What size SSD to get

[thetoness]

I want to install an ssd in my lower optical bay and install the OS and applications? My question is what size SSD would be sufficient. On OWC's website the price difference between the 240gb and the 480gb is $900. Will the 240gb be sufficient for the long haul or do I need to bite the bullet and get the 480gb? I will be installing 4 2gb Hitachi drives in the other hard drive bays.
Thanks for your help.

 

[Hellhammer]

Do you really need 240GB? For OS X and apps, even 120GB should be sufficient, depends on the size of your App folder of course

 

[maflynn]

Agreed, a 120gb should be sufficient for the OS and apps.

 

[kernkraft]

I want to install an ssd in my lower optical bay and install the OS and applications? My question is what size SSD would be sufficient. On OWC's website the price difference between the 240gb and the 480gb is $900. Will the 240gb be sufficient for the long haul or do I need to bite the bullet and get the 480gb? I will be installing 4 2gb Hitachi drives in the other hard drive bays.
Thanks for your help.

You'd have to be
a) mad
b) rich or
c) both

to spend a fortune on a ridiculously large SSD. When SSD really matters is application launch and handling certain types of files. Unless you have an extremely large application that Stewie Griffin wrote for world domination and we don't know about; your applications and basic files should fit on a smaller SSD.

Don't forget that SSD's speed deteriorate with accessing files. If you regularly use media files and photos, you might want to put them on a 7200rpm HDD and hardly notice any difference. We are only months away from threads where people complain about SSDs degrading to the level that makes them a ridiculously expensive mistake. Preserve your cash and spend the crazy money where it matters - go on a holiday or put that premium towards your next computer.

 

[xgman]

Agreed, a 120gb should be sufficient for the OS and apps.

If you say so. Mine is already at 150GB with no data files. You can never have a too large drive. Now extreme cost is another matter.

 

[eponym]

150GB for you base OS and apps?

I HIGHLY doubt that.

OS X is what? 10GB? My applications folder is only around 30GB and it has the entire CS5 master collection, some legacy CS4 apps I keep around, VMWare, Starcraft 2, Office, all the iLife/Work stuff, and tons of misc. utilities and web dev apps.

 

[Hellhammer]

150GB for you base OS and apps?

I HIGHLY doubt that.

OS X is what? 10GB? My applications folder is only around 30GB and it has the entire CS5 master collection, some legacy CS4 apps I keep around, VMWare, Starcraft 2, Office, all the iLife/Work stuff, and tons of misc. utilities and web dev apps.

Snow Leopard requires only 5GB of disk space. I've seen some people having large Library folder but a clean install usually fixes that as there might be traces of older OS Xs and apps. ~140GB of apps sounds ridiculous....

 

[Spanky Deluxe]

120GB would just about enough for OSX system and Apps. My OSX SSD partition's currently using 100GB for that. 240GB would give you enough space for OSX system, Apps, a Boot Camp installation and about 100GB for future growth / scratch disk.

 

[sboerup]

I got a smoking deal on the Intel X25 Gen2 160gb and got it. I was running an 80GB for a few months and it was great, but I was already at 70gb capacity. I didn't plan on it growing, but just in case I went an upgraded.

I now have 100gb left available on my 160gb, so, I'm still using the same amount. Also, if you move your home folder to a different drive, you'll save a ton of space and it's just smart to do it anyway.

 

[VirtualRain]

I run 3x80GB X25-M's in RAID0 for 240GB of SSD storage, and it's completely excessive, but I got the third drive second-hand for a song so it was a no brainer.

Having as much SSD storage as you can afford is ideal... the more you can store on it, the better.

I have the luxury of keeping my Aperture library, active video editing files, and my iTunes library on my SSD's along with my Apps and OS. Needless to say it's amazingly responsive at everything I do.

Having said that, I think after I installed OSX and all my Apps, I had used less than 40GB of storage... so if you just need enough for your OS/Apps, even the smallest SSD will do.

One last thought... the problem with buying way more SSD storage than you need today, is that the price is constantly coming down and the performance going up... so by the time you fill 480GB of SSD storage, you might have been able to buy that for half of what you paid today... so my advice is to buy only what you need (with a bit of cushion) and add to it over time if you need more as it's always cheaper tomorrow.

 

[strausd]

Ya, 140GB App folder, don't believe that.

For the OP, you should probably move your home directory to a different drive, that will make the SSD only have your OS and Apps on it. If you are curious as to how to do this, this link explains it very well.

 

[xgman]

150GB for you base OS and apps?

I HIGHLY doubt that.

OS X is what? 10GB? My applications folder is only around 30GB and it has the entire CS5 master collection, some legacy CS4 apps I keep around, VMWare, Starcraft 2, Office, all the iLife/Work stuff, and tons of misc. utilities and web dev apps.

get info on my mac drive and that is it. I have tons of large apps I guess. I have a separate drive for time mach and a separate drive for data and a separate drive for windows. Also I think it is a good idea to keep plenty of space free for swap files and large temporary copy and paste operations.

I bet if took a "Pro" survey of what size people mac drive was you would be surprised at how large some can get. In any case if you end up short, that would be really nasty. Imagine having to constantly limit what you do because you don't have enough drive space. Also the more you farm off to other slower drives, the slower your work flow becomes.

