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Why do you need a SSD HD?

R

redbrick

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 26, 2011
11
0
I'm curious....for those of you who need the SSD HD.... why do you need it? What are you doing that's soooo crucial / time critical that you need a SSD? Current SSD's don't have the useful capacity for any significant video editing or photo editing...so why? ...just curious...


Thanks in advance
 
kappaknight said:
What do you consider as useful capacity? They do make 600GB SSD's now that fit into an MBP.
Click to expand...
^That would be impractically expensive.

And no one "needs" an SSD - it's just a nice upgrade that makes your macbook faster (the mechanics behind it is that SSD's have less moving parts = less likely for parts to fail) and more secure. In my opinion, it's not worth the cost/benefit.
 
For some people it may not be worth the cost/benefit. For others, whose time is of an essence (or they just have too much money) they may feel a little differently. Everyone has their own needs.
 
It's just my opinion, but I think SSDs are for people who love technology, or at least know well lot about it, who has enough money to buy it. Most of the people won't bother with buying a $200 SSD plus $100 for Optibay just so that they can get an overall speed boost for their daily usage.
 
From the reports I've seen, it would appear that the processing speed, app launching, booting etc. are somewhat (to a large extent it would seem) faster with an SSD HD..

For these reasons I think that my next purchase will be a macbook with an SSD.. But I don't think that I would go out of my way to upgrade the systems I have now, mainly because my macbook is now over 2 years old and will be replaced next year and the iMac is just a bitch to upgrade...
 
Makes everything faster. Plain and simple. I can't comprehend how a prospective buyer could decide they "need" an upgrade CPU but they will stick with an HDD. Makes no sense to me. The biggest bottleneck in any computer is the hard drive. An SSD helps you get the most out of your system.
 
I've had 3 HDD's fail from a little too much travel time. One too many bumps can result in a ticking drive. SSD = no more issues.

If you're laptop has minimal travel time, then I'm sure this is negligible.
 
aside from the quicker access to files and apps, boot-up, etc. You get the benefit of a drive that will be worth its price overtime. no mechanical spinning hardware, that can wear out a normal drive 2-3, 3-5 years, at the least the SSD will be a worthwhile investment that wont degrade too much too soon.

now with thunderbolt, SSD on portables even 128GB you can connect a larger quick external disk for fast access doing on the go video or whatever production. I never like to keep my eggs in one basket per se with hard drives especially on an OS/Main drive. regardless of capacity.
 
Your interpretation of the situation is a bit off, OP.

You say 'time critical', like we can bear to wait another second.

For some things, it can make a huge difference. A 3D render might render a half hour faster or more depending on the size of the render.

Using Photoshop or a program like this, the scratch disk will be much faster and so working on big projects will be much less laggy and painful.

In general using more than one application will be smoother. If programs are in a queue waiting to launch, the faster each launches, the less time your waiting.

I find in my work as a web and print designer, there are many occassions on a 5400RPM drive that I will be waiting for 5 seconds - minute because of the slow hard drive. With a SSD these times are cut down significantly.

It's easy to save an hour of time that would otherwise be spent waiting.


Additionally, SSDs are a fine size.

A 120GB SSD will cost around $280. This is big enough to hold the OS and all of your applications, plus some files your currently working on that you want the speed for.

You can then have an external, or second drive (optibay) which is a traditional hard drive. The 750GB in the MBP is perfect. This drive can hold all of your large files that don't need the speed, such as music and movies, as well as older projects your not immediately working on.
 
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Why buy a Mac when a pc will due? Worst thread ever.
 
I'd go with hybrid drives. 500GB for $100. Fast boot up and application launching. Best of both worlds.
 
blackbinary said:
Your interpretation of the situation is a bit off, OP.




Additionally, SSDs are a fine size.

A 120GB SSD will cost around $280. This is big enough to hold the OS and all of your applications, plus some files your currently working on that you want the speed for.

