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RAM and SSD advice

D

dreamsandart

macrumors member
Original poster
Apr 11, 2004
47
0
Just opening the box of my new MBP i7 17" this morning and thinking of ways to make this faster at a reasonable cost.

Had thought of getting one of the new OWC SSD drives and the 240GB would be a good size along with an second larger capacity disk HD for data in the optic-bay.

But at $700 I'm now thinking I could up the RAM to 8GB and get a 120GB SSD for the same price (120gb should be enough for system and apps?)

I'm be doing video and photo editing and web design work.

Which way to go? RAM + smaller SSD, or, larger SSD and maybe RAM later?

Thanks!
 
RAM + Smaller SSD, external storage for well storage and redundancy and search similar threads in the forum.
http://www.google.com/custom?hl=en&...G=Search&cx=011016119145480959114:kuv1aq0hily
 
I've yet to see a compelling analysis of how expanding RAM from 4 to 8GB is really helpful. Perhaps if you're running concurrent, virtual machines. Otherwise, I just don't see it helping performance that much.

On the other hand, an SSD is the single most important upgrade you can make to enhance performance. 128GB is probably OK for your SSD size. I have the 160GB Intel, and that's plenty of space though I do off-load HD video to an external HD. At your price point, you can get a 256GB SSD which is enough to do it all except keep a large media-file on-board.
 
I think 8gb ram is overkill. I'd get just one 4gb ram module if you really need it. With the work you'll be doing I believe you'll need a good amount of space
 
I'd say go 1tb hard drive then 8gb ram:p that's what I'm planning on doing. What's the point of SSD. It'll drop insanely after 6 months and 240gb is way to small IMO. I have 500gb and only 40gb left. LOL
 
I got a new 17" MBP a few weeks ago and immediately upped the RAM to 8GB from OWC, pulled out the optical drive for a Crucial SSD (256GB), and upgraded the HDD to a 1TB Toshiba. Of all of these, the SSD is the most important. Money well spent.
 
cmascatello said:
I got a new 17" MBP a few weeks ago and immediately upped the RAM to 8GB from OWC, pulled out the optical drive for a Crucial SSD (256GB), and upgraded the HDD to a 1TB Toshiba. Of all of these, the SSD is the most important. Money well spent.
Click to expand...

What? You took out the super drive and put in an SSD? Is that even possible!?
 
dreamsandart said:
Just opening the box of my new MBP i7 17" this morning and thinking of ways to make this faster at a reasonable cost.

Had thought of getting one of the new OWC SSD drives and the 240GB would be a good size along with an second larger capacity disk HD for data in the optic-bay.

But at $700 I'm now thinking I could up the RAM to 8GB and get a 120GB SSD for the same price (120gb should be enough for system and apps?)

I'm be doing video and photo editing and web design work.

Which way to go? RAM + smaller SSD, or, larger SSD and maybe RAM later?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Best bang-buck would be a 128GB SSD and maybe a second HD in the optical bay. You probably can get away with editing your videos via an external HD if you don't want to go the second internal drive route.

The extra RAM is most useful when running a lot of programs concurrently.......... which I wouldn't recommend if you're editing video.

cheers
JohnG
 
cmascatello said:
I got a new 17" MBP a few weeks ago and immediately upped the RAM to 8GB from OWC, pulled out the optical drive for a Crucial SSD (256GB), and upgraded the HDD to a 1TB Toshiba. Of all of these, the SSD is the most important. Money well spent.
Click to expand...


This is close to what my original plan was, but without the RAM upgrade. Then the thought of photoshop with a few other applications open with the standard 4GB of RAM started me thinking. Of course I'd like a larger SSD, and the new OWC SSD 240GB seemed a good option.

I'd like to get a WD 1TB, the SSD and/or RAM all at the same time. Just not sure I can live with the 120MB over time and regret not getting at least the 256GB. Of course I could wait for SSD price to come down. Any ideas when we'll be see the next price drop?
 
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