<p>I am going to buy a 13" Macbook Pro and my bro suggested I get SSD. He said if I drop my laptop the SATA would have a chance of losing all the stuff on my drive, while an SSD wouldn't. Is it worth the extra $200 and 372GB less of hard drive space?</p>
<p>I would mainly use laptop for Word Processing, SpreadSheets, Movies, Music, etc. No serious gaming involved.</p>
<p>SATA is just the means by which your computer connects to your hard drive, be it a hard disk drive or solid state (SSD). For most people, a regular HDD would be fine. You can make regular back ups of everything on your pc using time machine so you shouldn’t really have to worry that much if you drop it. SSDs are really nice, but they’re still pretty expensive for what you get and the obvious lack of storage space doesn’t help any. SSDs are much faster to boot and i’ve heard they can help with battery life since there’s no moving parts. Its up to you, but most people just get the regular hard drive and enjoy the extra space and extra cash they save.</p>
<p>SSD’s actually take more power (less when accessing data, but more at idle) The primary way a SSD can save battery is if you power-down when it’s not in use, the fast start up makes this a reasonable option. But for most people it’s a novelty, that’s not worth the money.</p>
<p>Thanks, I meant HDD, but kept seeing SATA everywhere and it confused me :(. Anyway thanks for the information, think I’ll save the extra $ and stick with HDD</p>
<p>Well I guess the OP has made up his/her mind but nonetheless… SSD save power. They do not take up more power than a hard drive spinning at 7200 rotation per minute.</p>
<p>Not only has this been benchmarked but it’s common sense.</p>
<p>As for reliability, SSDs are more reliable than HDD due to the fact that there are no moving parts. However, they are bleeding edge and firmware wise, they have tendency to not work properly. (Except the Intel 320 of course…)</p>
<p>Overall, let me put it this way. Compared to RAM/CPU/etc, the biggest improvement you could possibly make on an Macbook Pro is getting an SSD. Anyone who has ever used an SSD and an HDD knows that the difference is unbelievable. (Trust me, I have one) Now the capacity issue, that’s an excellent point.</p>
<p>What I’ve done is that I have a 120GB SSD (OWC) in my main hard drive bay and a 500GB HDD in my optical bay. I really have no use for a CD drive these days…</p>
<p>EDIT: Price wise. I would never buy the stock Apple SSD unless I was buying it for $100 from the 15". Overpriced for the performance.</p>
<p>SATA, unless you have the money to spend. SSD is not quite worth it (utility vs money) yet, imho.</p>
<p>Solid State Drives at this point are much smaller (in terms of capacity) / much more expensive. Currently I don’t think it’s worth it. They are relatively new (several years old), so in another 3-5 years prices should come down dramatically to where they are worth using.</p>
<p>MrWheezy,</p>
<p>This is a getting a little dated (as am I), have you seen a more recent test?
[The</a> SSD Power Consumption Hoax : Flash SSDs Don?t Improve Your Notebook Battery Runtime ? they Reduce It](<a href=“http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-hdd-battery,1955.html]The”>The SSD Power Consumption Hoax | Tom's Hardware)</p>
<p>The article is from 2008 :S</p>
<p>A modern “recent” article from the same review site (2010):
[SSD</a> 102: The Ins And Outs Of Solid State Storage : A Dive Into The SSD World](<a href=“http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/flash-ssd-nand,2741.html]SSD”>SSD 102: The Ins And Outs Of Solid State Storage | Tom's Hardware)</p>
<p>But to quote hard benchmarks from Storagereview.com
-Vertex 240GB Max IOPS and Intel 320 300GB, both drives which are extremely popular to many users draw less power than WD Velociraptor. Well a Velociraptor is an enterprise grade HDD with 10000RPM, but both SSDs take up less power than the 500GB WD Caviar Black, which leads in power consumption per performance.</p>
<p>(scroll to bottom)
[OCZ</a> Vertex 3 Max IOPS SSD Review (240GB) | StorageReview.com](<a href=“http://www.storagereview.com/ocz_vertex_3_max_iops_ssd_review_240gb]OCZ”>OCZ Vertex 3 Max IOPS SSD Review (240GB) - StorageReview.com)
[Intel</a> SSD 320 Review (300GB) | StorageReview.com](<a href=“http://www.storagereview.com/intel_ssd_320_review_300gb]Intel”>Intel SSD 320 Review (300GB) - StorageReview.com)
[Western</a> Digital VelociRaptor Review (600GB WD6000HLHX) | StorageReview.com](<a href=“http://www.storagereview.com/western_digital_velociraptor_review]Western”>Western Digital VelociRaptor Review (600GB WD6000HLHX) - StorageReview.com)
[Western</a> Digital Scorpio Black 500GB Review (WD5000BEKT) | StorageReview.com](<a href=“http://www.storagereview.com/western_digital_scorpio_black_500gb_review_wd5000bekt]Western”>Western Digital Scorpio Black 500GB Review (WD5000BEKT) - StorageReview.com)</p>
<p>I personally think if you (the OP with a Mac) have the money and technological means, investing in a 120GB SSD from either Intel or OWC will show incredible amount of increase in performance. A lot of my friends who use MB Airs and my Pro (w/o SSD) state that their Airs are faster than my MBP. Why? It’s the SSD. As for capacity, I’d say get an external or an addition HDD in your computer.</p>
