Yet another SSD question

[nickjaergaard]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

I must say this SSD hype on these forums have given me second thoughts on what harddisk to choose for my new MBP.

I'm planning on buying the 15", upgrade the processor to the i7 2.3 GHz, 8 gb RAM, hi-res glossy screen - and until recently the 500 gb 7200 rpm harddisk.

The will be used for photo editing (Aperture 3), schoolwork (I will be studying medicine) and gaming. I am planning on installing Windows 7 on the machine, too.

I do not want to buy a third part SSD and install it myself, because of the warranty.
If I should choose to put in an SSD, it would be the 128GB. Upgrading to 256GB is simply too expensive.

For my needs, would it be reasonable to spend the extra money on an SSD and an external harddisk, or should i stick to my original choice? Is the speed bump really worth the extra effort that comes with this (I'm thinking sorting the data, needing to have an external plugged into the computer to edit photos, gaming, watching videos etc.).
Or am I too overprotective when it comes to installing a third part SSD?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[whiteonline]

SSD's are still extremely expensive per Gigabyte. Factor in only Apple approved drives, and it's a bit ridiculous.

SSD's are good for speed of access and for battery life. Throw on an external disk and negate the battery life argument. Those of us who have them, love the speed they bring.

IMO, since you will be bootcamping windows and doing a bunch of other stuff (gaming, school, photos, etc), storage is more important. The 7200 RPM drive be noticeably faster than the 5200 RPM -- though, being new, not much to compare on your side.

I say stick with the the conventional platter drive for now....

(fyi, there is no void of warranty for putting in your own SSD -- though Apple is not obligated to support any problems from running on that disk, such as loss of data, performance, etc)

 

[caen1]

I would do the contrary: upgrade nothing but the screen to the anti-glare one. I have a glossy one right now, and trust me, it sucks, even inside the house.

If you upgrade the CPU, you end up spending $250 on 0.1 Ghz. Doesn't sound like such a great deal to me. As for the memory, you can find 8 GB for $50, which are going to work just fine.

This way, you save $200, but you get a better screen.