Hybrid vs. SSD Optibay? (2010 MBP)

[CFoss]

My teacher has recently considered upgrading the drive in his 2010 MBP. His machine has the following specs:

2010 MacBook Pro
CPU: 2.4 GHz Intel C2D
RAM: 8GB
HDD: 250GB (70GB left)

He's stuck between going with replacing the HDD with a SSD, a Hybrid Drive, or even replacing the Optical Drive with a SSD. He's currently using 180GB. I'm not to sure what to recommend to him. Does anyone have experience with both options? Which did you prefer?

 

[nickandre21]

i think he would be better of increasing the capacity of the main drive to say 500 gb, they are pretty cheap or even go in for a hybrid drive. But if he has no limitations to costs then a ssd drive will make his mac fly. He could keep the ssd in the hard drive bay and put the old platters in an optibay if hes cool with ditching the superdrive.

For me space is something I need and an ssd would be an out of this world cost with similar capacity. I would go in for a 7200rpm drive or even a hybrid drive with a good capacity say 750gb. I wouldnt want to sacrifice my superdrive. If only apples external super drive would have worked.

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

The sata is slower in the disc drive, so if he goes ssd, he should put the original HDD where the disc drive is.

 

[dusk007]

Is he actually running low on space or is he fairly comfortable with using his 180GB?
If he just wants speed a 256GB SSD will do it. It is really quite expensive and a C2D laptop still won't scream. Once everything is loaded and you mostly use standby rather than shut the system down an SSD doesn't save you much time of your life. SSDs are great and if you go back to a system without it feels slow but you don't actually save much time doing stuff. It is more a psychological thing like stutter in a mobile smartphone gui. You loose 1s of info a day but it annoys you.
Hybrids are a good choice. On such an old machine I wouldn't go for an expensive SSD+HDD solution anymore. Better buy some decent external NAS or some solution that he can actually keep after ditching the 4 year old notebook.

 

[NewishMacGuy]

The sata is slower in the disc drive, so if he goes ssd, he should put the original HDD where the disc drive is.

I think on the 2010 both the main bay and the optibay are SATA2.

I think it mostly just boils down to budget. In this case your teacher would need a 500GB SSD which costs about $400. A Hybrid drive will cost around $120 for anywhere from 750GB to 1TB.

The SSD is the superior option but IMO that's too much to spend on a pre Sandy Bridge laptop. I would go with the hybrid as it does make a significant difference for a lot less money.

>

 

[paul-n]

I would prefer a SSD in HDD bay and a HDD in Opti bay.
This is the best option for always great performance and lots of storage.