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Apple Geek Personal Reviews

SSD Hard Drives

Awhile back my MacBook was starting to feel sluggish and I was really tempted to buy a newer model but since I was just using the laptop to get online from the couch or for when I travel, I didn’t think it was worth buying a new laptop. Instead, I decided to upgrade my MacBook from a 2.5inch 5400rpm 250GB hard drive to a 64GB SSD.

What is SSD? SSD stands for solid-state drive and to keep it simple its just a hard drive with no moving parts and is around 5 times faster than regular notebook hard drives. I ordered the ADATA 64GB drive from Amazon since based on my research I found it had the best bang for the buck. I also looked at two other brands before deciding on ADATA which were OCZ Technology and Crucial Technology, both of which have extremely fast performance drives but at a slightly more expensive cost.

I could easily review the drive in just 7 words: “It makes all other computers feel slow”. It cut down the boot time of my MacBook to less than half and it also sped up the launch time of all the applications. For example it now takes 1 second to launch Photoshop while other applications like Safari and Microsoft Word launch practically instantly. No waiting or spinning colored wheel just click and they’re open. The SSD drive not only brought new life to my aging MacBook but for day to day use it made it feel a lot faster than all my other computers including my already very fast iMac and Mac Pro.

I got the 64GB SSD and not something larger because the prices became tooooo expensive with the larger drives. For example a 256GB SSD would cost you around $500 which is nearly half the price of a brand new MacBook! The 64GB drive on the other hand cost me around KD35 with shipping to Kuwait and after installing the OS and ALL my software I still had 40GB of free space left. That’s more than I need since I just use my MacBook to surf the web, edit some pictures and for traveling. If you’re planning on storing media like your photo or music library than I highly doubt 64GB would be enough.

I would definitely recommend everyone pick up an SSD drive if you can, it really makes a HUGE difference. But, if you need a large drive and are not in a rush, the longer you wait the cheaper the prices will get. Here is the Amazon link to the hard drive I got [Link]

34 replies on “SSD Hard Drives”

Do you mean that upgrading my mac and exchanging the hard disk better than buying a new one?

NOTE 1: I use the macbook for internet and iphone – ipad

NOTE 2: The new macbook pro 13″ is between 500 – 600 KWD 😐 I was SHOCKED with the price since it was 400 something last year

It really depends. My MacBook is my “Secondary” computer and not my “Primary”. This means I have a larger and faster computer to do more intensive tasks like photo and video editing. So it really depends on how you use your mac but upgrading your ram and your hard drive to an SSD will bring it back to life.

Now if you use your Macbook for internet like me then yeah upgrade the drive instead of the whole Mac. That’s if its an Intel Mac, if you’re on a G3 or G4 then no I would recommend you upgrade to an intel mac.

its an intel Mac and the upgrades I need are as follows:

1) RAM
2) Hard Disk Drive = i was thinking of a 320 gb hard drive but after what you said i think am staying with the 64 gb SSD
3) OS 10.5 & 10.6

these are simple updates and doesn’t cost alot.

My Computer will be as good as new after these upgrades.

MY MAIN Computer is ACER ASPIRE PREDATOR G7700 😀

I think it’s just too much $$$ for the amount of GB you get. You get great speeds, but it’s at a cost. I upgraded my macbook to a 7200rpm drive and notice a significant boost in speed and that’s good enough for me.

I’ll dive into SSDs when the prices get lower in a couple months/year or two.

Please let us know how your battery has been effected. Most people who switch to SSD say they lose a significant amount of battery life on their laptop.

you sure lose? Most of the reviews I read people either gained battery life or weren’t effected. Supposedly the SSD drives use less power than regular hard drives. My MacBook is always on charge so I haven’t noticed a difference in my battery life and I don’t know how my battery life was before the upgrade either.

yousef the article is dated 2008, thats a gazilion years old when you’re talking electronics. According to the article SSD doesn’t even provide you with a performance increase!

I get this for my Windows laptop
Intel 2.5-Inch 160 GB X25-M Mainstream SATA II MLC Solid State Drive OEM SSDSA2MH160G2C1
which cost me around 299$ now it is around 350$ new
very fast and enough GB for windows 7
I installed the Hybrid drive Seagate Momentus XT 500 GB 7200RPM SATA 3Gb/s 32 MB Cache 2.5 Inch Solid State Hybrid Drive ST95005620AS-Bare Drive
in my son’s macbook pro it is really very fast ,very good price and it was suggested by mac store customer service desk in Toronto last summer
hybrid means mix of small SSD and large 7200 RPS HDD

((Please let us know how your battery has been effected. Most people who switch to SSD say they lose a significant amount of battery life on their laptop.))
the power consumption in laptop will be much less in case of SSD as no moving parts and minimal heat production
if you shift to 7200 conventional HDD definitly you will face big battery drain
my old Panasonic laptop CF-Y7 stay longer on battery after I installed the SSD
by the way Intel SSDs are the best and fastest in reading and comes second to crucial in writing

Article is dated 2008, thats a gazilion years old when you’re talking electronics. According to the article SSD doesn’t even provide you with a performance increase!

Article is about SSD drives. The technology has not changed in 2 years. Everything in article is still applicable today. SSD drives have on and uses full power, and off which uses no power, thats it. Mechanical drives can use varying amounts of power depending on what it needs to read/write so it saves more energy and uses less watts which saves battery.

The SSD drives used in the test, which were $500+ two years ago, are all still being sold today but much cheaper. Still applicable.

Please re-check the link. All tests indicate a huge performance/speed gain with the SSD drives.

Any computer geek like myself would tell you SSD’s are blazing fast, awesome Read/Write results. But the prices are still not worth it with the sizes their offering.

true but if like me you only need 30GB of space than paying 100$ for a 64GB fast drive makes more sense than paying 100$ for a 1TB slow drive for example

Yes for the low sizes I admit, their not too bad in terms of pricing for the performance they offer but the higher sizes, my god what are they thinking. Anyways they should be closer to normal HDD pricing according to most analyst by mid 2012.

I have a 64 bit linux with a 250gb mushkin. though it is fast, the ssds have a particular number of i/0, it would not last for more than 2 years. Either way Mark, the 64 gb was a good choice, the rest of the data could be from the external hdd

Not sure what you mean they don’t last for more than 2 years since I haven’t read a single review that says that. If you’re talking about the performance degrading that got solved with TRIM.

qeight is right, they do have a limited amount of I/O but consider that only if you write and delete alot of data.

Nice choice there mark, I personally prefer mushkin SSD’s but nice read/write speeds on the AData SSD too, considering it is equipped with a sandforce processor.

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