MacBook Pro Buying Recommendation

[rocknrollcreep]

Dear fellow forum users and Apple aficionados,
my name is Tim and I'm a graphic design student from Frankfurt, Germany. I am currently using a late 2007 13" white MacBook(3,1), whose lifetime I successfully managed to extend by opting for a dual drive setup (64GB SSD system/application drive + 500GB HDD storage drive) and a RAM upgrade to 6GB.

While said solution has worked well for most applications, I feel like the limitations set by CPU/GPU and lack of Thunderbolt are keeping me from foraying into other fields I wanted to expand my knowledge upon, seeing how (even basic) video editing and/or anything 3D related is pretty much out of the question with my current setup. I was hesitant to buy a non-Retina MacBook Pro because I wanted to wait for the new Haswell series. Now, with the new MacBooks offering hardly any user serviceability at all in terms of replacing drives/RAM, I'm a little stuck.

My actual question:

With a dual drive setup not being available for the new Haswell Retina MBPs, does the new PCIe-based SSD make up for the performance loss suffered from not being able to split system and storage across two drives? Is the performance drop negligible as drive space decreases? My storage needs are actually quite moderate (right now, I'm using 35/64GB on my system SSD and 80/500GB on my storage drive) since I keep most of my work and all my music/videos on an external 1TB HDD.

Bonus question:

I'm currently using an eGPU setup (ViDock + GeForce GTX 660) on my soon-to-be-sold desktop MacMini for my occasional gaming needs. Since it's kind of rare here in Germany, I could sell the ViDock + GPU + Sonnet Thunderbolt/ExpressCard adapter for a premium price. Would you suggest keeping it for the purposes I stated above or selling it and opting for a MBP with GeForce GT graphics?

Thanks very much for your help! If there's any important information I left out, please feel free to ask and I'll try to clarify things.

Best regards,
Tim

 

[Meister]

With a dual drive setup not being available for the new Haswell Retina MBPs, does the new PCIe-based SSD make up for the performance loss suffered from not being able to split system and storage across two drives? Is the performance drop negligible as drive space decreases?

You use a white macbook...
performance drop??
Short: pcie = way faster than your setup

Outsourcing storage to an external is a good idea. Keep doing that.

Would you suggest keeping it for the purposes I stated above or selling it and opting for a MBP with GeForce GT graphics?

How much do you want for it?

 

[rocknrollcreep]

You use a white macbook...
performance drop??
Short: pcie = way faster than your setup

Compared to a dual drive setup in a classic MacBook Pro I was just wondering what would give me better performance: A single PCIe SSD (i.e. Haswell Retina MacBook Pro) or a dual drive setup with a system SSD and an internal storage HDD (i.e. Non-Retina MacBook Pro)

How much do you want for it?

Vidock 4 150W: €150,00 (270W +€25,00)
Zotac GTX 660 2GB: €125,00
Sonnet Echo Adapter: €125,00 (Apple Thunderbolt-Cable +€25,00)

 

[accountforit]

One is not better than the other. You need to ask yourself what your needs are; more on board storage, or a faster SSD (one that may or may not be noticeable in everyday tasks).


Keep in mind that an SSD's advantages are at boot up times, writing to disk, and opening programs. How often do most of us do any of those things? After your initial boot up and opening the programs you want to use, unless you are continually writing to disk, an SSD is forgotten about.

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

Compared to a dual drive setup in a classic MacBook Pro I was just wondering what would give me better performance: A single PCIe SSD (i.e. Haswell Retina MacBook Pro) or a dual drive setup with a system SSD and an internal storage HDD (i.e. Non-Retina MacBook

PCIe by far.

 

[disasterdrone]

PCIe by far.

Yes - the only real advantage of your setup is the potential for on-board storage, which you're not using anyway.

 

[rocknrollcreep]

Thanks for the various replies!

Yes - the only real advantage of your setup is the potential for on-board storage, which you're not using anyway.

To sum things up: if I was using a single PCIe drive for both system and moderate storage, the performance drop (if any) would be negligible? I'm putting so much emphasis on this because I'm still painfully familiar with my previous (admittedly, HDD) one-drive-solutions quickly degrading from fresh to unusable

 

[Meister]

Thanks for the various replies!


To sum things up: if I was using a single PCIe drive for both system and moderate storage, the performance drop (if any) would be negligible? I'm putting so much emphasis on this because I'm still painfully familiar with my previous (admittedly, HDD) one-drive-solutions quickly degrading from fresh to unusable

I am not familiar with a setup like yours but pcie ssd is about double to triple the speed of sata ssds.
Not even to mention the atrocious hdd.

In any case: a retina macbook will pulverize your current macbook in every aspect.
And thats to be xpected... .. Its what you pay premium for!
I dont know where you even get the weird idea of a "performance drop"

Do yourself a favour:
Go to the apple store in frankfurt and check out the performance there so you can experience the difference.

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

Thanks for the various replies!


To sum things up: if I was using a single PCIe drive for both system and moderate storage, the performance drop (if any) would be negligible? I'm putting so much emphasis on this because I'm still painfully familiar with my previous (admittedly, HDD) one-drive-solutions quickly degrading from fresh to unusable

Okay, for the third time, PCIe will be FASTER.

 

[maflynn]

Thanks for the various replies!


To sum things up: if I was using a single PCIe drive for both system and moderate storage, the performance drop (if any) would be negligible? I'm putting so much emphasis on this because I'm still painfully familiar with my previous (admittedly, HDD) one-drive-solutions quickly degrading from fresh to unusable

Not a performance drop but a performance increase. You have an old MacBook, and getting a new rMBP means it will be faster from the ram, gpu, cpu to the bus for the SSD.