<p>I’m not trying to put to fine a point on this - but comparing a 10K drive for laptop usage seems odd, I have my laptops set to park the drive after 15 min. and with a laptop drive like the Western Digital(below), its going to be pretty close or better than the OCZ SSD on battery draw. Speed wise, no argument the SSD wins. Price is a different matter;
The HDD is 750 Gig for $90
The SSD is 120 Gig for $310</p>
<p>[Western</a> Digital Scorpio Blue Review (750GB WD7500BPVT) | StorageReview.com](<a href=“http://www.storagereview.com/western_digital_scorpio_blue_review_750gb_wd7500bpvt]Western”>Western Digital Scorpio Blue Review (750GB WD7500BPVT) - StorageReview.com)</p>
<p>[OCZ</a> Vertex 3 Max IOPS SSD Review (240GB) | StorageReview.com](<a href=“http://www.storagereview.com/ocz_vertex_3_max_iops_ssd_review_240gb]OCZ”>OCZ Vertex 3 Max IOPS SSD Review (240GB) - StorageReview.com)</p>
<p>Yes but most people don’t set their drives to park every 15 mins.</p>
<p>But people compare 10K drives to SSDs because those 10K drives actually take up less power than the Caviar Blacks and offer the best performance in the HDD division.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, the performance between an HDD and SSD is like night and day. And whether the performance difference is worth it, depends on the person. Oh 120GB drives can be had for $200 for a SATA 3Gbps or for $280 for the top of the line SATA 6Gbps. </p>
<p>Also OCZ drives are a power sucker. I say take a look at the Intel 320, that’s the average or low really. But nonetheless, a few watts really isn’t going to make that big of a difference. Not to mention with an SSD, you don’t have to power the initial startup, it takes less or much less time seeking/reading/writing to the drive. </p>
<p>Really though, most people get an SSD for the performance/reliability. For capacity, I’d go with another internal drive or an external.</p>
<p>For personal usage, if you have to ask about a SSD, you don’t need it. Save the money and get a HDD.</p>
<p>I am very cautious about recommending dual hard drive setups,
I have seen to many laptops that are tapped out by an owner that
has stored entire TV series, multiple copies of iTunes folders, etc…
on their HDD. Where a dual drive set up is great for someone who is
careful to only install programs on the boot-drive, and is careful to delete
unused programs, It’s not so great for most average users who never uninstalls anything, and allow all programs to install at default setting - etc…</p>
<p>A single big HDD and lots of RAM in a power efficient laptop is best choice for
average users.</p>
<p>^SSDs are especially more beneficial to those who are careless to uninstall and such/never do a defrag as with TRIM their performance does not degrade.</p>
<p>My stance is that SSDs have reached the point where they are worth the money as a very serious upgrade for those who have a budget beyond the initial price of the models they’re looking at. However, smaller sized SSDs are preferable since their biggest performance difference is with programs, not with media (which HDDs dont really have issues with, even 1080p playback through USB 2.0)</p>
<p>I think the fine line is this: everyone is going to see performance boost from using an SSD for programs, while other aspects (RAM, CPU power, etc.) depend on the person. However, a storage drive is still important to have.</p>
<p>SSD is more faster but less space but more expensive.
HDD is less faster but more space but life expectancy is lower.</p>
<p>Most people just do SSD for OS bootup and HDD for data storage.
If you can’t get both, just get a HDD and deal with it.
OR
get a SDD for laptop and a external HDD for storage.</p>
<p>You made a good choice choosing normal HDD.</p>
<p>SSD is not worth it just for college. Maybe if you had a job requiring computing power or a CEO…</p>
<p>For your needs (and 90% of all people) SSD is overkill.</p>
<p>SSD all the way, although it’s more expensive and comes with less memory than a SATA drive, it runs much faster and is less likely to corrupt or become damaged.</p>
<p>An HDD is actually more likely to corrupt due to the fact that the platters could be damaged with vibration and exposure to magnetic fields.</p>
<p>Honestly, unless you are technologically savvy, go with the SSD. Save yourself the headache because an SSD needs a lot of care and knowledge (being careful about writing unnecessary files, TRIM support, etc). But for tech junkies like me, I love my SSD 
It’s blazingly fast. My Adobe Photoshop CS4 installation only took a few seconds. Plus, I like to be on the bleeding edge.</p>
<p>(But the 120GB SSD from Apple for only $100 more [if you get the 15"] is seriously an amazing deal)</p>
<p>^ I think you meant “go with the HDD”
typo?</p>
<p>^ Yes haha.</p>
<p>Go with the HDD. Especially as a Mac user doesn’t need defrag and etc, maintaining an HDD is extremely easy. It’s just when you pass it to some one else or move it around while it’s running you get goosebumps.</p>