You can then have an external, or second drive (optibay) which is a traditional hard drive. The 750GB in the MBP is perfect. This drive can hold all of your large files that don't need the speed, such as music and movies, as well as older projects your not immediately working on.
Click to expand...

120gb will cost you around 170€ right now, just saying.
 
I'd say need is too harsh of a word in my case.

I wanted a non mechanical storage device in my laptop. The increase in speed over an HD is just icing on the cake. :)

With 2 kids in my household, the prospect of jarring the laptop while in use was to much for me to handle, so I opted for the SSD
 
DWBurke811 said:
Faster boot-up, quicker app launching, faster shut-down, no noise or vibration, less drain on the battery, no moving parts...
Click to expand...

Agree, it is all that, but I'll go further; they are a lot more stable and less prone to HD failure than the standard HD.

Another thread on this forum asked whether anyone with an iTouch had ever experienced battery failure; no-one responded in the affirmative, whereas I have had two iPod classics die on me. My old MBP suffered both HD and battery failure, a fate I do not expect to experience on my MBA.

Re cost, inevitably, with technological advances, the price will come down, probably quite considerably, over the next few years. A few years ago, a memory stick with 1 or 2GB cost nearly €100, now, they are considered almost surplus to requirements.

Cheers
 
Scepticalscribe said:
Agree, it is all that, but I'll go further; they are a lot more stable and less prone to HD failure than the standard HD.

Another thread on this forum asked whether anyone with an iTouch had ever experienced battery failure; no-one responded in the affirmative, whereas I have had two iPod classics die on me. My old MBP suffered both HD and battery failure, a fate I do not expect to experience on my MBA.

Re cost, inevitably, with technological advances, the price will come down, probably quite considerably, over the next few years. A few years ago, a memory stick with 1 or 2GB cost nearly €100, now, they are considered almost surplus to requirements.

Cheers
Click to expand...
This :D I love how you mentioned the 2GB usb going from 100 euro to almost nothing. I hope the SSDs will replace the HDDs in the near future for all laptops.
 
The way I look at it - I just spent $2,500 on a great laptop, and by far the slowest component is the HD. It's like getting a Ferrari and using all-season tires on it. For me SSD gives a tremendous improvement in app opening time and overall responsiveness of my MBP. For $200, a 128Gb C300 was a no-brainer, and I couldn't be happier with this setup.

I went back to only my 750Gb HD for few weeks because the 128Gb SSD was not enough capacity, but once you use SSD, you never want to go back. Data Doubler solved that problem.

Polbit
 
I agree with this, Went with a 120gb OWC on mine the second day I had it and its great. Just recently ordered the data doubler to utilize the space of the stock drive for music/movies/older documents. Is it needed, no, is it worth it 100%.

polbit said:
The way I look at it - I just spent $2,500 on a great laptop, and by far the slowest component is the HD. It's like getting a Ferrari and using all-season tires on it. For me SSD gives a tremendous improvement in app opening time and overall responsiveness of my MBP. For $200, a 128Gb C300 was a no-brainer, and I couldn't be happier with this setup.

I went back to only my 750Gb HD for few weeks because the 128Gb SSD was not enough capacity, but once you use SSD, you never want to go back. Data Doubler solved that problem.

Polbit
Click to expand...
 
DWBurke811 said:
Faster boot-up, quicker app launching, faster shut-down, no noise or vibration, less drain on the battery, no moving parts...
Click to expand...

Actually isn't it a myth that SSDs use less power? I remember hearing they use about the same amount of power as a regular spinning hard drive.
 
ThirtyThr33 said:
Unless your throwing wads of cash on the fire to keep you warm at night forget this option.
Click to expand...

The OP talked about movie production and music production. I'm just stating a fact that these things exist out in the wild so if a producer or director would like to use these things to speed up their processes, it's available to them.

Besides, if the more people buy, the more they will make them. If everyone only buys the 128GB version, then they'll keep making the low end ones until the market shifts.
 
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