Upgrade Quandry

I have a 2012 cMBP 15" (i7, 16GB RAM, and 500GB HDD 5400rpm).

I just bought my wife a 2013 MBA (i7, 8gb/256GB) and really like the speedy boot times and application opening with the SDD.

So, now I am debating my upgrade options. I am leaning towards #1 for the cost savings and I like the fact I still have a dedicated Ethernet port, FW800, and the SuperDrive and not to mention the 16GB RAM. I do a good bit of Parallels work, Logic Pro with MainStage, DVD ripping, etc...

#1 - Upgrade current MBP with an internal SDD (256gb - 512gb). What is a good brand option for that? I don't want to go the replace the SuperDrive with anything as I like having that capability.

#2 - Try to sell my current MBP and look into a 13" cMBP with the Haswell. It would be nice to have a longer battery life as the current MBP eats through the battery like crazy. Though, not sure how much I could even start to look to get for mine.

Would an SDD upgrade help the current battery's life with possible less fan use and drive spinning? Or would that even be noticable?

I need to see if 256GB would be ample room for myself. The 512GB SSDs are still a little pricey.

Though, seeing that the SSD upgrade would be SATA vs PCIe it wouldn't be quite as peppy as hers. Though I am sure it would be noticable coming from a 5400rpm HDD.

Any advice would be appreciated.

 

I think I am good with the 16gb. At least for now.

I will check on the Samsung drive. Thanks. Yeah I feel that will be what I end up doing as I love the MBP I have and that should help it's "spunkiness".
Just it is such a tank. When I started playing with her MBA the gears started moving in my head and the fact that the 13" rMBP is only a little heavier and a lot lighter than my current MBP.

Probably should just upgrade mine and wait a year or so if I decide to update. And really the FireWire is pretty important for me at the moment with my band's audio interface we currently have.

 

Are there any good Hybrid drives out there as well that would work in the MBP?

 

Thanks for the info. I think I will just look at the 100% SSD solution and look at the Samsung 840 Pro as well. Looks to be one of the faster. Though, it seems so ironic to me with the litigation between Samsung and Apple, almost comical.

I have read some places that the 250GB and 500GB SSD perform differently. Though doubt it is really noticeable by anything other than a benchmark. The 250 would probably be all I need and if I need more space I have our other MACs and debating getting a Network NAS of some sort for all of our MACs. The old Time Capsule we had didn't last too long, and ended up going with direct attached on the wife's and my iMacs. Now that we both have MacBooks, may reinvestigate into a better network solution.

 

I think I have deecided to replace my internal 500GB 5400rpm drive with the Samsung 840 EVO 500GB. I won't lose any space and will not have to worry about losing the superdrive. I still like throwing DVDs in there from time to to time not to mention buring audio CDs of some of our Mixed down songs.

Was torn between the Evo and the Pro, but figured my best bet is to get the biggest drive I can reasonably get. I doubt I will notice any real world differences with the Evo vs the PRO. And the lifespan on either will FAR out weigh the laptop itself.

Looking over a few benchmarks and they are pretty darn closer overall and one site showed the Pro at 4 or 5% faster overall, and the EVO was slightly faster on random reads or writes.

I know one thing it will be TONS faster than my 5400RPM HDD at the moment

Think I will pull the trigger shortly, unless another product comes up to impress me as much as these do.
Will be nice to get back a lil battery life and have a quietter system and cooler as well. Looking forward to a rebirth of a laptop I really love. I like having the connections the newer ones probably won't have, not to mention it is nice to still have a Superdrive.