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MacBookPr0

macrumors regular
Original poster
Feb 5, 2011
130
0
I bought an express card 34 ssd for my 17 inch MacBook pro and I was wondering if anyone here has done this and how did you like it. Also I do a lot of video editing, should I go and upgrade to 8 gb of ram?
 
I have the lexar SSD. I dont believe it's sold anymore but either way its pretty slow (because it runs on the USB bus). The more expensive ones will run on the PCIe bus and might even be bootable.

And yes, get 8 GB Ram.
 
Yeah the one I bought on merit line for 90 dollars 24 gb is pcie based
 
I just wanted to update this to recommend it to others because it works awesome and is super fast
 
Last edited:
Sorry to give you some buyer's remorse here, but I got this from eBay at $63, also 24GB, bootable, PCI-e interface. Reads and writes at the exact advertised speed. 115MB/s ; 65MB/s

P.S. My 2011 17" 2.2GHz boots with the rotating thing under the apple logo going 2 and a quarter times.

LINK
 
^^ nice. I just got the 48GB model of that in the mail today. Can't wait to get OSX installed on it.
 
Sorry to give you some buyer's remorse here, but I got this from eBay at $63, also 24GB, bootable, PCI-e interface. Reads and writes at the exact advertised speed. 115MB/s ; 65MB/s

P.S. My 2011 17" 2.2GHz boots with the rotating thing under the apple logo going 2 and a quarter times.

LINK

You didn't really say anything is wrong with it so what's the problem
 
^^ nice. I just got the 48GB model of that in the mail today. Can't wait to get OSX installed on it.

Do you know of any links that explain how to set this up as an opperation or boot drive? I assume thats what you mean by installing OSX on it.

- Will it make the machine faster during use or just during the innitial boot up process?

- Are you putting a second copy of osx on the ssd (I would assume so)?

-Would the machine still work (just a little slower) if you were to remove the ssd after setting it up or does the OS become dependent on it after set up?

- Is 24gb large enough to do this?

Thanks!!!!
 
Do you know of any links that explain how to set this up as an opperation or boot drive? I assume thats what you mean by installing OSX on it.

- Will it make the machine faster during use or just during the innitial boot up process?

- Are you putting a second copy of osx on the ssd (I would assume so)?

-Would the machine still work (just a little slower) if you were to remove the ssd after setting it up or does the OS become dependent on it after set up?

- Is 24gb large enough to do this?
Thanks!!!!
This will make your computer faster on boot time, as well as loading applications and just overall quicker. One other note is that it seems to use less battery
There is nothing on how to do his online, and I had to ask around apple care to get an answer. First you must insert the new drive into the expresscard 32 slot. Then open up disc utility in the utility folder of the applications folder. Then format it as a guid partition and Mac OSX extended journaled. Then use the grey install disc to install the OS. Then when that's done restart holding option to boot to that. Then once it's set up use Mac transfer assistant to copy over your files and applications. 24 is a little small so most of the stuff on that is the alias of the files. If you want it more streamlined I recommend a bigger drive I you can afford it. If you set it up this way, it will not be dependent on the ssd and if you remove it, it should just boot from the hard drive. Hope this helped and if you have any questions, just post again here.:)
 
I installed my OS and all my apps on the SSD, and wiped the internal HDD.

Games, music, and large files then go to the internal HDD.

So the cool thing is that I can theoretically bring my SSD around and boot into my environment on another MBP by just slotting in my SSD.
However, my MBP alone without the SSD will not boot. :rolleyes:
 
I installed my OS and all my apps on the SSD, and wiped the internal HDD.

Games, music, and large files then go to the internal HDD.

So the cool thing is that I can theoretically bring my SSD around and boot into my environment on another MBP by just slotting in my SSD.
However, my MBP alone without the SSD will not boot. :rolleyes:

It wouldn't boot right in another system as installation optimizes it for that exact system.
 
Congrats! Prepare to be amazed

This thing is beyond amazing!

I'm so happy with my computer now.

48GB ExpressCard SSD and 1TB internal sata drive.

Now I get the best of both. Fast boot / Apps, and maximum storage.

What I did too was set my home folder up on the 1TB internal. Actually never knew that in system pref > accounts: you can option click on your name. From there you can move your home to another location or drive.

Read/Write was listed as 65/115. I'm constantly getting 70/120.

Usually it's less than advertised.
 
This will make your computer faster on boot time, as well as loading applications and just overall quicker. One other note is that it seems to use less battery
There is nothing on how to do his online, and I had to ask around apple care to get an answer. First you must insert the new drive into the expresscard 32 slot. Then open up disc utility in the utility folder of the applications folder. Then format it as a guid partition and Mac OSX extended journaled. Then use the grey install disc to install the OS. Then when that's done restart holding option to boot to that. Then once it's set up use Mac transfer assistant to copy over your files and applications. 24 is a little small so most of the stuff on that is the alias of the files. If you want it more streamlined I recommend a bigger drive I you can afford it. If you set it up this way, it will not be dependent on the ssd and if you remove it, it should just boot from the hard drive. Hope this helped and if you have any questions, just post again here.:)

Thanks for that!!
 
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