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MBP 13" SSD Advice

post #1 of 3
7/26/10 at 5:02am
Thread Starter 
I'm about to buy a new MBP 13" (Apr 2010), but am holding off until I get some proper info on the SSD options.

I've been watching this thread on garbage collection/TRIM/degradation etc and plenty of others on swapping out a HDD for an Intel SSD. I'm not confident enough (or bothered) to swap out a HDD myself, so I would prefer Apple's off the shelf SSD option.

Can anyone confirm what model 128Gb SSD Apple are shipping in the 13" MBPs? If the OEM SSD are Toshiba is that good? I asked Apple sales chat and they haven't a clue.

Do I need to worry about SSD degradation?
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post #2 of 3
7/26/10 at 9:42am
I've been doing similar research. Check out the OWC Mercury line of SSDs; I am planning on getting the 120GB Extreme Pro in the next week or so, to put into either an i5 15" MPB or an i5 17" MPB (still haven't decided on that part yet!).

I settled on the OWC partly due to longstanding experience dealing with OWC as a happy customer (mostly just for RAM for Macs, over the period of 5 or 6 years and around 10 Macs), but MAINLY due to all the impressive benchmarks that have been published on the OWC vs all the other SSDs out there. Look at Anandtech for one, and Mac Performance Guide for another, plus there are other reviews out there. The performance and complete lack of degradation of the OWC just seems, well, otherworldly compared to all the others.

* I have no affiliation of any sort with OWC other than as a happy customer! Been lurking here since 2004 or so; just never posted until now.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2948
http://macperformanceguide.com/SSD-RealWorld.html
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post #3 of 3
7/26/10 at 9:50am
Oh, and in reply to your actual question, which I just realized I never addressed, I hear that the Apple SSDs do not necessarily stay the same over the months as far as manufacturer.

And as for swapping out a disk, I've never done it on a unibody MPB but have watched videos and it looks easy, even though it is not as quick as doing so on an original polycarbonate MacBook. I'd guess it's a 15 minute swap, at most, other than reinstalling or cloning everything.

Plus if you swap it out yourself, you'll get a "free" 250GB 2.5" backup disk, you'll have more say in what SSD you get, and you'll end up spending less than you would to upgrade to an SSD through Apple.
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