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SSD HDD Question

Habitus

Habitus

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Feb 26, 2009
605
0
Where ever my life takes me...
I'm considering purchasing a SSD drive for my 2012 13" MBP (2.5 GHz; 4GB RAM). Currently, I have a 1TB internal drive reaching max capacity (<100GB left) and the drive is running super slow.

I want to purchase the SSD drive to run the OS and replace the optical drive with it. I would keep my existing 1TB drive for all of my data.

1) Would this improve overall performance (I am also upgrading to 12GB of RAM)?

2) Is a 120GB SSD drive sufficient for the OS and applications?
 
120GB is just fine for most cases. Unless you have a ton of apps any games. I have Mavericks on a 128GB with my apps and it only took up 63GB of space. Good luck on the upgrades. Have you decided on which SSD you're getting?
 
I would get the 256GB SSD. Get the Samsung EVO. Samsung makes all the parts, controllers, DRAM, etc for the SSD so it's going to work well. If you go to amazon.com the samsung EVO 120GB SSD is like 80 bucks. The 256GB isn't that much more.

I have a 180GB Intel SSD (another good brand choice because Intel designed the firmware that runs the third party hardware) and I have 50GB Free. I store all my data on a 8TB NAS. I have all my programs and immediate data that I work on.

I hope that helps a little.

Habitus said:
I'm considering purchasing a SSD drive for my 2012 13" MBP (2.5 GHz; 4GB RAM). Currently, I have a 1TB internal drive reaching max capacity (<100GB left) and the drive is running super slow.

I want to purchase the SSD drive to run the OS and replace the optical drive with it. I would keep my existing 1TB drive for all of my data.

1) Would this improve overall performance (I am also upgrading to 12GB of RAM)?

2) Is a 120GB SSD drive sufficient for the OS and applications?
Click to expand...
 
Habitus said:
I'm considering purchasing a SSD drive for my 2012 13" MBP (2.5 GHz; 4GB RAM). Currently, I have a 1TB internal drive reaching max capacity (<100GB left) and the drive is running super slow.

I want to purchase the SSD drive to run the OS and replace the optical drive with it. I would keep my existing 1TB drive for all of my data.

1) Would this improve overall performance (I am also upgrading to 12GB of RAM)?

2) Is a 120GB SSD drive sufficient for the OS and applications?
Click to expand...

Yes... overall responsiveness will be noticeably better. 120GB is plenty. With the OS and iLife and iWork apps installed you will still have about 100GB left.

As others mentioned, don't buy any drives from OWC. They are overpriced and use unreliable Sandforce controllers. A better choice would be the Samsung EVO mentioned or the new Crucial MX100.
 
Habitus said:
I'm considering purchasing a SSD drive for my 2012 13" MBP (2.5 GHz; 4GB RAM). Currently, I have a 1TB internal drive reaching max capacity (<100GB left) and the drive is running super slow.

I want to purchase the SSD drive to run the OS and replace the optical drive with it. I would keep my existing 1TB drive for all of my data.

1) Would this improve overall performance (I am also upgrading to 12GB of RAM)?

2) Is a 120GB SSD drive sufficient for the OS and applications?
Click to expand...

If you want to keep the optical drive, you can just get a 1 TB Hybrid Drive which has a SSD and hard drive in one unit.
 
If you're running out of space on your 1TB drive, adding a 128gb SSD isn't going to provide much more space. It will make your system a lot faster but you need to think about your data storage needs over a longer period.

On Amazon the Samsung Evo is $80 for the 120gb and $135 for the 240gb. Not that much more to double your space.
 
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