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So here is my dilemma with the SSD... Help me argue with my dad.

I

iHalo

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 14, 2008
157
0
My MacBook Pro 13 inch 2010 is my main machine... My father is a techie, so he knows all the advantages of the SSD versus the hard drive. He is worried that if it fails on me, I will be out of a computer for 2 weeks while the SSD is replaced (needing to be sent back, have another one shipped here). That'd be terrible as a student. Also, since we are using this on campus authorized apple retailer who clones+instals for $40, he doesn't want to pay that multiple times if the SSD fails. He is just really worried about the horror stories of people having problems with the SSD.

What would you guys advice, any way to avoid this issue?
 
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You asked us to help, but you're not asking anything. You just said a statement.

"Help me argue with my dad! I totally love soy milk and he knows that soy milk is not from cows!" =)

It seems to me the emphasis of this post is about "IF" it fails on you. Well, it's not a question of "IF" but a matter of "WHEN" it will fail on you. If you buy your SSD from your authorized on-campus facility, they should stand by their products and switch it IF it fails for free. Unless you're a total bonehead (or conversely, med/law student) I don't see the SSD failing on you just out of the blue in the next 2, 3, 4 years, so approximately your college life. YMMV, of course! Anyway, by the time you'll be thinking about upgrading or replacing your SSD, they'll be cheaper for the drive space you'll be getting. Let us know how it pans out for you!
 
He is just worried about stories about them failing after 2 weeks of installation. And I am not buying through the authorized apple mac repair center, they are just doing the installation.
 
SSD is still an emerging technology. As with all emerging technologies, you can choose to be an early adopter - reaping the benefits, but also dealing with all the unforeseen problems. Or, you can choose to wait until the product matures a bit, the bugs get ironed out, and it becomes more reliable.

Plenty of people have SSD's that are fast and have given them no trouble at all. But plenty of folks have also had assorted issues.

That said, mechanical hard drives can fail prematurely too. No matter which way you decide, you'd be an absolute fool not to back up your data. Whatever size hard drive (or SSD) your machine comes equipped with, you should buy an external firewire (not usb) hard drive of equal or greater size. Use something like Carbon Copy Cloner to make a complete clone of your internal drive, onto the external one. Do this every two weeks. That way if/when your internal drive does fail, you won't lose your data and fail your classes as a result. The reason you want a firewire external drive is so that its bootable. If your internal drive does fail, and you've cloned it to the external using Carbon Copy Cloner, you can actually boot your computer up off the external drive and keep working!! But a Mac can only boot off the firewire interface, not usb, (which is fine because firewire is much faster anyhow).
 
Like Argon said, which ever route you choose make sure you back your data up. I would vote to go for the ssd by the way.
 
Macbook Pro's DO boot off of a USB drive. i was using my primary system off of a 160 gb Lacie external usb 2.0 hd for a good 3 months between getting my old core 2 duo mbp repaired and getting my new mid 2010 unibody. for university work, i need a mac. whilst i was without a computer it meant i could use my friends imac and still have all of my stuff with me (as well as boot my system using college machines).

Yes firewire is faster, no, macs don't only boot from firewire.
 
Buy a MBP with a normal HDD, buy a SSD, change it yourself, keep the HDD as a external hard drive...should anything bad happen, boot off the HDD or switch it out...
 
Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't HDD have more of a chance of failing on you that SSDs. And this whole argument is kinda negated by the idea of a backup. Just backup your drive/clone it and it's not even an issue. I would say just get a good reliable SSD, I just got one from OWC and it's been awesome.

Also, please do not pay someone to install an SSD/clone a hard drive. Like the post above me says, a monkey with one eye could do the install. Use that money toward a good firewire backup drive.

I guess your dad isn't much of a techie if he doesn't know about backups or cloning :p
 
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