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Advice on upgrading Storage in MBP

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paulrbeers

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Dec 17, 2009
3,963
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Right now I have a 2011 MBP with the Apple 128GB SSD in it, and a 500GB WD 5400 rpm HD in the optical bay. While this is working for me, I'd rather move to all SSD my my machine. I have noticed that I rarely ever use more than about 300GB worth of storage, but regularly use more than 240GB. While money isn't a huge concern, buying a 480GB vertex 3 is a bit hard to swallow. So my thoughts are, go with a 120-128GB boot drive and a 240-256GB drive for data and VM drive.

First off, I happen to have a 120GB Gskill Phoenix SSD sitting in a box (it's a Sandforce 1200 based SSD). I am planning on swapping the 128GB Apple SSD with the Gskill. My old 2009 MBP had a sandforce 1200 in it and it felt a bit snappier. I thought about picking up a 120GB Vertex 3 (or Corsair Force 3) drive, but the reviews of the 120GB Sandforce 2200 drives are not showing a lot of improvement over the 1200 series due to half the memory channels.

Secondly, anyone have any recommendations on a "cheap" 240-256GB SSD? It seems like the Sandforce 1200 series is about the cheapest. Newegg has them for around $380. I was surprised that a lot of the slower/older chipset based SSD's weren't cheaper on Newegg.

Last, what about the new Crucial M4's? It looks like the 512MB ones are running about $850. While they aren't as fast as the Sandforce 2200 based drives, at that price for a Half TB, I think I could swallow the price (as opposed to $1700 for the Sandforce 2200 drives). Any experience on how these drives work with or without the TRIM hack? It would be nice to put my optical drive back into my MBP for the handful of times I use it, but it certainly isn't a requirement.

Any and all help would be/is appreciated.
 
i would have thought leaving at least 20% free on the boot volume is a "good" practice even if it is a SSD.

when money isn't a concern just buy what you wish to fork out with the max Gb u can buy. OCZ Vertex3 and Crucial have pretty good reputations. little research would justify your choice for you.
 
I don't understand what's wrong with your current setup (although I'd have gone for the 750 GB Scorpio Black myself). I'd say keep what you have, it's the best route.
 
I too would recommend keeping the current setup... With a couple hours of time you could likely reinstall osx and your programs using under 15GB. You would still have around 90GB left on the SSD for other stuff (leaving 20% free space)
 
yea keep what you have i dont even know what people need optical disc drives for on a regular basis anymore.
 
I guess I wasn't clear, I use a ton of VM's. At any point, I have 2-3 running. I have VM's of freebsd, multiple flavors of linux, Windows XP, Windows 7, Snow Leopard Server, etc. I do this, because I run a software company and my software is installed on servers and run via a web interface. In order to aid my clients, I have about 60GB worth of VM's (and that number seems to rise almost daily). This way I can help trouble shoot the installation of my software. By the time I take 60GB worth of storage just for VM's, that only leaves me about 60 GB for my OS and applications. Running multiple VM's off of the secondary drive would not be advisable due to the slow speed of the hard drive. Further, I really don't want to sit on a phone with someone waiting 1-2 minutes just for the VM to load up on the slow mechanical hard drive (even if I switched to a 7200 rpm drive). So please, do not say "my setup is perfect", because it isn't. If it was, I wouldn't be asking for some assitance.....

Now please see above, and someone give me some usable ideas....
 
ok so u use a MBP for this kind of support work? anyhow, if it is operational necessary, as u do run a software company, get the OCZ V3 (company expense... ?!?) drives running at SATA3 will give u a leap forward from the apple stock SSD drive, and that seems to be the fastest thing on earth at the moment if im not wrong, the larger the merrier. More RAM? are you maxed out at 16Gb yet? 2011 MBP takes 16Gb if im not wrong. that may help.

probably your MBP full spec may allow others to assist further? and info of your setup... how u run your multiple VMs. do you put one to sleep before waking another? Fusion or Parallel? as u have spare SSDs kicking about, swap that in for a test to see if a dual SSD setup will benefit you with your 60Gb of VMs switching... if satisfy move on to a faster SATA3 SSD.

my SSD only has OSX and a few apps on it. at 11Gb. (my home dir is on the spinnig drive) my 2 cents of opinion would be keep ur boot drive at least 20% free (inclusive of your home dir, osx and all application that you have whatever size that maybe.).

How much does your home dir take up, Application folder take up? OSX can be trimmed down to as low as 3GB seen in this forum. u already have a couple of 120GB SSDs... make use of that as your boot volume.

have a large enough SSD on the secondary just for your VMs. 120Gb-240Gb OCZ V3 will be double of what u have now.
http://www.hardwareheaven.com/reviews/1121/pg12/ocz-vertex-3-240gb-ssd-review-conclusion.html
 
clickclickw00t, OCZ V3 reviews and reports read write and 585/550MB per sec. u sorted ur optibay ya?
 
Thanks for the suggestions. One of the reasons I upgraded my 2009 MBP to the new 2011 was for the quad core processors. I actually allocate a processor to each VM so I can easily run 3 VM's at any given time while still leaving a full processor to OSX. My biggest bottleneck anymore is space on the SSD and memory (I just can't justify $1600 for a 16GB set). However, most of my VM's run just fine with only 1 to 1.5GB allocated to them. I never put these VM's to sleep. Most of the time I have my MBP hooked to a 27" iMac. I used to use the iMac for all of this, but it was too constricting. I was tied to my desk at all times.

Based on the advice here, I went with the Corsair Force 3 120GB as my main OS drive (even though the 120GB sandforce 2000 series drives are slower than their 240GB counterparts) and I went with a Vertex 2 240GB drive for my VM and file drive. Not a bad combo for about a third the price of a Vertex 3 480GB drive.
 
paulrbeers said:
Thanks for the suggestions. One of the reasons I upgraded my 2009 MBP to the new 2011 was for the quad core processors. I actually allocate a processor to each VM so I can easily run 3 VM's at any given time while still leaving a full processor to OSX. My biggest bottleneck anymore is space on the SSD and memory (I just can't justify $1600 for a 16GB set). However, most of my VM's run just fine with only 1 to 1.5GB allocated to them. I never put these VM's to sleep. Most of the time I have my MBP hooked to a 27" iMac. I used to use the iMac for all of this, but it was too constricting. I was tied to my desk at all times.

Based on the advice here, I went with the Corsair Force 3 120GB as my main OS drive (even though the 120GB sandforce 2000 series drives are slower than their 240GB counterparts) and I went with a Vertex 2 240GB drive for my VM and file drive. Not a bad combo for about a third the price of a Vertex 3 480GB drive.
Click to expand...

Nice man let me know how it goes! I'm loving my new Force Series 3 120GB
 
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