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Apple SSD when buying new, or upgrade later?

M

mrklaw

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Jan 29, 2008
2,751
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Just looking at buying either a new 15" MBP or a 13" air. A couple of things are attractive to me compared to my 2008 MBP - battery life (I'm at about 2.5 hrs now) and responsiveness due to SSD. on the Air the longer standby is good too as my usage can be patchy.

For the MBP 15", is it better to get the apple SSD as an upgrade when I buy it (£150 cost for the 128GB), or is it better value to do it later on? Just a little wary about talk of TRIM etc and 3rd party SSD support. Plus its an upgrade I'd want to do sooner rather than later, to avoid the need to reinstall when changing drives - unlike RAM which I can do later on.

£150 doesn't sound too bad for a 128GB SSD.
 
I got the Apple 256GB for now as I wanted the 17" and the compatability headaches. I think the 128GB is a better deal, only a little more expensive than a 3rd party one. The Apple SSDs are decent (220mbps read) and are warranty backed by Apple.
 
mrklaw said:
£150 doesn't sound too bad for a 128GB SSD.
Click to expand...

It's not a bad price. It's basically a Kingston V+ 100.

On the other hand, for less money you can buy a Crucial M4 128GB. That way you can keep the origianl HDD in an external enclosure.
 
Last edited:
Say you buy a MBP and change the HDD and RAM, will that be covered under the warranty?
 
LQYoshi said:
Say you buy a MBP and change the HDD and RAM, will that be covered under the warranty?
Click to expand...

Changing the HDD and RAM itself will not void the warranty, but if one of the parts break, say, you damaged the motherboard somehow in the process of replace the HDD and RAM, then Apple can blame it on you. However, that's highly unlikely. Just make sure when you replace HDD and RAM, do it in a dust-free and not humid environment.
 
odd. On the 15" MBP base model, to upgrade to a 128GB SSD its £150. On the higher end 15", its only £75.

Is it usual for apple to vary the upgrade prices depending on the level of model you buy? Although perhaps the higher end has a larger HDD as standard, so that makes the upgrade price different?

It has me wondering whether to get the faster 15" as the difference is 'only' £175 - £1604 for the 2.2 Vs £1774 for the 2.3 i7. Although the only difference is the GPU and I'm not sure I'd ever push it - its not a gaming machine but will occasionally play a bit of minecraft or trackmania
 
mrklaw said:
odd. On the 15" MBP base model, to upgrade to a 128GB SSD its £150. On the higher end 15", its only £75.
Click to expand...

That is because the 2.2 comes with your choice of a 750 GB 5400 RPM drive or a 500 GB 7200 RPM drive while the 2.0 is a 500 GB 5400 RPM.
 
Sure, but

1) the price of the upgrade isn't that much - fairly competitive with buying separately. £150 for the base model, £75 for the high end (for the 128GB)

2) i'm a bit worried about SSDs and apple, with all this TRIM etc stuff going on
 
No need to worry. The SSD Apple uses has excellent garbage collection and doesn't need TRIM in the first place.
 
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