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rrawat02

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 7, 2012
14
0
I've reviewed most forum comments regarding SSD. Since I didn't find an answer to my question I'm posting it. I plan on buying a new iMac. I only use my machine for browser related tasks (web email, Google spreadsheets, etc.) Will I see any appreciable improvement if I paid premium for an SSD drive?
 
I've reviewed most forum comments regarding SSD. Since I didn't find an answer to my question I'm posting it. I plan on buying a new iMac. I only use my machine for browser related tasks (web email, Google spreadsheets, etc.) Will I see any appreciable improvement if I paid premium for an SSD drive?
A SSD will give you faster boot times, faster app launch times, faster drive read/write times. It won't make your internet connection faster or improve processing speed. If you don't have sufficient RAM and are paging, it will make that process faster.
 
maybe a silly question here....is having too much ram more harmful in that the ssd is not being used---in other words, is ssd better than using an abundance of ram?
 
maybe a silly question here....is having too much ram more harmful in that the ssd is not being used---in other words, is ssd better than using an abundance of ram?
No, it's not harmful to have any amount of RAM. RAM is much faster than any SSD or HDD. You should always have sufficient RAM for your normal workload, as paging out, whether to a HDD or SSD, reduces performance.
 
I've reviewed most forum comments regarding SSD. Since I didn't find an answer to my question I'm posting it. I plan on buying a new iMac. I only use my machine for browser related tasks (web email, Google spreadsheets, etc.) Will I see any appreciable improvement if I paid premium for an SSD drive?

An SSD will result in some improvement when web browsing but not much. As you browse the Internet your browser caches files to the drive that are written to and read from the drive as you move from page to page and back. Having an SSD makes this caching activity faster and hence browsing feel a little faster.

If you go to an Apple store and browse a few pages in a SSD equipped machine and a similar machine without an SSD, you can tell the difference. It is small, but you can tell.
 
I think the complicated part of the all, especially for me, is what exactly do you place on the SSD and what exactly is put on the HHD
 
I think the easiest way to think about it is you put as much as you can on the SSD (leaving enough breathing space for the OS) and what you can't on the 2nd drive. Media doesn't really need the SSD speed so stuff like iTunes libraries can happily live on the HD
 
I've reviewed most forum comments regarding SSD. Since I didn't find an answer to my question I'm posting it. I plan on buying a new iMac. I only use my machine for browser related tasks (web email, Google spreadsheets, etc.) Will I see any appreciable improvement if I paid premium for an SSD drive?
Yes because cache files store to SSD.
 
Thanks for all the great replies guys! I really appreciate it. I do visit the same sites daily so SSD should help. However, it might not be worth the price premium in my use case.
 
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