Ordering a macbook pro need help deciding on hard drive?

[harahapcyntia21]

Im in the process of ordering a 17inch macbook pro and need it for school (web design and interactive media) Im not sure what type of hard drive to get or if I should just stay with the standard. So heres the options:

Your MacBook Pro comes standard with a 5400-rpm Serial ATA hard drive. Choose a hard drive with a faster speed for greater performance. Or you can choose a solid-state drive that offers enhanced durability.
Learn more
The larger the capacity (in gigabytes, or GB) of your hard drive, the more space is available to store your files and applications. A typical application today may take 10 to 50 megabytes (MB); photos may take up about 2-4MB each; graphics files can occupy more than 100MB; and video files are often many gigabytes in size.

MacBook Pro also offers an optional 128GB, 256GB, or 512GB solid-state drive, which has no moving parts for enhanced durability.

All drives come formatted in the Mac OS Extended file format for efficient storage of your data.

Important note: For hard drive capacity measurements, 1GB = 1 billion bytes; actual formatted capacity less.


750GB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 RPM
500GB Serial ATA Drive @ 7200 RPM
128GB Solid State Drive [Add $90.00]
256GB Solid State Drive [Add $450.00]
512GB Solid State Drive [Add $990.00]

I have no problem with adding $99 to the price but the upgrade options for $450 and $990 is pushing it for me unless you really think its necessary and please explain why you think I should get what you recommend. Thank you. If you are knowledgable about the other upgrade options I would appreciate input on those too.

 

[p3ntyne]

Im in the process of ordering a 17inch macbook pro and need it for school (web design and interactive media) Im not sure what type of hard drive to get or if I should just stay with the standard. So heres the options:

Your MacBook Pro comes standard with a 5400-rpm Serial ATA hard drive. Choose a hard drive with a faster speed for greater performance. Or you can choose a solid-state drive that offers enhanced durability.
Learn more
The larger the capacity (in gigabytes, or GB) of your hard drive, the more space is available to store your files and applications. A typical application today may take 10 to 50 megabytes (MB); photos may take up about 2-4MB each; graphics files can occupy more than 100MB; and video files are often many gigabytes in size.Image
MacBook Pro also offers an optional 128GB, 256GB, or 512GB solid-state drive, which has no moving parts for enhanced durability.

All drives come formatted in the Mac OS Extended file format for efficient storage of your data.

Important note: For hard drive capacity measurements, 1GB = 1 billion bytes; actual formatted capacity less.


750GB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 RPM
500GB Serial ATA Drive @ 7200 RPM
128GB Solid State Drive [Add $90.00]
256GB Solid State Drive [Add $450.00]
512GB Solid State Drive [Add $990.00]

I have no problem with adding $99 to the price but the upgrade options for $450 and $990 is pushing it for me unless you really think its necessary and please explain why you think I should get what you recommend. Thank you. If you are knowledgable about the other upgrade options I would appreciate input on those too.

17 inch? Do you mean 13?

Anyway, I would definitely recommend getting an sad however, in your situation, where you need a lot of storage, I would suggest getting one of the hdd's and then an aftermarket 120 Gb SSD to put where the optical drive was (as long as you don't need it.)

Deciding between the 500 Gb 7200 and the 750 Gb 5400 in up to you. The 7200 will be faster yet much louder and will produce more vibration. Since it will just be for storing files, I would suggest the big 5400 rpm drive.

 

[bennynova]

where are you buying from that you can get a 17" macbook pro?

can you show us link?

if it is in fact a 17", then don't pay big money for a HD. you can upgrade that on your own for 1/5th of those costs. and i'd reccomend a hybrid SSD/HDD in your case.

if its a 15" or 13" retina macbook pro... you won't be able to change out the HD as it is soldered in...

if that's the case, i'd go w/ the 128GB Flash for speed, and then purchase a much cheaper external drive for storage/large files.

 

[Barney63]

if its a 15" or 13" retina macbook pro... you won't be able to change out the HD as it is soldered in....

They are not soldered in, they are "blades", and new/used ones of all sizes are available on eBay.

However the RAM is soldered.

Barney

 

[bennynova]

that's good to know.
i thought i read somewhere that you'd better order the SSD/PCie flash you want right away, because once it's in you are stuck w/ it.

i like the info below MUCH better

They are not soldered in, they are "blades", and new/used ones of all sizes are available on eBay.

However the RAM is soldered.

Barney

 

[alex0002]

They are not soldered in, they are "blades", and new/used ones of all sizes are available on eBay.

However the RAM is soldered.

Barney

It would depend on which model MacBook Pro he is getting. Since he claims to be getting one that supports a 5400-rpm Serial ATA hard drive, we know those same models also allow the RAM to be replaced.

Your MacBook Pro comes standard with a 5400-rpm Serial ATA hard drive....

However, if he was getting a MacBook Pro with retina display, which only supports SSD, then it would be true that the RAM is soldered in.

Furthermore, there is a huge difference in price and availability of aftermarket SSDs for the retina and the non-retina models. For the MacBook Pro (non retina), there are a number of aftermarket SSD options, with Crucial, Samsung and others offering 256GB class SSDs from around $110.

Perhaps he needs to clarify which model he is getting, as Apple no longer sell the 17 inch MBP referred to in the original post.