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SSD Drives; Coping with small amount of storage

KettyKrueger

KettyKrueger

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Feb 17, 2007
509
4
UK
Hi All,

I'm considering buying a SSD for my MBP.

I've just been looking on ebuyer.com and stumbled across the Corsair 64GB . It's only 64GB but I think this would be enough for the OS and applications.

Which leaves me wondering, if I use this drive for the OS side of things, would my iTunes library be okay on an external FW800 drive? I'm assuming it wouldn't cause any lags as iTunes would still load instantly and my music plays instantly as it is (on this stock 320GB SATA drive).

I only have a couple of iMovie projects that I could probably fit on the SSD drive too.

I really would like the 256GB version but as over £500, I really can't justify the expense!!

Thoughts and comments welcome.

Thanks.
 
If you can wait... the prices will fall
Like any technology, you pay a heavy price to be on the cutting edge

Woof, Woof - Dawg
pawprint.gif
 
MacDawg said:
If you can wait... the prices will fall
Like any technology, you pay a heavy price to be on the cutting edge

Woof, Woof - Dawg
pawprint.gif
Click to expand...

Yeah, I kinda don't want to wait though!

It's fairly inexpensive compared to the high-end SSD.
 
If the expense is too much i'd wait until the larger capacities drop.

64GB is barely enough, you'll fill that in no time unless the drive is a pure boot and application volume.

I reckon before the end of the year, you'll see 120GB around that price, maybe 150quid. Also i'd be very careful about what model you buy, particularly the controller chip onboard. I believe the corsair's use older MLC style controllers which are prone to stuttering. Happy to be proven wrong. But from what i've read, the 2 to look at are either Intel or OCZ vertex II's SSDs.

Obviously the Intel's cost a packet, but they are due a refresh soon, so i'd keep an eye out.

Best of luck, but i'd hold out until the end of the year. BTW i have a 64GB vertex II in my macpro, but it's a boot and app drive only and i have a raid 0 array of 3 HD's for my homedir. It's currently half full, just with leopard, 2 office suites, Photoshop CS and 1 game (Unreal tournament 2003).

M.
 
Mhmm. I think it's best to stick with a large HDD for now on a main machine. They're a lot better than they used to be, and good money, too. I put a 500GB WD Blue in my Mac mini and it's fab.

I don't keep libraries or anything big really on my laptops, so SSD is just fine.
 
I wouldn't even consider video editing if you are only planning on getting a 64gb SSD. A good rule of thumb is every 5 minutes is ~1gb of space. Given OS X + iLife takes up around 15 gigs along, that only leaves you with 50 gigs for everything else.
 
Coping with small amount of ssd space...

- Skip printer driver downloads.
- Do not store mp3/music/photos on your ssd. Keep your itunes/iphoto library on a NAS or external HDD
- Carry a thumbdrive with you to save large documents.
- Or get opibay, bear in mind about battery life.

And that's about it.
 
KettyKrueger said:
Hi All,

I'm considering buying a SSD for my MBP.

I've just been looking on ebuyer.com and stumbled across the Corsair 64GB . It's only 64GB but I think this would be enough for the OS and applications.

Which leaves me wondering, if I use this drive for the OS side of things, would my iTunes library be okay on an external FW800 drive? I'm assuming it wouldn't cause any lags as iTunes would still load instantly and my music plays instantly as it is (on this stock 320GB SATA drive).

I only have a couple of iMovie projects that I could probably fit on the SSD drive too.

I really would like the 256GB version but as over £500, I really can't justify the expense!!

Thoughts and comments welcome.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

I have a 64gb in my MBP...I use it for the OS, Pictures and Applications. I disabled the sleep image as I have a time capsule and have 40.41 gb left. Prior to disabling the sleep image I had around 33.5 gb left. You should be fine. I have a server at home which I store the majority of my media on.

For times you want to travel, you can buy a expresscard ssd for movies/music.

If you are cool with storing media on an external drive, go for it.
 
Thanks for the replies.

I was thinking of going for the WD Scorpio Blue 500GB which is £65 but then noticed the Corsair 64GB for £133 but I understand that not all SSDs are the same!!

Please enlighten me, are the older style SSDs prone to lags when they get fuller? I think I heard that somewhere. Something about them having difficulty re-writing over deleted data, or something?!?

Thanks again for the replies, I might just hold out for a while.
 
I have the x25m (80 gb) and been running this installation for about 5 months and have six gigs left. This includes

15 GB space consumed by Fusion + W7 RC
OS X
CS4 Master Collection
PS Lightroom 2
Some other apps
some recorded tv shows (hd)
a small amount of music

I get by pretty good. I should be back up over 10 Gb if I clear out all my music. It works well, but its apt to get out of hand really quickly. I store all my documents on an expresscard ssd (for security reasons) and all of my media should be stored on my external drive, except when I get some new music or record a show, I don't always have my drive plugged in (and it defaults the the OS drive).

Come to think of it, I still have some apps that I just don't use and can get rid of. Still, i've never really had an issue with my media being unavailable (because I don't need all of it while i'm on the go, and even then I have my iphone), so its important for me to have a lean OS drive/install. Things just work better that way (and backups/restores are quicker too)
 
miniConvert said:
Mhmm. I think it's best to stick with a large HDD for now on a main machine. They're a lot better than they used to be, and good money, too. I put a 500GB WD Blue in my Mac mini and it's fab.

I don't keep libraries or anything big really on my laptops, so SSD is just fine.
Click to expand...

Ha, I disagree. HDD's are not nearly as good as they used to be. All my old Macs have had zero issues with their HDD's. My new 24" iMac's 500GB HDD died after 8 months. More and more we read about someone's HDD failing after a short time. That's why you get an HDD with very large capacity for so cheap, they aren't made as good as they used to be. That's another reason why SSD's are getting more popular, there's no moving parts to go wrong.
 
Novatech have a 64GB Samsung SSD for around £100 which I believe was used in the early MBA. They seem to perform quite well, thinking about dropping one in mine.
 
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