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SSD Or New Mac?

OS X Dude said:
Still gonna be north of £1,500. I can't justify that, plus by the time the latest rMBPs are out, I won't be eligible for education pricing anymore :(
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Well that is why I started my thread also. I have the same dilemma of losing the student card. On balance I think to buy - but I will sell my old one, and sell the original hard drive that came in it (750GB 7200rpm). I see it as retaining value - while this one still has value I can sell it for decent price, and avail of the student discount. If I wait for next model it will cost me alot more, both as will not have student discount and will retain less value for old one.
 
Aa better deal in the States than an Ed discount ($200) is to purchase a refurbed unit. You can a refurbed maxed out 15" rMBP for $500 off, with standard warranty and it is eligible for AppleCare.

Don't know how refurbs are priced vs Ed discount in other markets.
 
MCAsan said:
Aa better deal in the States than an Ed discount ($200) is to purchase a refurbed unit. You can a refurbed maxed out 15" rMBP for $500 off, with standard warranty and it is eligible for AppleCare.

Don't know how refurbs are priced vs Ed discount in other markets.
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In UK at least education discount better than refurb. The UK higher education people negotiated a special deal a few years back that I think is fairly unique. If you buy online through your university email address you basically get free 3 year apple care - on top of the education discount which itself is about 15%. If you buy in store you get the education discount and cheap, but not free Applecare (something like £50 for 3 years instore). It makes it a great deal.
 
Personally, I would advise to sell/trade-in your MCP 2011 asap. There has been numerous cases of discrete/logic board failure for this particular batch of MCP see here. My 2011 MCP suffered multiple failures; 3 logic board replacements, Screen replacement due to tint, HDD failure & SD card failure and thankfully it was covered by applecare.

Recently, I've replaced with rMCP 15". I am super impressed with its performance and speed even under heavy graphics/rendering usage.
 
In Reply…

Hi OS X Dude,

First off, you have a great computer. A 15.4 Inch MacBook Pro from 2011 should (and I can pretty much guaranty) will be usable for probably 5-8 years to come before retirement! Heck, my best friend's Late-2007 MacBook Pro is still supported by Apple today, and he honestly won't leave it until it dies or is unsupported completely. I would say go for the upgrades, if you think it is absolutely necessary. For a 2011 machine however, I would only upgrade the RAM, because your hard drive should still be okay. I still use a hard drive in my daily driver Mid-2007 MacBook, and I get pretty great performance for a original 2007 hard drive. As a fellow student I am money conservative, too, and I would only do the 8GB to save some pounds. Anyhow, just my two cents!

PS- Please don't get rid of that machine for a few years! :D
 
OS X Dude said:
Well, I think you guys have convinced me to go for it. My one big fear, that I should probably have put in the top, is that Pro Tools/Logic will feel terribly slow on it in a couple of years - but that's only if I upgrade to the latest versions all the time, which often there's no need to do. I know Pro Tools 11 was a huge re-coding that actually made it run faster on older hardware, amongst other things.


Thanks :)
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PT 11 was unusable on my 2006 macbook, just so you know.

**edit**
Sorry, didn't realise you were the OP. Yeah, I'd say get a few more years out of your current machine with a new SSD - prices are so cheap nowadays.

PT 11 is far less of a resource hog than 10 for sure.

Upgrade the computer in 2/3 years!
 
OS X Dude said:
Hi all,

I'm in a bit of an internal debate about whether I should stick a 500GB Samsung 840 EVO into my MacBook Pro (see sig) or whether I should wait and upgrade it in a couple of years.

Specifics
  • I use it mainly for audio recording and post-production across several DAWs and mastering suites.
  • I tend to upgrade every five years, so I'm only two away from finishing this system's lifecycle.
  • I don't sell my Macs on: typically, they get passed round the family.
  • The stock 5400rpm 500GB drive doesn't feel slow once it's booted up. I keep my OS X partition (and my Windows 8.1 one) as clutter-free as possible.
  • The new MacBook Pros have PCIe SSDs, which are around twice the speed of the SATA III crop. Whether I'd feel this extra benefit is debatable, but still.
  • I'd also add another 4GB of RAM to bring it's total up to 8GB (may as well, since I'm under the hood anyway). Total cost of the upgrade would be £240. It seems expensive for two-year's use, plus it's about 15% of the cost of a new machine.

