Need new HD for Macbook, advice?

[Scott R]

Originally Posted by RWebb

yeh, but I bought a mac mini and it's sluggish...

Sluggish how?

[k9handler]

perfect time to go SSD...it will speed up the machine, only down side is the storage capacity limitations. Also get the device to clone a drive, worth it.

[techweenie]

SSD is a great idea. OWC has kits for Mac.

OWC Solid State Drives For Mac Desktops & Laptops

[azasadny]

I've had great experience with my Intel 330 120GB drive and my Samsung 830 128GB drive. Both come with software to "clone" the existing disk but I chose to do a fresh install. Most people have hard drives smaller than that and if you want to archive photos, videos and music, you really should use an external hard drive for that and for backup, too!

[azasadny]

Most devices are held back by the hard drive as that's almost always the slowest component in a PC. The SSD's are so fast (almost as fast as RAM) that the entire PC will be running better than it ever has before! I'm not familiar with Macs, but in the PC world, SSD's are definitely the way to go!

[RWebb]

Scott, the mac mini seems sluggish in terms of opening applications and just in general - oddly, it seems slower for several minutes or a half hour maybe after I first start using it

the leisurely way it opens windows and menus is notable also

it is about 4 months old and I got extra memory for it at purchase; 2.3 GHz icore 5; 750 Gbyte HDD; 4 Gbyte RAM (1333 MHz DDR)

I was using a 3+ GHz AMD Win 7 machine before switching...

[widgeon13]

I would think that would be pretty snappy.

[speeder]

Originally Posted by RWebb

Scott, the mac mini seems sluggish in terms of opening applications and just in general - oddly, it seems slower for several minutes or a half hour maybe after I first start using it

the leisurely way it opens windows and menus is notable also

it is about 4 months old and I got extra memory for it at purchase; 2.3 GHz icore 5; 750 Gbyte HDD; 4 Gbyte RAM (1333 MHz DDR)

I was using a 3+ GHz AMD Win 7 machine before switching...

Originally Posted by widgeon13

I would think that would be pretty snappy.

Yep. Might want to take into the Genius Bar at an Apple store for a free tune-up. Maybe something isn't configured right(?)

[RWebb]

The Finder is definitely slow & sluggish for the first few minutes after I wake up and start using the Mcmini computer - note the screen wakes up in a few seconds. I'd think the HDD would spin up pretty fast also.

Maybe there is some buffer that needs to get reloaded or something.?? I've heard that OSex 10 is Eunuchs based, so who knows...

ok, same thing with Chrome...

[speeder]

Originally Posted by Scott R

Also best of both worlds now, HDD reliability and SSD functionality with HDD prices.

Hybrid drives

Amazon.com: Seagate Momentus XT 500 GB 2.5 Inch Solid State Hybrid Drive ST95005620AS: Electronics

Some of the new hybrid drives have better benchmarks than some SSD's, and the run cooler.

Just ordered this, can't wait to install it. Thanks!

[motion]

I installed my new OCZ 6GBS 512GB SSD. Wow!!!

[speeder]

I got the new hybrid HD from Amazon and installed it, this computer is a freaking rocket now. How does the HD make it so much faster on the internet? The second I click anything now, the page completely loads even if it has a lot of photos, etc...

[slodave]

When you bring up a web page, it has to download all the images and write them to the HD. If you increase the write speed, the Internet will be faster to an extent. One of the biggest bottle necks in performance is the HD. The rest of the computer can is basically waiting on the HD.

[speeder]

Makes sense. Thanks.

[slodave]

I'm thinking that these hybrid drives are good for general computer users. The specs on that above drive say that it stores the most accessed data is stored on the 4 Gig SSD. I'm not sure how that would help someone like my dad and his photography.

[widgeon13]

Originally Posted by speeder

I got the new hybrid HD from Amazon and installed it, this computer is a freaking rocket now. How does the HD make it so much faster on the internet? The second I click anything now, the page completely loads even if it has a lot of photos, etc...

How challenging was the actual installation. I'm still struggling with whether to get a new computer Apple 15" MBP or replace the drive in my current late 2007 MBP. I only have 120 gb of storage and I'm down to less that 30 gb right now. I run ML and can't upgrade to the next OS iteration if I don't buy a new machine. It was right on the cusp for this machine but it still works very well and Apple replaced the graphics card free of change when it failed about a year ago so would really like to get some additional life out of it. I think I could get a larger SSD for a couple hundred bucks and get some speed improvement as well.

[azasadny]

I'm not at all familiar with Macs, or I would help, but search on Google and see if an SSD is an option for you. I haven't played with the hybrid drives yet, but they may be a good solution. I have olny installed 2 SSD's in my own PC's and they made a huge difference in the performance of the PC's, for general use, not "specialty use", like photo or video work. I don't do photo/video work, so I can't speak to that as Dave here can. All I know is that everything I do on the 2 PC's is much, much faster than it was with traditional hard drives (7200rpm Western Digital Caviar Black hard drives with 64MB of cache were the drives that were replaced).