what is better .. a solid state drive or a hard drive?
im planning on getting a macbook pro & im going into the business program

Solid states are better but much more expensive.

Originally Posted by Teresa123

what is better .. a solid state drive or a hard drive?
im planning on getting a macbook pro & im going into the business program

Make sure if you do buy a solid state drive, you buy one yourself, and install it. Don't custom order it that way. You'll save a lot of money, not to mention time, that way.

Originally Posted by Teresa123

what is better .. a solid state drive or a hard drive?
im planning on getting a macbook pro & im going into the business program

The solid State Drives give you speed boost almoust 5-10 times that of a normal hard drive.
SSD's dont have internal parts so its more durable and will last longer.

That being said your gonna be paying a premium for them. If im right in order to get 512GB hd on your macbook will cost you more than 1000$

Like the above poster said you can install it yourself and save money.

256GB SSD online from newegg --> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc... E16820233085

EDIT : Link on how to do it --> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBbvRHS8TJA (updated link?) Thks reeves

If you wanted you could get a Macbook with a normal Hard Drive and remove the cd drive and replace it with a smaller SSD. That way your operating system would run of the SSD and you could use the hard drive as storage. (I believe this is still possible on the unibody ones.

-Rioch

Originally Posted by Crzyrio

Link on how to do it --> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8HnEUzsTS4

Thats not how it's done on Macbook Pros anymore.

I'm not particularly well versed with Macs, but with my experience with SSDs what they improve most are boot times and search times.

Assuming macs auto-index like Windows 7 PCs, search times will be so short that any improvements would be negligible. In which case, boot times should be the only thing that matter and Macs have solid enough battery life to be put into sleep anytime they're not in use without jeopardizing usability so boot times would be a non-issue anyway. Everyday computing performance isn't improved anywhere enough to justify the price of an SSD. Just pick up a 7200RPM HDD and enjoy having 40x the Drive capacity than you would with a similarly priced SSD.

Originally Posted by Tailsnake

with my experience with SSDs what they improve most are boot times and search times.

The bigest difference though is that SSD doest not use a needle over a magnetic plate as an HDD would use and because of this it greatly decreases the rate of failure and data loss making an SSD an option for people who are very concerned about any chance of failure. but this option is expensive and my self i have 2 computers and neither HDD have failed as well as 2 external HDD's a 500gb and a 1tb and those havent failed either so its just a matter of taking care of them and buying a good product.

SSD.

6char.

Don't waste any further unnecessary money on a ssd on a mac. As a fellow business student, I can assure you, you will not need it. The mac is gona cost you a fortune, boot times are already fast enough on macOS, and its not like you can game much on it either to justify it.

Yes i agree ssd is currently not worth the price your paying. Espically for everyday use.

Actually, SSD's are worth the price, if you use your computer a lot.

You will be big differences in performance, guarunteed.

Originally Posted by blackdragon

Actually, SSD's are worth the price, if you use your computer a lot.

You will be big differences in performance, guarunteed.

That "a lot" of use will also cause deterioration of the SSD, unless coupled with a HDD for large file transfers. While I agree that it will generally make a difference in performance, it will not help him much as a business student. As well the main benefits of SSD is more or less negated by the fact that it is a mac plus she's a student.

Originally Posted by recyclebin12

That "a lot" of use will also cause deterioration of the SSD, unless coupled with a HDD for large file transfers. While I agree that it will generally make a difference in performance, it will not help him much as a business student. As well the main benefits of SSD is more or less negated by the fact that it is a mac plus she's a student.

Um, not really. The whole POINT of SSD's is for longer lasting due to no moving parts.

on macs trim is not available and as the SSD becomes fuller it will slow down significantly. I dont recconmend it if your getting a mac. You should look at the Seagate Hybrid SSD drive, it consists of 500GB of normal hard drive storage and 4gb of flash for your most used programs and your boot registries.

That is what I meant by deterioration, not longevity wise, but performance wise. To my knowledge, TRIM is only on win7, not sure about vista but prob not.