Hello all,
I have read the numerous threads and opinions here which have all been very helpful in this upgrade process - thanks to all for sharing this great information.
Am upgrading the wifes almost-brand-new MBP, ordered it in Dec 2011 and have had it for about three weeks, she has not installed any apps or migrated any info onto it as we were waiting for the new SSD to arrive (alaska - shipping companies lie about delivery time if they even recognize us as a part of the US!)
Being our first foray into the newest SSDs (I had one last year but was a 1st gen one, which convinced me to do the upgrade on all four of our machines now), I ordered one Crucial M4 and two Samsung 830s, all 64gb for using as a system drive only.
We are planning on keeping the 500gb Seagate Momentus that came stock with the MBP as secondary internal storage until we purchase a better one in a month or two. (I am a commercial fisherman so have limited time at home to do these fun projects and am leaving tomorrow again).
We also have a OWC Data Doubler for replacing the Superdrive, which raises a couple of questions in my mind:
1) For performance reasons, should one drive be in a certain location (i.e. SSD in original HDD slot and stock HD in optical slot?) Her system profiler shows that both slots have 6gbps connectivity capability altho obviously with the superdrive in place the negotiaited speed is lower.
Would installing the SSD into the Optibay lead to any boot issues? It appears from what I read that it should work fine, but I would like confirmation. In addition, I plan on partitioning the stock HDD (Seagate Momentus 500gb) with one storage partition of ~400-450 gb and one backup OS partition of the rest of the space.
2) For durability reasons, should one drive be in a certain location? i.e. does the stock HD location *REALLY* have better physical shock protection? I have read conflicting reports/opinions on whether the optical slot supports SMS or not, and the data doubler seems well enough made, although it lacks any provision for even mild shock protection as it is a rigid aluminum frame.
Also, the Seagate that comes stock has allegedly outstanding durability history on its own and (apparently, FWIW) has a good reputation as a sturdy laptop drive. Does this factor into the physical protection and which slot I should mount it in?
3) For future upgrading: as we plan on replacing the stock HDD at some point in the near future, would it be better to install that into the Datadoubler to avoid unnecessary repetitive fiddling with the stock HD location, screws, cables, etc? While I am certainly very comfortable with replacing components, I prefer to dislodge them as few times as possible over their lifespan as each iteration of remove/replace has the possibility of breakage, cracking a tiny plastic connector, or any other minor accident that can happen even with the most careful of hands.
I chose a Samsung 830 for her machine BTW, thinking about reliability as well as the fact that she runs some encryption for work security purposes and my understanding is that the Samsung is one of the better performing drives with regards to encryption, i.e. non-compressible data.
She is currently running the stock OSX full disk encryption, does that affect the SSD's performance / lifespan?
Her use is typical office and light home apps, such as spreadsheets (but not huge ones), word docs, etc, and she has a deecent size iPhoto library and iTunes libaray which will be stored on the stock HDD.
It seems to me that the biggest question is performance wise, is there any difference in installation location for the SSD?
And the second biggest question is does the encryption affect the SSD in a serious way?
Thank you for any input and as I said up top, I greatly appreciate this forum and the valuable advice shared here.
(just by the by, is there any way to support a forum such as this through purchasing products with some sort of affiliate/referring website program?)
Regards,
Scott the Crabber
I have read the numerous threads and opinions here which have all been very helpful in this upgrade process - thanks to all for sharing this great information.
Am upgrading the wifes almost-brand-new MBP, ordered it in Dec 2011 and have had it for about three weeks, she has not installed any apps or migrated any info onto it as we were waiting for the new SSD to arrive (alaska - shipping companies lie about delivery time if they even recognize us as a part of the US!)
Being our first foray into the newest SSDs (I had one last year but was a 1st gen one, which convinced me to do the upgrade on all four of our machines now), I ordered one Crucial M4 and two Samsung 830s, all 64gb for using as a system drive only.
We are planning on keeping the 500gb Seagate Momentus that came stock with the MBP as secondary internal storage until we purchase a better one in a month or two. (I am a commercial fisherman so have limited time at home to do these fun projects and am leaving tomorrow again).
We also have a OWC Data Doubler for replacing the Superdrive, which raises a couple of questions in my mind:
1) For performance reasons, should one drive be in a certain location (i.e. SSD in original HDD slot and stock HD in optical slot?) Her system profiler shows that both slots have 6gbps connectivity capability altho obviously with the superdrive in place the negotiaited speed is lower.
Would installing the SSD into the Optibay lead to any boot issues? It appears from what I read that it should work fine, but I would like confirmation. In addition, I plan on partitioning the stock HDD (Seagate Momentus 500gb) with one storage partition of ~400-450 gb and one backup OS partition of the rest of the space.
2) For durability reasons, should one drive be in a certain location? i.e. does the stock HD location *REALLY* have better physical shock protection? I have read conflicting reports/opinions on whether the optical slot supports SMS or not, and the data doubler seems well enough made, although it lacks any provision for even mild shock protection as it is a rigid aluminum frame.
Also, the Seagate that comes stock has allegedly outstanding durability history on its own and (apparently, FWIW) has a good reputation as a sturdy laptop drive. Does this factor into the physical protection and which slot I should mount it in?
3) For future upgrading: as we plan on replacing the stock HDD at some point in the near future, would it be better to install that into the Datadoubler to avoid unnecessary repetitive fiddling with the stock HD location, screws, cables, etc? While I am certainly very comfortable with replacing components, I prefer to dislodge them as few times as possible over their lifespan as each iteration of remove/replace has the possibility of breakage, cracking a tiny plastic connector, or any other minor accident that can happen even with the most careful of hands.
I chose a Samsung 830 for her machine BTW, thinking about reliability as well as the fact that she runs some encryption for work security purposes and my understanding is that the Samsung is one of the better performing drives with regards to encryption, i.e. non-compressible data.
She is currently running the stock OSX full disk encryption, does that affect the SSD's performance / lifespan?
Her use is typical office and light home apps, such as spreadsheets (but not huge ones), word docs, etc, and she has a deecent size iPhoto library and iTunes libaray which will be stored on the stock HDD.
It seems to me that the biggest question is performance wise, is there any difference in installation location for the SSD?
And the second biggest question is does the encryption affect the SSD in a serious way?
Thank you for any input and as I said up top, I greatly appreciate this forum and the valuable advice shared here.
(just by the by, is there any way to support a forum such as this through purchasing products with some sort of affiliate/referring website program?)
Regards,
Scott the Crabber