 128gb really enough space to have for large programs such as CS4, Vectorworks, etc.?
That depends on many factors..
1.- How many HDDs does your current system is taking?
2.- How many GB you would be willing to free up if you were to do the switch
3.- Are you willing to use external HDDs?
Keep in mind that for $5~$10 you can convert your current internal HDD into an external if you were to do the change, and if you spend another $10 in a PCI express card with eSATA port and get an eSATA enclosure even better.
Good rule of thumbs is, that if you want the system to be stable, leave at least 20% of your HDD empty (e.g. 20-30GB of the 128 SSD
) so if you can fit your stuff in ~100GB you going to be OK (system files takes ~ 15GB so you got ~ 80GB for your files and program...... (currently I got my system with a few programs and my MP3 collection (70GB) on my system and got 37GB free.
Regarding how much of speed increase you will have for those particular programs, i have no idea, but you can find out really simple, when the program is working, place your ear near the laptop left to the track pad, if you hear noise comming from there is the HDD working. which mean if you replace it with an SSD whatever your computer is doing to make the HDD work at that particular time, its speed will be (almost) doubled therefore its time would be (almost) halved.
An SSD will improve your MBP drastically in the future once you've had the fill of your 7,200rpm drive, more so than a 300MHz jump in CPU power will ever do - and you'll definately notice it. That'll be something you should save for in the long run when the prices fall.
