# SSD for late 2010 macbook pro



## chupacabra31 (Jan 2, 2009)

I have been reading a lot about these SSD. One thing that made me take notice is that they might actually provide a bigger performance upgrade then going from 4gb of ram to 8!?!?

If that is true, what is the best/most economical solid state drive for the late 2010 macbook pro right now?

I mostly use this machine for editing 18megapixel photos in photoshop CS5. 99% of what I do is shrink the photos for web sharing though.

Thanks in advance for any ideas!


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## sinclair_tm (Mar 11, 2005)

I don't know if they will help that much. But the claim is SSDs do speed things up, when it comes to hard drive tasks, like loading things and swap files. The best place to get Mac stuff like this is OWC. They have a whole line of SSDs for Macs.


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## chupacabra31 (Jan 2, 2009)

sinclair_tm said:


> I don't know if they will help that much. But the claim is SSDs do speed things up, when it comes to hard drive tasks, like loading things and swap files. The best place to get Mac stuff like this is OWC. They have a whole line of SSDs for Macs.


From everything I have read and seen it appears they make a huge improvement in a lot of areas! In fact it is said that the new macbook air is actually faster then my late 2010 macbook pro reportedly because of the SSD.

Well I ended up getting a 120GB Intel Series 320. From everything I have read from other users, it appears to be the least hassle and the most reliable/stable. I love OWC, but I have heard reports that their drive has some problems.


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## Jay_JWLH (Apr 30, 2008)

Unless you have a specific reason for it, like hosting a virtual machine, you have already hit a massive amount of diminishing return in the RAM from 4GB onwards. Using photoshop could be one such advantage.

The performance improvement of SSD over a HDD is certainly noticable. Because of their lack in moving parts, they have a consistant (and much lower) amount of time in which they can access and write data, are durable, and consume less power. Performance wise, I think they push the bandwidth of SATA2. But over the last year or so, they have made noticable amounts of improvement in them, one of them being TRIM. You can even get SLC NAND cells that perform even faster and last longer, but they are a whole lot more expensive (you have NO idea). MLC NAND cells are of course more common, but SSD's are overall noticablly more costly per GB compared to HDD's. For the price reason, I have decided completely against getting a SSD for my laptop. Just to hold a basic 80GB would be expensive for me.

Although it will be great for loading those 18MP shots into photoshop (memory), what you could end up with is limited storage space to hold them all in, especially if you take a lot of photos. You are pretty much choosing between either storage capacity, or performance/price.


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## chupacabra31 (Jan 2, 2009)

Jay_JWLH said:


> Unless you have a specific reason for it, like hosting a virtual machine, you have already hit a massive amount of diminishing return in the RAM from 4GB onwards. Using photoshop could be one such advantage.
> 
> The performance improvement of SSD over a HDD is certainly noticable. Because of their lack in moving parts, they have a consistant (and much lower) amount of time in which they can access and write data, are durable, and consume less power. Performance wise, I think they push the bandwidth of SATA2. But over the last year or so, they have made noticable amounts of improvement in them, one of them being TRIM. You can even get SLC NAND cells that perform even faster and last longer, but they are a whole lot more expensive (you have NO idea). MLC NAND cells are of course more common, but SSD's are overall noticablly more costly per GB compared to HDD's. For the price reason, I have decided completely against getting a SSD for my laptop. Just to hold a basic 80GB would be expensive for me.
> 
> Although it will be great for loading those 18MP shots into photoshop (memory), what you could end up with is limited storage space to hold them all in, especially if you take a lot of photos. You are pretty much choosing between either storage capacity, or performance/price.


My plan was to store all my photos off site (which I do now anyway) on 2 separate 2 terabyte raid 1 backup drives. 1 of which is the Guardian maximus from OWC and a WD my book studio edition II.

I just want better performance with photoshop, was my hopes with getting the SSD. From what I have read it indicates that I will see better performance from the drive vs. ram as far as upgrades go.

I know having a desktop would give me the best performance, but unfortunately that is not in the cards for now.

I use my laptop full time and is my only comp for now.


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## Jay_JWLH (Apr 30, 2008)

I'd say a SSD would be of benefit to you then.


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## acekaroo (Aug 1, 2011)

Was deciding between more than 4G RAM and SSD. Bought SSD. Best move ever made! Faster than light. From off to full on 10 seconds, no lag on anything, no heat on lap. Family has MacBooks with 4G RAM, mine is so much faster for everything, I can't imagine that more ...only 50% more..RAM could do same. I don't know if SSD is as fast as RAM, but logic would say it is close.

The reason I found this thread is that I am looking to get a larger SSD, should have done that with purchase, but didn't want to spend money. Now I want larger 256G and will swap out old SSD to MacBook.


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