I'm looking at getting a macpro to use as a laptop/backup production machine for my web shop. We're running iMac 27" i7's and I'm not expecting same levels of performance but I do want something snappy for the day to day adobe suite work we do (Photoshop, Indesign, Illustrator) and the IDE's we run to code php (Netbeans)
The 13" is looking like a great deal for cost but I'd really love the community's opinion two options I'm considering.
Option A - $1520 USD - Mac Book Pro 13" i5 ($1200) + Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G SSD 120GB ($320)
- And I get a useless 320 GB external 5200 rpm drive which I suppose I'd use as a clone destination for the SSD in case of total drive failure (or I'd need to do a hardware return with apple)
Option B - $1500 USD - Mac Book Pro 13" i7 stock
Some Considerations:
No laptop is going to have the storage we're getting a OWC USB/FW/eSata "toaster" drive bays we're using for all our macs. The SSD's internal 120GB should be fine for OS + Programs (no movies or other disk-space eaters expected). On the road we can live with less storage.
Battery life isn't all that important as it's mostly going to live plugged in.
I'm assuming the extra cost of the 6G is worth the performance in my use case, but if there's other SSD suggestions I'd love to hear them. I'm kind of marketing-brainwashed to think the OWC offerings are more reliable with all the dead space they dedicate to SSD errors but as I've never owned one this is not first hand experience.
We run fusion Virtual Machines to test Internet Explorer 6,7,8 various windows flavors ... These will eat up about 40GB for the windows images but it's nice if they run quick.
Reliability is very very important to me.
The 13" is looking like a great deal for cost but I'd really love the community's opinion two options I'm considering.
Option A - $1520 USD - Mac Book Pro 13" i5 ($1200) + Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G SSD 120GB ($320)
- And I get a useless 320 GB external 5200 rpm drive which I suppose I'd use as a clone destination for the SSD in case of total drive failure (or I'd need to do a hardware return with apple)
Option B - $1500 USD - Mac Book Pro 13" i7 stock
Some Considerations:
No laptop is going to have the storage we're getting a OWC USB/FW/eSata "toaster" drive bays we're using for all our macs. The SSD's internal 120GB should be fine for OS + Programs (no movies or other disk-space eaters expected). On the road we can live with less storage.
Battery life isn't all that important as it's mostly going to live plugged in.
I'm assuming the extra cost of the 6G is worth the performance in my use case, but if there's other SSD suggestions I'd love to hear them. I'm kind of marketing-brainwashed to think the OWC offerings are more reliable with all the dead space they dedicate to SSD errors but as I've never owned one this is not first hand experience.
We run fusion Virtual Machines to test Internet Explorer 6,7,8 various windows flavors ... These will eat up about 40GB for the windows images but it's nice if they run quick.
Reliability is very very important to me.
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