to ssd or not...

[brendu]

yeah i know there have been a million and one of these threads but i want some fresh answers...

so the tax return is coming soon and im contemplating tossing my superdrive from my MBP to throw an 80 gig SSD in as a boot drive... the reason being because I recently upgraded my 160GB HDD to a 500 GB scorpio blue and ive been real disappointed with the sluggish performance and constant beach balling that came with it... I want the storage but I also want blazing speed...

Im also planning on upping the ram to 4GB no matter what. soo is it worth it, or just do ram? or is it possible I just got a crappy HDD and maybe trying another, perhaps a scorpio black or the 640GB scorpio blue with dual platters will eliminate the constant beach balling...?

 

[ssd]

yeah i know there have been a million and one of these threads but i want some fresh answers...

so the tax return is coming soon and im contemplating tossing my superdrive from my MBP to throw an 80 gig SSD in as a boot drive... the reason being because I recently upgraded my 160GB HDD to a 500 GB scorpio blue and ive been real disappointed with the sluggish performance and constant beach balling that came with it... I want the storage but I also want blazing speed...

Im also planning on upping the ram to 4GB no matter what. soo is it worth it, or just do ram? or is it possible I just got a crappy HDD and maybe trying another, perhaps a scorpio black or the 640GB scorpio blue with dual platters will eliminate the constant beach balling...?

If one or the other, get the RAM. Your disk being sluggish is because you don't have enough RAM and Mac OS is using hard disk space for caching and it is slow. My wife's 2.8 15" with 4GB and original 500GB 5400 RPM drive is not sluggish at all. If you can afford, go for both.

 

[Cboss]

Try upgrading RAM first. I have the 500 GB Scorpio Blue and rarely have beach balling. If you want the fastest performance possible, and can afford it, then go with the SSD.

 

[John Kotches]

If one or the other, get the RAM. Your disk being sluggish is because you don't have enough RAM and Mac OS is using hard disk space for caching and it is slow. My wife's 2.8 15" with 4GB and original 500GB 5400 RPM drive is not sluggish at all. If you can afford, go for both.

I think you mean swapping/paging. That isn't the same as caching. On fact, swapping cam be detrimental to performance.

The additional RAM will be beneficial, and so will the ssd. I use both and the next upgrade will be to 8gb.

With the ssd anything not in physical memory seems like it is due to the rapid loading. I'll be putting in the optibay tomorrow and using the mechanical drive for boot camp / windows.

 

[brendu]

thanks guys, ill start with the RAM and see what happens.

also a wild thought that I just had, are there any extra batteries that fit into the superdrive bay? give me a couple more hours of battery? ive never seen anything like this but it would be a great addition to get a second battery in there.

 

[gonzaload1987]

I think you mean swapping/paging. That isn't the same as caching. On fact, swapping cam be detrimental to performance.

The additional RAM will be beneficial, and so will the ssd. I use both and the next upgrade will be to 8gb.

With the ssd anything not in physical memory seems like it is due to the rapid loading. I'll be putting in the optibay tomorrow and using the mechanical drive for boot camp / windows.

I see on your signature that you have a ssd and hd, do you feel some battery difference from the original hd + superdrive configuration?

 

[brendu]

So I just upgraded the RAM to 4GB and so far no beach balling... performance seems to have improved... Ill keep playing around and putting it through some tests and then see if that SSD is still needed right now... I would love to be able to wait until they are reasonably priced and a bit bigger... a 250GB for under $400 would be nice...

 

[Arran]

So I just upgraded the RAM to 4GB and so far no beach balling... performance seems to have improved... Ill keep playing around and putting it through some tests and then see if that SSD is still needed right now... I would love to be able to wait until they are reasonably priced and a bit bigger... a 250GB for under $400 would be nice...

Just curious - how much RAM did you start with?

Agree with you on SSD prices. I'd love one now - but thinking about the inevitable steep depreciation in painful

 

[Gabriel GR]

Honestly 2gb is just not enough. 4gb should be the standard. Most macs show the beachball when they run out of RAM and start paging data to the HDD which is times of magnitude slower than RAM.

What do you do with you computer? Do you start VM's and a lot of software constantly? Database work? If that's the case the SSD will boost your creativity a lot (it actually made my mood better too). Otherwise I would stick to the ample space offered by HDD's.

 

[brendu]

Honestly 2gb is just not enough. 4gb should be the standard. Most macs show the beachball when they run out of RAM and start paging data to the HDD which is times of magnitude slower than RAM.

What do you do with you computer? Do you start VM's and a lot of software constantly? Database work? If that's the case the SSD will boost your creativity a lot (it actually made my mood better too). Otherwise I would stick to the ample space offered by HDD's.

Yeah, I started with the default 2GB that came with it back in august... and the 4GB is a big improvement... Thanks for the advice guys.... I am just an average user, web browsing, office, itunes, hulu... and some other small apps... so I did not think 4GB was needed but now its obvious 4GB is the minimum for GOOD performance...

SSD... still thinking about it, but i doubt ill get it anytime soon now...

