Buying a MBP, considering optional SSD - thoughts?
 

After much scrimping, saving, and waiting, I am finally ready to upgrade from a 17" PowerBook to a 17" MacBook Pro, which I've just learned is available with a 128 GB SSD for an additional $500. Nifty, but should I bother?

128 GB is slightly larger than my current hard drive (which normally has 20+ GB free), I already have external drives for additional storage, and there are some advantages to an SSD (speed, durability). It would be very nice to dramatically reduce the time it takes to boot, launch applications, or save a very large Photoshop file.

But new 2.6 GHz MacBook Pro with 4 GB RAM and a 320 GB Serial ATA @ 7200 RPM will already be a dramatic improvement over a 1.67 GHz PowerBook G4 with 2 GB RAM and 120 GB @ 5400 RPM, and with significantly more storage. I could wait for SSDs to increase in size and decrease in price and swap later.

We are also considering a Drobo, LaCie 2big, or Time Capsule (another decision to make). My wife has given me permission for both the SSD and fancy new storage, but guilt and frugality make me hesitant - the money for the SSD would pay for one of the storage options.

I'd be grateful for any advice or opinions.

On the plus side, the extra durability will probably give the laptop more than a few extra years of life, significantly lowering your cost per year. The downside is that SSDs are almost certain to come down significantly in price during that time, while capacity and performance will go up! ;)

One question is if the drive was ever going to be the limiting factor in the laptop's life. Ask yourself this question: Do you think that you will outgrow 128GB within the expected life you plan to keep the machine? If so, the durability is of no consequence because it's going to be replaced anyway. (For instance in my last two laptops I upgraded the drives as soon as AppleCare ran out...meaning after just 3 years.) The only way the SSD will actually lower the cost is if you use the same drive for like 5 years. AND you must also amortize the price premium you paid for the SSD. But with 250GB laptop disc drives being very common now, 128GB seems ripe for replacement long before it will die. Might be better to get a big cheap disc drive now and upgrade to a big affordable SSD later. It depends on what you expect to fill the drive with; 128GB wouldn't last long for me, but if you just work on Office docs maybe 128GB is plenty of room.

The SSD drives in Apple laptops are 5400 RPM PATA drives, they are slower than the SATA ones in the laptops now. They consume less power and don't have moving parts, but I mean if you have regular back ups I wouldn't worry.

I don't think the average user will benefit from such upgrades for $500. Plus the hard drive is practically user replaceable in the new mac laptops for once making them even easier for people to swap out.

Who says you can't add a SSD drive yourself down the road when they are cheaper?

The SSDs perform at the equivalent of 5400 RPM? I thought Solid State was much faster - but most of the information I've found refers to modified MBPs, not the ones new to the Apple Store - or I wouldn't be willing to consider paying the additional expense.

I'm considering that possibility, also.


Because of the way I use external drives, and especially because we are looking at a NAS, I could make due. I use Photoshop a lot (another upgrade I'll have to make). Active projects are on my computer, but much of my data is stored on external drives. Even the 320 GB SATA, if I chose it, would need to be supplemented with external storage.

I've already adjusted to storage limitations because I am using a laptop. We have a very small house (a converted cottage, really) and two young children (the younger is three and a half) and a laptop can be put on a shelf out of reach when not in use. If we had a safe place to dedicate to it (not simply the kitchen table) I'd be looking at a Mac Pro and lots of storage. Maybe it will be my next computer...

The research I did before ordering my MBP (which arrived today - woohoo!) suggested that most SSD's are still more hype than real performance. Intel's X25-M is a notable exception, but that isn't what is offered in the MBP's. Samsung also makes a good performing SSD that outperforms most mechanical drives in most ways, although it is seriously outclassed by the Intel models in most respects.

Congratulations! I am giddy with anticipation, and I haven't even placed an order yet.

I only started looking seriously a few days ago. The SSD option was a surprise to me (and to several local Apple Store employees) and I need to read more about it. If the available 128 GB SSD won't perform significantly better than the 320 GB SATA @7200 RPM, then I will wait and possibly upgrade to an SSD later, but I have to admit - the lure of the gee whiz factor is tugging at me.

I don't see how it would give the machine "extra life."
It's not like you can't just replace the hard drive if it dies.

True, but the older a laptop gets, the less that you feel you can "trust" the hard drive to continue. There's bound to be a period where you don't trust it enough to count on it for important things, but can't see replacing a drive that still works. It's a fuzzy area.

I suppose this conversation is about the late 2008 MBP, but I have an early 2008 17" MBP with a 2.6 Intel Core 2 Duo, 2 GB of memory, & a Hitachi 7200 RPM 200GB HD. Absolutely couldn't ask for more (except possibly that it weighed a bit less).

I've got a G3 iBook who's hard drive I still trust. My only issue is that the 35GB HDD seems pretty miniscule. I have to regularly move files to an external HDD to clear space on it. What I don't trust is the battery which is pretty much cactus. I'd sacrifice many other features if they could just get the battery right. Something that isn't toxic to dispose of that will work at least a full day and recharges in about five minutes.

HDs are much more reliable these days than earlier. Further, with the sudden motion detector in an MBP, dropping it will cage the HD heads before it gets to the floor.

