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Upgrade to 512GB Apple SSD ... Am I Making The Right Decision?

dwhynman said:
I just got my new MBP with a 512 SSD yesterday. I am very happy with the purchase. First of all a 512 SSD now is like $1500 even if they drop almost in half you are still getting a good deal on an installed SSD if you go with apple. Also how fast do you need. i am pretty happy with 7 seconds to boot windows with parallels. This machine is awesome. I would highly recommend this to anyone that does not mind spending the money and feels squeamish about popping open their laptop and swapping out the drive themselves.
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did you buy applecare? In your case it kind of makes sense to buy it as it will extend the ssd for 3 years use along with the rest of the machine. Buying the 512ssd direct from apple with a student discount is not so bad of a move. Also adding apple care at a 100 dollar student discount is a good thing. I am thinking of waiting until the summer and grabbing a 15 inch with student discount 512ssd applecare and free ipod along with the lion osx.
 
What is the battery life hit to add a nice 7200 drive in the optical bay running alongside a ssd?
 
I was looking at the 128GB ssd as well when I ordered yesterday, but I decided I would rather get the SSD down the road as it would provide a performance boost later on that would help ease the urge to want to buy newer and faster models.
 
I just re-ordered mine with the 512 SSD and here is why.

First of all apple chose their ssds for a reason. The SSD is most likely the Kingston V+100 series as that design is the same in the macbook air. If you search around the Kingston is the only 512 drive available so it makes sense.

Secondly that drive costs $1289 on newegg and $990 from apple so save tons right there.

Third, even though the drives are the same apple might make theirs with a different firmware that supports trim on Lion and the aftermarket model might not.

Fourth, I hate hearing the hard drive spin and 512gb is not bad. Its a good deal at $990 education.
 
cmckechnie said:
So my question is this: is this sound reasoning? I'm not asking you to tell me what I need per se, but rather is my logic sound in my decision-making process. I just don't want to go with this option and then find out i've missed something obvious.
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Your reasoning is quite sound.

Personally, I don't want to fight with different component manufacturers over warranty issues. While Apple add-ons are not considered to be the best bang for the buck, I'd rather have the peace-of-mind that comes with Apple looking after the entire purchase including all the innards.
 
Grouchy Bob said:
Your reasoning is quite sound.

Personally, I don't want to fight with different component manufacturers over warranty issues. While Apple add-ons are not considered to be the best bang for the buck, I'd rather have the peace-of-mind that comes with Apple looking after the entire purchase including all the innards.
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In this case, Apple's upgrade DOES offer a lot of bang for the buck - the 512 GB SSD is priced quite competitively.

The only downside I see is performance. It's an SATA-II drive that doesn't take advantage of the SATA-III port in the new MBPs. Still much, much faster than a mechanical HDD, just not as fast as it could be with that chipset.
 
Tyrion said:
In this case, Apple's upgrade DOES offer a lot of bang for the buck - the 512 GB SSD is priced quite competitively.

The only downside I see is performance. It's an SATA-II drive that doesn't take advantage of the SATA-III port in the new MBPs. Still much, much faster than a mechanical HDD, just not as fast as it could be with that chipset.
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I thought this was a SATA-III drive. Either way, as you say, it's still way faster than what I'm used to. I'm very hesitant to go with an optibay/data doubler solution because of the potential issues.

However, the one thing I forgot about and wonder if this will impact my decision, is that I still run some Windows only apps, so I'll need to use my VMWare or Bootcamp solution. How does this work with the one drive? Do you have to partition the SSD?

thanks for all the great replies, now just trying to figure it all out.
cheers,
cory
 
Whatever is considered "cheap" now... will definitely get cheaper later when it comes to SSDs. Take USB flash drives... 2GB used to cost $100+ when it first came out... I'd wait for higher capacity, better price down the road.
 
Tyrion said:
Almost certainly not. SATA-III SSDs are only just coming out right now. It's probably an OEM version of that 512 GB drive from Kingston, which came out last spring.
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Gotcha. As I said previously, I'm not necessarily looking for the latest bleeding edge technology, just a fast drive under the Apple warranty. I guess if I wanted to, down the road I could pick up a SATA-III drive and swap this one out with an optibay-type solution anyway.

Any thoughts on the VMWare/Bootcamp/Windows issue? I completely forgot about that and am now scrambling, trying to figure it out.

cheers,
cory
 
I have the 512GB Apple SSD in my 2010 MBP. Does anyone know if this drive has some type of garbage collection with it?
 
gullySn0wCat said:
Get an 128gb SSD from Apple and then replace your optical drive with a Scorpio Black hard drive after-market. 512gb SSDs are just too expensive right at this moment, you won't regret waiting a year.



No they aren't, for once Apple seems to be pricing something LESS (!) than their competitors.
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Depends upon what store.apple.com you are looking from :D

Here in denmark - store.apple.com/dk - you will find that a 512GB SSD is a whopping $1,600 USD upgrade from the 750GB HDD. That is not cheap by any measure.

The 256GB apple bto SSD a is $700 USD upgrade from the 750GB HDD. I can buy a 256GB Crucial RealSSD C300 2.5-inch SATA 6GB/s for $500, use the 750GB in a USB pocket drive enclosure, burn $200 USD on hats, and still have a better deal!

Which was exactly what I did :cool:

I am now the owner of a very cool $200 hat!

As for cheap Apple SSD - perhaps on the US marked. For us 2nd rate citizens of the world - we are still paying outrageous premiums on apple HDD, SSD and RAM.
 
