SSD advice

[patseguin]

I have a 2011 Macbook Pro that I am trying to get the best possible performance and hold onto it as long as possible. I have 16GB RAM and a Seagate 1TB HD/SSD hybrid drive. Do you guys think I will see a dramatic enough improvement in performance with a 1 TB SSD to justify the cost?

I was thinking about an 850 Evo or even an 840 Evo to keep my cost down a little. My HTPC's and my main PC use 840 pro's but since I want to use the drive as my main storage on my Mac I want to go 1 TB so the cost needs to stay down a little.

Or do you guys think it would be good to use one of my 840 Pro 256GB drives that I already have and then install my apps on an external drive? I don't think that will be the best way to do it but I am open to suggestions.

 

[keysofanxiety]

I have a 2011 Macbook Pro that I am trying to get the best possible performance and hold onto it as long as possible. I have 16GB RAM and a Seagate 1TB HD/SSD hybrid drive. Do you guys think I will see a dramatic enough improvement in performance with a 1 TB SSD to justify the cost?

I was thinking about an 850 Evo or even an 840 Evo to keep my cost down a little. My HTPC's and my main PC use 840 pro's but since I want to use the drive as my main storage on my Mac I want to go 1 TB so the cost needs to stay down a little.

Or do you guys think it would be good to use one of my 840 Pro 256GB drives that I already have and then install my apps on an external drive? I don't think that will be the best way to do it but I am open to suggestions.

You'll get a massive performance improvement with just SSD. The hybrid drives that have a small SSD cache have nowhere near the performance, and they're still just as unreliable/prone to corruption as conventional HDDs.

My vote is to get the 1TB 850 EVO.

 

[Spudlicious]

I have a 2011 Macbook Pro that I am trying to get the best possible performance and hold onto it as long as possible. I have 16GB RAM and a Seagate 1TB HD/SSD hybrid drive. Do you guys think I will see a dramatic enough improvement in performance with a 1 TB SSD to justify the cost?

I was thinking about an 850 Evo or even an 840 Evo to keep my cost down a little. My HTPC's and my main PC use 840 pro's but since I want to use the drive as my main storage on my Mac I want to go 1 TB so the cost needs to stay down a little.

Or do you guys think it would be good to use one of my 840 Pro 256GB drives that I already have and then install my apps on an external drive? I don't think that will be the best way to do it but I am open to suggestions.

I'm sure you'll see a worthwhile improvement with an SSD solution. I just bought a Samsung 1TB 850 Pro on an Amazon deal for the Lenovo I use as my desktop, and it's a stormer.

 

[DFWHD]

I just upgraded my son's 2012 cMPB this afternoon with the Samsung Evo 850. Read/write times are smoking. Don't thik you can go wrong with the Evo 850.

 

[dualmax]

I have a 2011 Macbook Pro that I am trying to get the best possible performance and hold onto it as long as possible. I have 16GB RAM and a Seagate 1TB HD/SSD hybrid drive. Do you guys think I will see a dramatic enough improvement in performance with a 1 TB SSD to justify the cost?

I was thinking about an 850 Evo or even an 840 Evo to keep my cost down a little. My HTPC's and my main PC use 840 pro's but since I want to use the drive as my main storage on my Mac I want to go 1 TB so the cost needs to stay down a little.

Or do you guys think it would be good to use one of my 840 Pro 256GB drives that I already have and then install my apps on an external drive? I don't think that will be the best way to do it but I am open to suggestions.

I have the same 2011 MBP and have been using SSD for 3 years, I am telling you the speed increase is huge, it feels like a new computer again when you upgraded to SSD.

 

[patseguin]

For anyone interested, I was running a Seagate 1TB hybrid drive and just tonight installed a Samsung 850 Evo and it is awesome. the system was already pretty fast but now with the 1TB full SSD and 16GB RAM I have a great Mac for the next few years. Thanks for the input!

 

[Fishrrman]

OP wrote:
"Do you guys think I will see a dramatic enough improvement in performance with a 1 TB SSD to justify the cost?"

There's no doubt you'll see a dramatic improvement in drive performance, BUT...
...I don't see it as cost-effective on a MacBook that is now going on five years old.

Just not worth putting too much $$$ into it.

Having said that, 480gb SSDs can be found in the $170 price range.

Put your essential stuff on one of those, and leave the less-frequently-accessed stuff on the old drive (housed in a USB enclosure).