I've been buying rigs since the 90's and I have learned the hard way. Always buy a bit faster and a bit larger capacity than you can afford. Same with houses. It's a lot less expensive to overdo it a bit now rather than to re-do it later.

 

[Hellhammer]

get info on my mac drive and that is it. I have tons of large apps I guess. I have a separate drive for time mach and a separate drive for data and a separate drive for windows. Also I think it is a good idea to keep plenty of space free for swap files and large temporary copy and paste operations.

Is your Home folder located in Macintosh HD? That includes a lot data. I have CS4 and CS5 installed plus a crap load of other apps and my App folder is only 30GB. System folder is 5GB and Library folder is 11GB. Those are the ones I would move to SSD, the Users folder, which is usually the biggest as it has pics, movies etc, can be moved to HD.

 

[donw35]

I am using a Kingston 64GB SSD with great success and speed, I have a 1TB eSata drive that I keep everything on and I set the download folder to that drive to keep things from filling up the SSD. with everything that I use on this drive I still have 40GB free. all my video's and muisic are on anther internal 1TB drive.

 

[jetjaguar]

i have a 120gb owc ssd and after a snow leopard install and an office install .. i have 99gb free

 

[xgman]

Is your Home folder located in Macintosh HD? That includes a lot data. I have CS4 and CS5 installed plus a crap load of other apps and my App folder is only 30GB. System folder is 5GB and Library folder is 11GB. Those are the ones I would move to SSD, the Users folder, which is usually the biggest as it has pics, movies etc, can be moved to HD.

Yes, but moving that folder to a slow drive slows the whole works down. I have decided to go with the vertex 2 360gb drive because it is the largest size you can get in the fastest 285/275 etc speed spec. Now it will be a race to see what arrives first, the SSD or the Mac Pro. Both are quoting about 1.5 to 2 weeks out.

 

[Hellhammer]

Yes, but moving that folder to a slow drive slows the whole works down. I have decided to go with the vertex 2 360gb drive because it is the largest size you can get in the fastest 285/275 etc speed spec. Now it will be a race to see what arrives first, the SSD or the Mac Pro. Both are quoting about 1.5 to 2 weeks out.

How does it slow things up? Your home folder doesn't have anything else but music, movies, photos, downloads etc. Those files are not needed by the system, they are just for your own fun. Sure you can pay the hefty price tag to store your data in SSD but a normal HD would be sufficient.

 

[strausd]

SSDs will still make boot times insanely fast. Also, Photoshop, Maya, and AE will load much faster too. That is the main thing I am looking for.

 

[philipma1957]

Yes, but moving that folder to a slow drive slows the whole works down. I have decided to go with the vertex 2 360gb drive because it is the largest size you can get in the fastest 285/275 etc speed spec. Now it will be a race to see what arrives first, the SSD or the Mac Pro. Both are quoting about 1.5 to 2 weeks out.

I just saw the ssd you purchased it is more then 1k on amazon that is a lot of money for a ssd.

 

[sboerup]

Move the HOME folder to a separate HD, there is no benefit of having your home folder on the boot disk . . . none.

 

[VirtualRain]

Here's 3 Intel SSD's in RAID0... (full story here)

 

[xgman]

I just saw the ssd you purchased it is more then 1k on amazon that is a lot of money for a ssd.

I'm getting this for $950. Yes a huge sum of money for any drive and it is a tough nut to swallow, but . . it could be argued that there would be a more noticeable speed and general usability boost from this than all of these other upgrades in the 2010 model combined. I checked my folder sizes and I have around 53GB in apps, 41 GB in the "Users" folder. There are quite a number of settings and preferences and other files in the Home folder that are constantly being accessed here and there and the more things that can be accessed via SSD, the faster your going to get things done period. The system will only be as fast as the slowest component or bottleneck. If I could afford it, I'd have all my data on SSD as well. Maybe in a few years it will be that affordable, but they are still having trouble getting enough production of the fastest SSD chips to make that happen anytime soon. I feel like 360GB is going to give me room enough to not have to be worried about how much my drive is filling up every minute. Also, these drives have a built in garbage clean up, so it should help until, if and when Apple supports TRIM.

 

[xgman]

Move the HOME folder to a separate HD, there is no benefit of having your home folder on the boot disk . . . none.

Again, as I stated above, any data that has to be accessed no matter how frequently will slow things down. Even opening large files on a "data" drive will slow things down. There is quite a bit more to SSD's than fast boot time. The speed of drives is one of the worst bottlenecks in current high end workstations. Not everyone needs, appreciates or cares about this. I understand that. However, personally, I do. I will slowly transition all my drives to SSD as they improve and lower in cost over time.

 

[alphaod]

Snow Leopard requires only 5GB of disk space. I've seen some people having large Library folder but a clean install usually fixes that as there might be traces of older OS Xs and apps. ~140GB of apps sounds ridiculous....

I don't know. Install Final Cut Studio and maybe a game like X-Plane, you'll have like 10GB free (with a 120GB drive).

 

[johnnymg]

I don't know. Install Final Cut Studio and maybe a game like X-Plane, you'll have like 10GB free (with a 120GB drive).

I have OSX 10.6, FCS, MS office 2008, and PSE on my 15" MBP and it's only using ~ 35 GB of space.

I did put the sound libraries from FCS (>20+ GB) on the data HD drive.

JohnG