Just upgrade my mbp with 8gb of ram from OWC.

review: you can do a lot of multitasking but reboot and shutdown time is the same with my 4gb.

tips: dont buy cheap screwdriver(<RM10), you will be using it only once.

my reboot and shutdown time improved a lot after 8GB upgrade

btw bry7 anyone on lowyat net selling kvr ram for 69 as u mentioned ?

i planned on getting as well for my friend . I already got the kta and coming

plenty of shop in LYP and Digital Mall selling around that price. KVR & Mushkin.

This post has been edited by teikwing: Sep 7 2011, 09:45 PM

i saw a corsair one for RM69 but i can't locate the thread.
that is also compatible with Mac.
anyway i think the price for KVR at DM/LYP dropped.
i got mine from jayacom.

In my experience, upgrading RAM from 4GB to 8GB doesn't make your Mac faster or slower, just better able to handle a lot of programs in memory. For example, running iMovie eats up a lot of Ram until there is less than 100MB available, which slows things down when I want to do something else while waiting.

But because RAM is dirt cheap these days, just go and upgrade to 8GB anyway. A pair of Corsair 4GB DDR3 cost about RM136 ringgit yesterday at Lowyat and compatibility has never been a problem when talking about RAM. Apple's very own manuals don't say you need Apple specific RAM, they just gave out a general spec RAM. Heck, everything that comes out of the Mac is made by Samsung anyway, a standard CL9 RAM.

But if you really want performance, then your answer is SSD. My Pro 13" 2011 boot times, sucked. Performance sucked also while on Lion largely because of the insistence of the OS to load everything back up when I booted in. On average, the boot time is between 30-40 seconds at least.

And then the annoying icon bounce as it tries to load itself. Because of the full screen swiping and all, the annoying bounce delay is even more annoying.

Now, a bit of a disclaimer. I am also a reseller for Intel, so it makes sense for me to promo SSD here. (Help out some more la, huh?). But that doesn't mean I don't look for value and performance. So here is a bit of a research that I did based on my own observations and tests, and my answer to some of the questions that my customer have asked.

Q1 : Sata 2 or Sata 3

I had played around with OCZ's Vertex 2 before, some lucky forum member here got the unit I used from me. the 240GB OZC uses a Sata II, and to be honest, I wasn't really impressed with the speed. I don't feel that there is much of a difference between the 240GB and my HDD to be honest.

Now, if you are talking abut SATA III, things are a little different. Test have shown that some SSD are actually capable of shoving close to 400mb per second down the SATA channel, so the performance are noticeable.
My Pro boots up less than 10 seconds. How's that for speed?


Q2: Sandforce vs Intel (or Marvell)

Intel 320 series are good SSD, if you want space. Speed? The 510. Then again you should consider Sandforce if you want more speed. Reliability is a question though, but most people having problems with the BSOD Sandforce bugs are not using Macs to maybe you'll luck out as I did.

Reliability is another question, and for me, all things being what it is, I think its about equal for all manufacturers. Intel got showstopper bugs, Sandforce also got showstopper bugs. Your luck may vary, so maybe we do need some of of registry on what SSD works with what Mac.

Q3: What Are You Using?

Kingston HyperX. Now, on this I got a pretty good deal actually. And the performance is not something to sneeze at either. OCZ may be known as the Mac of SSD, since its pretty much the same controller, but priced higher.







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@ fitri - have you had your ssd filled up to around 80% of it's capacity yet? curious to see how well lion's garbage collection performs.

Hi. Anyone have tried to upgrade their MacBook Pro Unibody HDD to Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid HDD? Is it compatible with it? <-- Ok ignore this. Just search and found the feedback. Hehe.

The MacBook Pro I plan to upgrade still under warranty with Apple, will it void the entire warranty when I take out the original HDD and replaced it with a new one?

This post has been edited by sixfooter: Sep 8 2011, 12:03 PM

@ six footer nope, HDD is a user removable upgrade. just make sure not to scratch / damage anything when upgrading.

if you're worried about DIY, I'm sure some of us here don't mind doing it for you, just buy us dinner

Oh cool. So after upgrade I can still buy AppleCare?

---

Added on September 8, 2011, 2:15 pmI prefer to DIY

This post has been edited by sixfooter: Sep 8 2011, 02:15 PM

at first im also scare to change my stock 500GB 5400 RPM to HDD. But when im talk to someone in VR Tech in Ampang Park they said we can upgrade the SSD and warranty not void. The only thing different is they wont cover the SSD if failure. Other is still covered.

sixfooter, so what do you know about the momentus xt? Will it be a viable upgrade? I've replaced my (now) mid-MBP2010 HD from the standard 250GB 5400rpm to 500GB 7200rpm .. I didn't know that it vibrates that much (my wife was using it all this while until last week).. now I know how bad it vibrates.
anyway, didn't get any reply on my question on the crucial 8GB dual channel SODIMM, so, bought it anyway.. hopefully will get it either tomorrow or saturday and will see if it works with the MBP2010.

wiraone, im also feel the vibrate on my old mbp 13inch 2011 after upgrade to Seagate Momentus 500GB 7200RPM and temperature a bit high.

Oh it don't sounds good now. I thought it suppose to spin lesser than the conventional HDD.

How about the battery life difference and also the performance on booting up and shutting down the Mac? Got difference?

booting up a bit fast and performance is good. For batt im not so sure because im already sell it after upgrade.

Trim performance under Mac OS X, is for a lack of a better word, garbage. Basically, the system doesn't actually support TRIM, so garbage collection is full under the Sandforce chipset's control. Won't know until a few days if what I am doing now (a lot of video encoding/editing would effect the performance.)

Did you get one of those Black drives from WD? Don't. Can't see much performance benefit from them, in fact the only thing new it introduced would be the annoying "buzz" from spinning too fast.

My take on hybrid is this - Not enough. I mean, yes, you can get moments drives at RM399 in some places now but speeding up about 4GB or files? Sooner or later, you are going to hit the drives anyway, and having it trash itself trying to figure out which files to keep in SSD or the standard drive?

I'd be surprised if the RAM doesn't work.

The vibration is that bad till you have to sell it away? Hmmm...

do keep me updated, as i've been putting off ssd upgrades for any of my mbp due to it's shortcomings when it's almost full.

also i hope you're constantly backing up your data. the horror stories of ssd's failing left and right is simply frightening. the only ssd i currently own is in my windows desktop which only holds the os and core programs.

i bought the momentus xt for my mbp before. for some reason the performance become worse and worse after a few weeks. i got it RMA'd, but the second one also faced similar issue. sold it off n bought a hitachi travelstar 5k500 instead. im probably the only one here with that issue though. i know a few forumers here using the momentus xt without problems

your crucial ram should work some macs do come with the same micron chip that corsair use (well at least they used to, dunno nowadays)

7200rpm... rpm means revolutions per minute. so 7200rpm drive spins more than a 5400rpm drive.

will the faster spinning speed damage the disk quicker?