500 bucks will buy you a lot of beers...

All I am saying...

SSD not worth it yet performance or cost wise to the end user, unless you specifically take advantage of it. I don't think your average user benefits from such things just quite yet.

Or hot chocolate, my vice, such as it is.

What are the advantages, as you see them?

One, as I understand it, is that saving a large Photoshop file (I frequently have them in the neighborhood of 3 GB) should take much less time. I save frequently, and it can take several minutes each time for such a large file, so an SSD seems worth considering. Granted, any MBP will be much faster than my Powerbook...

What disadvantages are there to the Apple SSDs being PATA, not SATA? My PowerBook is the only computer I've ever owned, and I've never had to replace a hard drive, so I'm trying to catch up. If SATA is the future for SSDs, then the 320 GB SATA allows for more flexibility for upgrading, I would think. Plus, from what I've read, SATA SSDs are faster. But I read somewhere that Apple is using PATA SSDs because they consume less power. So maybe they'll be around for a while.

Anyway, I appreciate the input from everybody so far.

I'm not saying they're not pricey, or that they're super fast or that they save enough power - yet. I do think they're a bit safer than a hard drive that parks the heads before an impact.

They have a lot of potential yet to be realized, and there are some upsides to having one now. I don't know if they make it worth the money, but that's a personal decision.

Uh, actually, that is specifically an area where an SSD should be slower than a less expensive platter drive. In the tests seen so far, a primary performance weakness of SSDs is sustained writes (writing big files). SSDs are faster in most other tests.

The SSD should spank the HDD in reading a huge file, but not writing (saving) it.

Oops, misread that earlier. :o Thanks. I should wait for the kids to go to bed so I can read slowly and uninterrupted.

Yeah. And I thought my most difficult choice was going to be between glossy and antiglare.

No contest in my mind between glossy and antiglare unless you have complete control of the background behind you which is reflected on the glossy to the point of distraction.

Hmm, never had hot chocolate beer, sounds weird:p

To just add to a bit of what is been said, data throughput will be faster on an internal SATA drive over the PATA SSD. The SSD has no moving components so it is not prone to mechanical failure, however, it is still prone to failure just like any other electronic part. When would you see the data throughput differences? Hard to tell because I do not have a SSD drive available to me, but I would imagine it would be most noticeable in large data transfers or large data files being modified.

My order has been placed! 17" MBP, 2.6 GHz, 320 GB HDD @ 7200 RPM, anti-glare. The money not spent on the SSD is enough to pay for:

1. PS Elements 6 (o play with while I save for CS4)
2. a LaCie 301196U FireWire d2 DVD±RW with Lightscribe (good for my Sony Handycam mini-DVDs, and more)
3. an inexpensive NAS, most likely a LaCie Ethernet Disk mini - Home Edition (to supplement our assortment of external drives; I'll get something fancier later). I'm reading manuals, etc, right now so I can make a final decision.

And I need to pay what I call my gift tax to my wife (although the MBP is not really a gift, despite the fact that I'm ordering it just before Christmas). Every time I get something - even on my birthday - my wife gets something, too, usually worth between ten and twenty percent of whatever I get. On Christmas, she will receive her gifts as well as her gift tax. I'm not sure how it started, but I go along with it because it keeps her happy. I think I'll be perusing small LCD TVs - she wants one for our room.

Thanks for the input, everybody.

I'm finding that the viewing angle on the MBP is so great that the glare is a non-issue. I can simply change the angle of the screen a little bit so I don't see the reflections.

I have both, and I'd never go back to the matte screen again. The glossy lets you control and eliminate glare, while the matte finish always catches and disperses it. In anything but a dim room, the matte is always washed out.

We have a MacBook Air with SSD arriving today, I'll post some test results against the MBP with a 7200 RPM drive.

The MacBook Air uses a 1.8" drive, and the performance with those is disappointing no matter what (SSD or magnetic). The SSD is significantly faster at random reads (2-3x faster), slightly faster than magnetic at sequential read, significantly slower than magnetic at sequential write, and slightly slower at random write. The power usage difference is stunning. I haven't done my own tests but found a few online showing a 30-45 minute improvement depending on what you are doing. This is pretty huge.

Overall the Air is disappointing to me. It's still quite large, and you give up a whole lot for the attractive looks. It really has last year's standard/low end specs, with a remarkable lack or ports and expansion. This is why I bought the MSI Wind instead, but the SO wanted a machine that can play WoW and decided on the Air. After actually seeing and using the Air I'm even more disappointed. All I can say good about it is "pretty."

So a few months alter I have to say I was wrong about the air. I still wish it was smaller, and hope Apple will make a 10" machine, but the Air is quite good at many things. In particular the SSD, while slower to write, is much faster to read in normal daily usage. The Air with SSD is noticeably faster and snappier at just average daily tasks. The performance benchmarks don't really give the picture of the improvement you see and feel when using it.

We have about 5 Macbook Airs in my deployment currently, all of them went to executives, and I have played with them. I on occasion have to support one of them but for the most part the higher ups are better users, or at least they have less problems. They are also not managed either, so that could be part of the reason.

However, in my experience I found them no faster than my MBP. That is just my experience though.