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For those debating MBP v. MBA

S

safelder

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 9, 2010
78
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A couple of weeks ago, with the announcement of the new MBAs, I decided to test the waters on bay for my mid-2010 15", hi res, 500 gb 7200 rpm i5 machine, figuring I'd sell that and get a 13" MBA instead.

When I didn't get what I was asking, I decided to take a different approach. I've just swapped out both the HD and the SuperDrive for two OWC 60 gb ssds set up in a striped RAID array. All I've really given up is form factor--and even the MBP 15 is easier to travel with than my old think pad, with its crazy bulky 9 cell battery that still only lasts 3 hours with wifi on and massive power brick--and I've gained quite a bit of flexibility over the Air. If I really want to travel light, there's always the iPad.

I highly recommend this approach, which might be even more attractive on a 13" MBP than a 15 (though then you're losing resolution).
 
How much improvement with striping?

I'm also looking at going the 15" MBP route with an OWC SSD drive. I really do need a minimum of 240 GB. I was just going to go with the OWC 240, but you got me thinking about a striped pair of 120s.

Did you compare striped versus non-striped performance of the SSD drive?
 
miata said:
I'm also looking at going the 15" MBP route with an OWC SSD drive. I really do need a minimum of 240 GB. I was just going to go with the OWC 240, but you got me thinking about a striped pair of 120s.

Did you compare striped versus non-striped performance of the SSD drive?
Click to expand...

I didn't do any comparisons. Coming from a mechanical HD, I knew I'd see a performance bump either way, and figured striped RAID would be faster than concatenated. Plus, the thing is crazy quiet and cool now...

As it turns out, I overestimated my space needs and probably could do with 2x40 gb. I budgeted to keep my vm on the ssds, not thinking that would thrash them pretty quickly. I also decided not to reload my iTunes library, but rather to stream over home share.
 
safelder said:
I didn't do any comparisons. Coming from a mechanical HD, I knew I'd see a performance bump either way, and figured striped RAID would be faster than concatenated. Plus, the thing is crazy quiet and cool now...

As it turns out, I overestimated my space needs and probably could do with 2x40 gb. I budgeted to keep my vm on the ssds, not thinking that would thrash them pretty quickly. I also decided not to reload my iTunes library, but rather to stream over home share.
Click to expand...
Of course, the only problem with striping is that your reliability drops. That is a definite consideration for HDD -- probably a lot less for SDD. Although I noticed that OWC sells a higher end line of SSDs specifically for striping applications.
 
Thanks for the post. I have been thinking about breathing new life into my MB 2.2 santa-rosa with a SSD in place of the DVD (that is now bad). I will have to read up more.
 
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