My opinion only.

 

[patseguin]

OP wrote:
"Do you guys think I will see a dramatic enough improvement in performance with a 1 TB SSD to justify the cost?"

There's no doubt you'll see a dramatic improvement in drive performance, BUT...
...I don't see it as cost-effective on a MacBook that is now going on five years old.

Just not worth putting too much $$$ into it.

Having said that, 480gb SSDs can be found in the $170 price range.

Put your essential stuff on one of those, and leave the less-frequently-accessed stuff on the old drive (housed in a USB enclosure).

My opinion only.

I appreciate that but I'm not sure you're right. Yes it is going on 5 years old but it is a Core i7 which is still what machines are built around today. I managed to upgrade it to 16GB of RAM and the 1TB SSD makes it seem like a new machine. I can't see what upgrading to a new machine would do for me other than give me a retina display. I already use my MBP as a desktop machine with my Dell 27" monitor and have the new keyboard and new trackpad with force touch.

The SSD cost me $345 which I considered to be a very good deal for 1 1TB drive.

 

[iLog.Genius]

I knew the performance of a SSD but never really cared for it thinking a standard platter HDD was good enough. Boy was I wrong. Helped install the EVO 850 for my cousin and when I saw the boot time (less than 15 seconds), I was shocked and went out and installed one on my MBP. The noise factor is also a plus. You don't realize how loud a standard HDD is until you go SSD and it's whisper quiet (obvious reasons).

 

[patseguin]

I knew the performance of a SSD but never really cared for it thinking a standard platter HDD was good enough. Boy was I wrong. Helped install the EVO 850 for my cousin and when I saw the boot time (less than 15 seconds), I was shocked and went out and installed one on my MBP. The noise factor is also a plus. You don't realize how loud a standard HDD is until you go SSD and it's whisper quiet (obvious reasons).

Yeah totally, the noise factor is a huge difference. The SSD really breathed new life into my MBP. This year I doubled the RAM to 16GB so those 2 upgrades will make me able to use this as my main machine for a couple years still. The Core i7 is still the best CPU around as far as I know. 2 GHz is a tad slow I guess but everything I am doing seems pretty fast, even more so with the 850 Evo. I am learning Maya modeling and it runs really nice on this machine.

iLoq.Genius, you should look at bumping your RAM to 16GB, I think you'll notice a nice performance increase. Mine really benefited from going from 8GB to 16.

On a side note, anyone know if there is some kind of kit to convert the DVD drive bay into a HDD drive bay to install a 2nd internal SSD or HD for data? I thought I remembered reading something about that but not sure if it's real.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Yeah totally, the noise factor is a huge difference. The SSD really breathed new life into my MBP. This year I doubled the RAM to 16GB so those 2 upgrades will make me able to use this as my main machine for a couple years still. The Core i7 is still the best CPU around as far as I know. 2 GHz is a tad slow I guess but everything I am doing seems pretty fast, even more so with the 850 Evo. I am learning Maya modeling and it runs really nice on this machine.

iLoq.Genius, you should look at bumping your RAM to 16GB, I think you'll notice a nice performance increase. Mine really benefited from going from 8GB to 16.

On a side note, anyone know if there is some kind of kit to convert the DVD drive bay into a HDD drive bay to install a 2nd internal SSD or HD for data? I thought I remembered reading something about that but not sure if it's real.

Yep they are available on amazon OWC is the most trusted maker.

 

[yukari]

Yeah totally, the noise factor is a huge difference. The SSD really breathed new life into my MBP. This year I doubled the RAM to 16GB so those 2 upgrades will make me able to use this as my main machine for a couple years still. The Core i7 is still the best CPU around as far as I know. 2 GHz is a tad slow I guess but everything I am doing seems pretty fast, even more so with the 850 Evo. I am learning Maya modeling and it runs really nice on this machine.

iLoq.Genius, you should look at bumping your RAM to 16GB, I think you'll notice a nice performance increase. Mine really benefited from going from 8GB to 16.

On a side note, anyone know if there is some kind of kit to convert the DVD drive bay into a HDD drive bay to install a 2nd internal SSD or HD for data? I thought I remembered reading something about that but not sure if it's real.

I've done it. I put HDD on optical bay. But most 2011 MBP or earlier models cannot handle SSD in the optical bay. HDD is no problem.