SSD for early 2011 MBP

Samsung 830. There should be deals for it all over the place. $335 might even get you a 512GB SSD since prices have come down a lot recently.

 

It's around $550 for the 512GB one anywhere I have looked, so still pretty expensive.

The 256GB one is around $250 which is a pretty affordable price though.

 

Most of the SSD postings (including Hellhammer, our resident SSD expert and a reviewer for Anandtech) seem to recommend either the Samsung 830 or the Crucial M4, both of which can be found stateside within your price range for the 256gb version. The Sammy has better specs on paper, especially for more intensive disk operations like moving larger files, while the M4 has more aggressive price points. The Sammy requires a windows machine for firmware updates, while the Crucial can be done on a mac. Personal preferences aside, you really can't go wrong with either.

I was able to snag an M4 512gb new in box from Ebay for $380, and am delighted with it.

BTW...despite what Apple says, you can go up to 16gb of ram in your machine for >$100, should you require it.

Good luck.

 

On early 2011 MBPs you have one SATA III (HD slot) and one SATA II (CD slot).

 

For video editing tou should read the Final Cut's manual! You should never store your media in the system's hard drive. That's why it is slow.

 

Mmmm, wouldn't video editing while it's on an external drive be even slower? You have to then deal with 80 MB write speed caps.

 

You can have two HDDs at the same time just know one will run at SATA II (optical bay) whilst the other will run at SATA III (HDD bay).

 

You can have both, I do. Just the optical drive SATA will be throttled down to SATA II speeds. The cable is still the same.

 

The beauty of this setup is that if you get the smaller one you can always upgrade if you decide more space is required. That said, I'd get the larger one.