Mollemand said:
For us 2nd rate citizens of the world - we are still paying outrageous premiums on apple HDD, SSD and RAM.
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We Canadians only recently moved to ALMOST equal with the American pricing ... don't worry Mollemand, soon your day will come too ;)
 
Most cost effective vs performance solution right now is...

240-260gb SSD of your choice replacing the standard hdd = $450-650
Optibay with a 500gb Seagate Momentus XT hybrid SSD/hdd = $150 or so
External optical drive over USB

Use FW800 devices for further speedy external storage.

Then hold on for thunderport DAS storage :D
 
zer0sum said:
Most cost effective vs performance solution right now is...

240-260gb SSD of your choice replacing the standard hdd = $450-650
Optibay with a 500gb Seagate Momentus XT hybrid SSD/hdd = $150 or so
External optical drive over USB
Click to expand...

So you're saying for about $800 (plus tax, shipping, CDN exchange rate) I can get a 240-260GB SSD plus a 500GB combo drive, and have to do the labour myself, messing around with warranty issues and having to put it all back together to send it in for AppleCare? Or I can get a 512GB SSD under warranty from Apple, not have to worry about any issues or opening up my new MBP for about $990 (CDN education upgrade)?

I'm honestly not trying to be sarcastic here, I'm just trying to see why I would do this. I'm really not against the idea of doing so, I'm just trying to figure out why I would.

I posed this question in another thread ... So how does this sound. I get an SSD drive today (256/512GB) from Apple (apparently it's only SATA-II anyway) so I use that for a while, then when newer SATA-III SSD drives are available, I pick up one of those, put it into the main HD bay and move the Apple SSD into the optical bay. Then, everything is working at it's peak performance and it's all SSD all day long.

Is the only drawback to this the cash involved with going all SSD?
 
cmckechnie said:
So you're saying for about $800 (plus tax, shipping, CDN exchange rate) I can get a 240-260GB SSD plus a 500GB combo drive, and have to do the labour myself, messing around with warranty issues and having to put it all back together to send it in for AppleCare? Or I can get a 512GB SSD under warranty from Apple, not have to worry about any issues or opening up my new MBP for about $990 (CDN education upgrade)?

I'm honestly not trying to be sarcastic here, I'm just trying to see why I would do this. I'm really not against the idea of doing so, I'm just trying to figure out why I would.

I posed this question in another thread ... So how does this sound. I get an SSD drive today (256/512GB) from Apple (apparently it's only SATA-II anyway) so I use that for a while, then when newer SATA-III SSD drives are available, I pick up one of those, put it into the main HD bay and move the Apple SSD into the optical bay. Then, everything is working at it's peak performance and it's all SSD all day long.

Is the only drawback to this the cash involved with going all SSD?
Click to expand...

Completely your choice :)

The modifications are easy!!
If you can handle a screwdriver with a small amount of care you are good to go
http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Repair/...ody-Mid-2010-Optical-Drive-Replacement/3074/1

I would rather have 750gb of storage split across 2 drives as I hate having all my eggs in one basket.
I rarely use my optical drive and it is just a waste of space in my laptops.

A custom sata III SSD will also be quicker than the apple variant.

Completely understand people that don't want to mess with things and just want the ease and peace of mind of the warranty.
I can't afford to just send my whole laptop with all my data into apple for weeks while it gets repaired, so I want the flexibility of swapping drives in and out, or even just swapping my data drive out completely.

And I crave speed!!! speed!!! more speed!!!
But I also need data...grrrr!!

Different things work for different people :D
 
Whitelightning said:
Whatever is considered "cheap" now... will definitely get cheaper later when it comes to SSDs. Take USB flash drives... 2GB used to cost $100+ when it first came out... I'd wait for higher capacity, better price down the road.
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It's true that SSDs will be way cheaper eventually but there's no telling how long that will take...
Prices of SSD have not dropped as fast as expected: many predictions pointed to a price of $1 per GB across the board by the end of 2010 and we're clearly not there yet :p
 
zer0sum said:
The modifications are easy!!
Click to expand...

No no, I get that they're easy and as I say I'm not averse to doing so, just trying to figure out the right way FOR me to get the most out of this new MBP and using everyone's intelligence here to do so ;)

At the moment, I'm leaning toward going with the 512GB Apple SSD and then when newer, faster, cheaper, third party SATA-III SSD's come out, picking one up (probably a 128 or 256) and swapping that for my main drive, and moving the 512 to the optical bay. In my head, this is the best of both worlds in terms of extra space on the laptop itself, and fastest main drive speed. I'm a video editor, so I also utilize external storage (1TB Lacie drive atm and will swap out the current SATA 500GB ad 750 GB drives into an external enclosure from my current MacPro). The ability to have fast, plentiful space on the MPB in cases where I need to be extremely mobile without being able to bring external drives, the setup the way I envision it will be great for mobile editing.

Again, thanks for all the help thinking this issue through. You're absolutely right that "Different things work for different people", I'm just trying to figure out how to use the best of your things to work into my things ;)

cheers,
cory
 
zer0sum said:
Most cost effective vs performance solution right now is...

240-260gb SSD of your choice replacing the standard hdd = $450-650
Optibay with a 500gb Seagate Momentus XT hybrid SSD/hdd = $150 or so
External optical drive over USB

Use FW800 devices for further speedy external storage.

Then hold on for thunderport DAS storage :D
Click to expand...

FW800 as "further speedy external storage" is oxymoronic in the context of 6Gb/s SSDs that are delivering 500MB/s read speed.
 
Apple Corps said:
FW800 as "further speedy external storage" is oxymoronic in the context of 6Gb/s SSDs that are delivering 500MB/s read speed.
Click to expand...

So...do you have a faster external solution than FW800 on a MBP while we wait for thunderbolt?
 
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