 

[iwhillenbrand]

SSD will definately be cool. While a computer is only as fast as its slowest part, it will certainly speed up read/write and loading times. It also will significantly increase battery life, plus you'll never lose your files EVER! Big problem when that happens. (Believe me, I know how bad that is). SSDs are more plentiful and (relatively) cheaper by the day. Engadget featured a 32 gb SATA under $100. http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/10/ocz-breaks-into-bargain-market-with-sub-100-32gb-onyx-ssd/ The drive is small, but put the old hd in an enclosure and take it with you.
Best of luck!

 

[Gabriel GR]

SSD will definately be cool. While a computer is only as fast as its slowest part, it will certainly speed up read/write and loading times. It also will significantly increase battery life, plus you'll never lose your files EVER! Big problem when that happens. (Believe me, I know how bad that is). SSDs are more plentiful and (relatively) cheaper by the day. Engadget featured a 32 gb SATA under $100. http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/10/ocz-breaks-into-bargain-market-with-sub-100-32gb-onyx-ssd/ The drive is small, but put the old hd in an enclosure and take it with you.
Best of luck!

This is BS. The only data you don't lose is the data you have backed up.

 

[iwhillenbrand]

Have you ever lost your data? If your answer is no, then you are not qualified to respond in that way. Although through a complex system of backups failed on my Mac Pro, which has 8tb of storage, and lots a ton of important files, you would understand the speed and power of ssd is the way to go.

 

[John Kotches]

Have you ever lost your data? If your answer is no, then you are not qualified to respond in that way. Although through a complex system of backups failed on my Mac Pro, which has 8tb of storage, and lots a ton of important files, you would understand the speed and power of ssd is the way to go.

Electronics fail. It's a fact. SSDs can fail --- they are not failure proof.

If your complex system of backups failed you, then you should examine the complexity.

I believe I'm qualified to discuss the topic. I've been managing large scale unix installations for about 15 years.

 

[seepel]

It also will significantly increase battery life

I don't think this is true. In my experience it marginally increases battery life, but barely noticeable, if at all.

 

[shadygrove]

Have you ever lost your data? If your answer is no, then you are not qualified to respond in that way. Although through a complex system of backups failed on my Mac Pro, which has 8tb of storage, and lots a ton of important files, you would understand the speed and power of ssd is the way to go.

Just ecause my house has never been leveled by a tornado doesn't mean that it can't happen.

Ad others have said, electronics will fail. In fact given time, they will all fail.

 

[mikerr]

SSD will definately be cool. [..] plus you'll never lose your files EVER!

So wrong and dangerous. SDDs are less likely to fail when you drop them, but they do fail, and do so without warning unlike a HDD where you often get a day of intermittent working before they die completely.

We changed *all* our workstations to SSDs (X32s) in November (cheaper than a system upgrade, and the users loved the performance gains)
had a few failures already, though only around 2% and backups meant it was only a minor inconvenience to restore onto new (spare) units.

 

[brendu]

yeah there is no way you can say SSD's do not fail ever... and although I understand the speed difference between the two, after upping the RAM I have pretty much eliminated the beachballing which was the main issue I had with the macbook... I can deal with a few seconds here and there to load things rather than spending hundreds of dollars on a SSD today, only to have wished I waited a year for prices to get reasonable... For now, I wait... and torture myself by contemplating what else I should buy instead....

 

[Gabriel GR]

Have you ever lost your data? If your answer is no, then you are not qualified to respond in that way. Although through a complex system of backups failed on my Mac Pro, which has 8tb of storage, and lots a ton of important files, you would understand the speed and power of ssd is the way to go.

A complex system of Backups? A storage unit with redundancy?

I lost data when I was 14 and my HDD crashed. And I learned tto back up and although I've had numerous drive failures I haven't lost a KB of data important for my work or studies or simply music and photos.

I have an SSD and I understand it's advantages. Saying that they don't or will never fail though is totally wrong. Mainstream SSD's aren't even old enough to calculate their real-life MTBF.

 

[Jaro65]

yeah there is no way you can say SSD's do not fail ever... and although I understand the speed difference between the two, after upping the RAM I have pretty much eliminated the beachballing which was the main issue I had with the macbook... I can deal with a few seconds here and there to load things rather than spending hundreds of dollars on a SSD today, only to have wished I waited a year for prices to get reasonable... For now, I wait... and torture myself by contemplating what else I should buy instead....

...And so it appears that I am not alone.

 

[John Kotches]

So wrong and dangerous. SDDs are less likely to fail when you drop them, but they do fail, and do so without warning unlike a HDD where you often get a day of intermittent working before they die completely.

We changed *all* our workstations to SSDs (X32s) in November (cheaper than a system upgrade, and the users loved the performance gains)
had a few failures already, though only around 2% and backups meant it was only a minor inconvenience to restore onto new (spare) units.

If you chart your failure over time, I would imagine you've seen a dropoff in the last 4-6 weeks as you get past the "infant mortality" phase of the curve.