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Ask HN: Is an SSD worth an upgrade for the 2011 MBPs?

8 points by joshzayin ↗ HN
There were some threads on this several months ago, but I think the state of SSD cost/technology has changed significantly since then, so I figured I'd ask the question again.

I'm thinking of purchasing a new 15" MBP (2.2 GHz), and upgrading it to a 256 GB SSD. Apple charges $500 for the upgrade, and the cheapest I found on Newegg was still $450. Is it worth it to do the upgrade? Will I get significant performance gains over an HDD? Does the fact that SSDs have a limited number of reads/writes have a significant effect in real-world use? If so, what optimizations can I do to minimize the effect that they have?

16 comments

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willstrimling
I'd say yes, I have the 15" you are thinking about. The SSD I have is drastically better than my former HDD, and I don't think I could ever go back. I have an 128gb limit on the SSD, with the addition of an external firwire harddrive. If you're not looking to spend $500, maybe get a smaller, 128gb ssd for applications and OS, and then when a thunderbolt external/portable HDD comes out, you can store files on that. Hope that helps. If anything, I believe you cannot go wrong with any size SSD.
Shooter
Have you experienced the "lock-up/freeze under load" issue that some have had with these models? I'm getting ready to buy a new MBP, but that scared me a bit. Some said the latest software update fixed it, but many others are still having problems.

I'm looking at the SSD kits from MacSales/OWC, but I don't want to give up the optical drive. And I know very little about SSDs...

wmf
It's totally worth it; everything just feels so much smoother. If you can live with 160 GB you can get down to ~$300. The reliability is not an issue.
meemo
The first question is very flawed. Nobody can answer how much something is worth to you.
geuis
With the way prices and capacity are dropping, you might consider just getting the laptop now and the SSD later. Within a few months, the capacity per dollar for SSD's will come down even more, so you can spend less and get more than what you'll get from Apple.
ksuther
Last summer I purchased a 240GB Vertex 2 for about $600 for my early 2008 MacBook Pro. It turned a machine that I was starting to feel the age of into a completely new machine. When I upgraded to a new MBP last month, the old machine with the SSD still felt more responsive than the new one out of the box. Even considering that the same drive today is $200 less, having the insane speed for 10 months was well worth it.

If I were buying an SSD new, I'd still go with a third-party drive over the drives Apple ships. The only downside is it looks like 10.7 might bring TRIM support to the stock drives they ship while leaving third-party drives out in the cold. Performing the actual upgrade is really quick, you just unscrew the bottom and pop out the old drive. Just make sure you have the right size Torx driver.

I can't imagine ever being subjected to an HDD again.

celalo
I have a 2.0Ghz MBP 2011 sith stock SSD 128GB. It has been a month since I bought and I have never seen the hourglass. The only downside is the suicidal feeling when you try to use another computer.
codenerdz
Definitely buy an aftermarket SSD. Stay away from Crucial C300 for now as they seem to have problems with 2011 i5/i7 macbooks(may have been fixed in latest firmware, but was a problem up untill recently). 2011 macbook pro has a sata3 controller, so you might as well aim for a sata 3 SSD. Sandforce controllers are still tough to beat and if you can afforce Vertex 3, go for it. Another thing is that a fellow from Macrumor has hacked the TRIM support for osx, so its now enabled on non-apple drives as well:

http://www.groths.org/?page_id=322

daimyoyo
You have to define "worth" before you can answer this. For me, I chose to get the MBP with the standard hard drive because it offered so much more storage. My computer has 2X the storage yours does and while I admit that there is a noticeable performance difference, the advantage of faster loading isn't worth the storage capacity I'd be sacrificing. IMHO the storage capacity you'd give up isn't worth the additional investment. But again, that's just me.
JoachimSchipper
The limited number of reads and writes is not a problem for a laptop. You're not putting a million-transactions-per-second database on it! If you don't believe me, try to find a "worn-out" USB flash drive.

You will love the performance of an SSD. You may want to consider a "smaller"/older model, though - they are quite a bit cheaper.

davito88
SSDs are sweet. I just got a 13" MBP 2.7Ghz w/ a 128GB SSD. It's a screaming machine. Everything works instantly and it makes my older 2.4 Ghz MBP look like a sloth. In my opinion it's totally worth it. I spend a lot of time on a computer.

However, if you want a bigger drive than 128GB, I'd get a hybrid drive. You can get a 500GB hybrid drive for around $100. You get lots of space and I've heard they get around 80% of the performance gain of an SSD.

Enjoy the new laptop!

randquestion
do you use that as your primary machine ? i have a 15in and and considering going to a smaller screen size, but am not really sure. would love to hear your thoughts
eklovlfjkeos
I have the low-end (cheapest) 11" MacBook Air with a 64 GB SSD, and it's probably the fastest computer I've ever owned due to the SSD. Boot-up time is 14 seconds, and applications start really fast.
pstinnett
Putting in a vote for "yes". I use a 2010 Core i5 15" MBP. I upgraded the internal drives by replacing the optical drive with a 120GB SSD and the internal drive with a 1TB Western Digital. The SSD acts as my boot drive and runs my OS and holds the "working files" that I'm using, along with any apps I run. The 1TB drive holds media (video, music, photos) and archived projects. Works great and it's a huge speed boost. Way more noticeable for me than switching from 4GB to 8GB RAM.