What would you guys/girls advise?
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It sounds to me like you have a good computer and that you like it. I would go with the SSD. It may be sufficient for more than a couple of years. Also, three years seems kind of short, unless you really really want a new one. My 2 cents.
 
I did a similar upgrade. My MBP is from 2009 (maybe early 2010), and last summer I decided to upgrade my RAM from 4 to 8GB, and also installed a 128GB SSD boot drive, and removed my glitchy SuperDrive and put my stock 500GB HDD in it's place. Since then-- it's like a new machine. Boot times are minimal, I usually hear the "gong" sound and am on the login screen before the loading icon has a chance to load under the grey apple. After typing in my login credentials, I am almost immediately on the desktop, and the dock/icons follow a split second later. Booting applications is equally fast. I would say the upgrade has given me several more years on an aging system.

I would go for the upgrade. You may find that the system is still more than serviceable in 2 years and not feel the need to upgrade according to your usual upgrade cycle. You do however have a much different usage case than me. I use mine mainly for the usual consumer functions, as well as for development for the odd freelance work I do (web programming mostly).
 
Thanks for all your pointers and advice :)

I'm going to go with the upgrade. A lot of the comments have made me realise my Mac still kicks ass and three years isn't that old for a Mac. Just as soon as the prices dip to what they were last week, I'll pick one up and some RAM too :)
 
I'm actually pretty happy to see you went with this decision as I was pulling for it. I have a family member who did what you're doing, which is upgrade to an SSD and expand the memory and he said it's like a new computer. It really kind of is if you think about it because if you bought a new mac, the highlights would be an SSD and more memory!
 
I was going to suggest putting a smaller, cheaper ssd in and replacing your optical drive with the original hdd. That way you get the fast boot and app load times with little expense! I did the same with my early 2011 15" and it made it fly!
 
Hieveryone said:
I'm actually pretty happy to see you went with this decision as I was pulling for it. I have a family member who did what you're doing, which is upgrade to an SSD and expand the memory and he said it's like a new computer. It really kind of is if you think about it because if you bought a new mac, the highlights would be an SSD and more memory!
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Thanks :D Yeah, Retina screen aside, I'm getting everything I'd want in a newer system. I'm not fussed about USB 3.0 just yet.
 
I would wait for the next rMBP gen since current screens have non-uniformity issues. My White Macbook is a brand new consumer laptop after upgrading to 8GB + a 250GB EVO SSD.
 
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OS X Dude said:
I made an Amazon list for the upgrade parts: includes the SSD (the price of which escalates every hour!), 8GB compatible RAM and a set of screwdrivers for getting into the thing.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/registry/wishlist/3TQOXPNRATF61
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If you're buying 2x4GB modules, why not going directly to 16GB? Come on, you're an audio producer. With tons of RAM and a SSD you'll be capable of processing more tracks than you ever could :p
 
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brdeveloper said:
If you're buying 2x4GB modules, why not going directly to 16GB? Come on, you're an audio producer. With tons of RAM and a SSD you'll be capable of processing more tracks than you ever could :p
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I don't work with EDM or plugin-heavy tracks that much, so 16GB seems a bit much. If a project did get quite plugin intensive then I can freeze it, or use an AudioSuite plugin in Pro Tools, which further limits the justification :p
 
I have a similar, perhaps the same, Macbook Pro, i7 quad core (mine's the 2.2 GHz), late 2011. I bought it with the standard spinning drive and 4 GB RAM and upgraded it with a Samsung EVO 840 500 GB and 16 GB of Crucial RAM.

I also use it for music production.

With the SSD and 16 GB RAM this laptop is just flying. I had reliability issues, with a logic board replacement due to the well-known graphics chip issue.

