SSD or HDD for early 2008 MBP?

[drummerdimitri]

Hello guys,

I've cloned my OS to an SSD and ran some speed tests in windows with hdtune and I got a read speed of around 100 MB/s which is half the average read speed of what this Intel X25-m 160 GB SSD is capable of. I get around 220 MB/s with it installed on my desktop pc so I was wondering if it would be better to have a 500 GB seagate momentus XT installed since I am not benefiting from much read speeds (100 vs 86 MB/s). I am not sure if and when access times on an SSD will prove to be important because relying only on read speed doesn't show the full picture. I can live with only 160 GB of storage but I am not sure which one to install. Any guidance would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[blake2]

If the speeds are half, make sure that the system you are using isn't SATA I, because if it is that's perfectly normal.

That being said, as for me, ever since I first tried a Crucial M4 256GB SSD, I don't think I can ever go back to a hard drive. I had a Gateway desktop PC that only supported SATA 1 speeds at work until this spring, but as soon as I got a SSD for it, it was immediately faster than the newest PC's there with hard drives. Like you said, benchmarks don't show you the full picture on access times but... you just know it's there

If you already have an SSD in your hands, and more so if you don't need the 500GB'S right now internally... then definitely go for it. The boot-up, application startup, shutdown... everything will be simply much better.

 

[drummerdimitri]

I've read that the speed deficiency is because Apple limits the SATA speed to 1.5 Gb/s, which is only half the rated speed of this SSD. I guess keeping the SSD in is a better option than exchanging it for a 500 GB hard drive since speed is still more important than capacity. But that means having all files on an external HDD. Not a problem since this is just an old laptop that I very rarely use.