MBP 2011 SSD Size & leopard/lion

[Hawaga]

Hi all!

I intend to buy a new MBP soon, and consider puttin in a 128go SSD (apple) instead of the HD.

Hopefully I'll manage to have an external HD all the time to save the data (pics/work etc...)

But I'd like to have my music library (around 50-60 go) in.

Considering the space required by MAC OS X, and with your experience, would you think 128 go SSD is enough?

Going next step is 400$ more on the Apple Store, which I can't really afford. I'm sure getting an OEM SSD would be cheaper, but not that much I guess, and I'm afraid to mount it myself and loose guarantee/AppleCare...

Thank you for your advices!

 

[ExnomenDei]

Apple fully supports replacing the hard drive or SSD on Macbook Pro's. It's just undoing a few screws and a cable and it's easy even for beginners. Just don't touch anything you don't know you're allowed to touch.

It is a bit better value than Apple's SSD's to go this route. They're also faster depending on the model. Lastly, you get the original hard drive, which you can use in an external bay for extra storage space when you can plug such things in.

 

[Hawaga]

okay then, thanks, but what about the SSD size (in my first question)... 128gb, if u have usage experience, is it enough for the OS + music and few documents or will I quickly see a full hard drive...?

 

[grahamnp]

Are you an existing Mac user?

If you are, go to the root of your System drive (Macintosh HD) and select everything apart from the Users folder. Press Option + CMD + i and it will tell you how much space you will occupy. Ideally, this is all you want to transfer to your SSD, you can add the size of your music collection to that.

Just note that the above won't work if you've got a lot 3rd party software taking up space there.

Alternatively, try Daisy Disk. They have a free trial and it's a great way to visualise how much space you will need. I use it to find out what's hogging my drive space.

 

[Weaselboy]

I just installed a SSD on my 2011 13" MBP and with Snow Leopard, iWorks, and just a small handful of documents it is using about 30GB. So if you have 60GB of music on top of that you would still only be at about 90-100GB with 28GB left over.