But in use, it's the fastest comp I ever owned. I also use a Mac Pro 8 core, early 2008. It also has 16 GB RAM, and two 2.8 GHz Xeons. But due to the SATA bus speed the Macbook is even faster than the more powerful Mac Pro. It's marginal, but I have the same music library on both, just over 40 GB of music. It opens in about 1 second on the Macbook vs about 2 seconds on the Mac Pro.

You will absolutely love your Macbook Pro with an SSD. The RAM you will only really feel if you run loads of programs at the same time. The SSD is the big thing, it will transform your Macbook.

I can also tell you that I have had cause to put the spinning drive back in it sometimes (to send it for service while keeping my SSD and data safe at home), and the contrast is staggering. It was a very good laptop by any standard with the spinning drive, but now that I'm used to the SSD it seems unbearably slow with the spinning drive.
 
SSD Or New Mac?

Thanks for that :) Good to see it's a unanimous verdict on it being a very worthwhile upgrade.

I may have to bite the bullet and pay Amazon's current higher price - the Samsung cashback offer is seemingly viewed online as an arduous process at best, with Samsung dodging payments on several occasions.

As I've said before, I've just left uni and I'm taking on more hours at my current job whilst also starting to accept post-production work and volunteering at local studios in the same role. I'm picking up a few extra hours over the next couple of weeks, so I'll have gone for it within the next two weeks :)
 
Hi all! I said I'd post a quick update when I'd completed the upgrade, but all didn't go according to plan!

I found an unbelievable deal on a new amp head (in my sig) so the money went on that in the immediate term. I also picked up a wicked JCA 2x12 cab for £140, a steal for what it contains. No regrets!

I'm looking to upgrade to a Retina in time I think, given Yosemite is already (unfairly) killing off a small number of features for all but the latest Macs. Whilst I wouldn't upgrade just to get Handoff, I'll wait it out a few years and take advantage of my sister's uni discount, giving her my current Mac for free. She is only a basic user, my 2006 white MacBook would be fine for her but I'd rather she have the latest OS and security updates.

Thank you all for your advice - it was either/or between the SSD and the amp set, and the amp was just too good a deal to turn down. Plus, it'll last decades (hopefully!) and only improve with age, whilst my current Mac will be tossed aside in three-odd years.
 
OK, just an update. Please pardon the dead thread revival...

I did it! Just completed the upgrade today. I recently got a job fixing iOS devices and Macs for a national, Midlands-based Apple reseller and authorised repair centre, and figured I'd celebrate by going ahead with the upgrade.

I went for the 500GB Evo and 8GB RAM. I'm SO glad I did - I just restarted and it honestly took it 9 seconds to do a full restart to a usable desktop. The installation was a breeze, and I now have a 500GB traditional hard drive as a spare.

I backed up my Boot Camp partition with Winclone 4 - I haven't restored that yet (it's the last thing to do), but hopefully it'll be painless. If anyone has any questions about Winclone, I'd be happy to give them my impressions of it before dropping the £18/$30 on it.

Thanks all for your input :)
 
OS X Dude said:
OK, just an update. Please pardon the dead thread revival...

I did it! Just completed the upgrade today. I recently got a job fixing iOS devices and Macs for a national, Midlands-based Apple reseller and authorised repair centre, and figured I'd celebrate by going ahead with the upgrade.

I went for the 500GB Evo and 8GB RAM. I'm SO glad I did - I just restarted and it honestly took it 9 seconds to do a full restart to a usable desktop. The installation was a breeze, and I now have a 500GB traditional hard drive as a spare.

I backed up my Boot Camp partition with Winclone 4 - I haven't restored that yet (it's the last thing to do), but hopefully it'll be painless. If anyone has any questions about Winclone, I'd be happy to give them my impressions of it before dropping the £18/$30 on it.

Thanks all for your input :)
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I just put a SSD and more RAM into my early 2011 MBP, it flies! It feels like a brand new computer.
 
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