Worth the price for the 1TB SSD?

[High Rez]

I just bought a great config for a good price. Just want to make sure I got the right model. I hate buyer's remorse. I got:

2014 rMBP 2.5 GHz, 16GB, 512GB SSD, Intel Iris

The 1TB option is very expensive. I don't need the space. The 512GB should be plenty but I am concerned about the speed of the SSD. I did some research and the 1TB looks to read anywhere from 900MB/s to 1GB/s + and I think it writes at around 825 MB/s. Would I notice the speed difference going from 512GB to 1TB? Is the cost difference worth it for the speed(not the space)? I think it would be between $500 and $600 more than my config now.

 

[Freyqq]

The speed increase exists, but you would never notice the difference unless you were running some pretty specialized and taxing programs. You'd never notice it during regular usage. Pretty much every computer for sale on the PC side uses SATA III, which tops out at about 500 MB/s. Even a really fancy desktop. So, anything above that is already really really fast.

It would only make sense to upgrade if you were editing very high res video, or some other situation where you actually needed some very quick SSD access speeds. The cost is just too great for it to make much sense otherwise.

 

[MacInTO]

I think either will be more than fast enough.

The 1TB of storage is pretty pricey, especially if you don't need it. I have a 2012 with 768 SSD and I only use about 1/3 of it. Kind of a waste of space, but I wanted the fastest CPU at the time.

ps. Have you considered refurbished? This is a worthy option, last years high end rMBP. Only about 5% slower than the one you currently have.

http://store.apple.com/us/product/F...-23ghz-quad-core-intel-i7-with-retina-display

 

[Bending Pixels]

External USB3 drives are extremely inexpensive compared to getting a larger SSD. I keep all of my image and videos on a separate eternal drive. The USB3 connection is more than fast enough for editing images/video that are kept on the external drive.

 

[JamesMike]

External USB3 drives are extremely inexpensive compared to getting a larger SSD. I keep all of my image and videos on a separate eternal drive. The USB3 connection is more than fast enough for editing images/video that are kept on the external drive.

I agree with you about the external drive, have 3 terabyte, it works fine with the 3.0 USB.

 

[High Rez]

I will be using the machine for the following:

- Surfing the web reading and shopping. Opening many tabs - 10 to 20. I think any modern machine can do this easily.
- Grails programming(natively in the Mac OS if possible)
- No video editing
- No photo editing other than the basic cropping
- No games other than very basic ones(maybe starcraft 2)
- Running Windows 8.1 in a VM(mostly fusion 7). I will use this for Visual Studio development. Might have to use IE for some things. Anything I can run natively in OSX with safari, I will try.
- Driving 1 or 2 external monitors
- Will try to run Office for Mac.

The machine I mentioned I bought above is from apples refurb section. I have no worries of apple refurbs from my research.

As mentioned, its not that I need space with the 1TB drive, but the 1TB drive being as fast as it is will help with disk access times and should make the machine operate more smoothly( I am interested in system speed). The question is, on paper the 1TB is faster, but is the large cost difference($500 to $700 more than what I paid for my current machine) worth it for this speed increase on paper? Will I notice the speed increase in the tasks I listed above? How about with the VM usage I mention above?

 

[Samuelsan2001]

With that usage??

I will be using the machine for the following:

- Surfing the web reading and shopping. Opening many tabs - 10 to 20. I think any modern machine can do this easily.
- Grails programming(natively in the Mac OS if possible)
- No video editing
- No photo editing other than the basic cropping
- No games other than very basic ones(maybe starcraft 2)
- Running Windows 8.1 in a VM(mostly fusion 7). I will use this for Visual Studio development. Might have to use IE for some things. Anything I can run natively in OSX with safari, I will try.
- Driving 1 or 2 external monitors
- Will try to run Office for Mac.

The machine I mentioned I bought above is from apples refurb section. I have no worries of apple refurbs from my research.

As mentioned, its not that I need space with the 1TB drive, but the 1TB drive being as fast as it is will help with disk access times and should make the machine operate more smoothly( I am interested in system speed). The question is, on paper the 1TB is faster, but is the large cost difference($500 to $700 more than what I paid for my current machine) worth it for this speed increase on paper? Will I notice the speed increase in the tasks I listed above? How about with the VM usage I mention above?

With that usage you'll barely notice the difference between the one you have and spinning hard drive..... Well not really but a sata II topping out at 275 will be just as good for you to be honest. I have a 13 inch with 512 HD and it screams don't worry about it at all. The only reason for the 1TB is if you need the space otherwise it's a waste of money.

 

[2984839]

You will never notice a difference with those uses. You'd actually be hard pressed to find any uses that would make the difference even slightly noticeable, and there are none that would make the extra money worth it.

 

[yjchua95]

I just bought a great config for a good price. Just want to make sure I got the right model. I hate buyer's remorse. I got:

2014 rMBP 2.5 GHz, 16GB, 512GB SSD, Intel Iris

The 1TB option is very expensive. I don't need the space. The 512GB should be plenty but I am concerned about the speed of the SSD. I did some research and the 1TB looks to read anywhere from 900MB/s to 1GB/s + and I think it writes at around 825 MB/s. Would I notice the speed difference going from 512GB to 1TB? Is the cost difference worth it for the speed(not the space)? I think it would be between $500 and $600 more than my config now.

Not worth it.

I notice completely zero difference between the 512GB in my 13" rMBP and 1TB in my 15" rMBP.

That said, since you're already going for a 2.5/16/512 configuration, throw in an NVIDIA GPU and you're good to go.

 

[High Rez]

Thanks for all your help guys. I went with the following config

2.8ghz, 16gb ram, 512gb, intel iris

It is a refurb. The description said 2.5 Ghz but i was pleasantly suprised when I saw it had 2.8!

Hopefully this lasts me a while. Now i am buying accessories.

 

[Traverse]

The current 512GB models get 700+ Read/write speeds. Like others have said, unless you're really cranking away at the SSD with certain software you'll never notice it. I came from a MBP with a SATA III SSD with 500MB Read/Write speed and can't noticed a difference sans slightly faster boot up.