[woowoodengy]

well for the macbook i would have to get at least a 120gig probably more since i cant live with even 80gig =( but i was wondering if it would make a big enough difference for the macbook to justify the hundreds of dollars to upgrade. i am currently using 225 gigs of 250 on my macbook but can lose around 100 gigs (maybe)

the 40gig or 60 gig is for the shuttle and windows 7

[poofyhairguy]

the 40gig or 60 gig is for the shuttle and windows 7

For the shuttle 40gb is fine.

[zippy]

i'm going for 64gb kingston SSD as better value per GB, but I'll be getting a wireless keyboard with built in mouse for the occasional surfing.

From what i gather, with SSD win7 and linux load on a HTPC really fast

[prae5]

i'm going for 64gb kingston SSD as better value per GB, but I'll be getting a wireless keyboard with built in mouse for the occasional surfing.

From what i gather, with SSD win7 and linux load on a HTPC really fast

openelec.tv loads in about 15-20 seconds from powered down state. XBMCLive was a little longer and windows 7 was longer again.

[darkscout]

well for the macbook i would have to get at least a 120gig probably more since i cant live with even 80gig =( but i was wondering if it would make a big enough difference for the macbook to justify the hundreds of dollars to upgrade. i am currently using 225 gigs of 250 on my macbook but can lose around 100 gigs (maybe)

the 40gig or 60 gig is for the shuttle and windows 7

Or get yourself a Optibay. I think I may use spinning media once, possibly twice a year.

I put a 120GB SSD in place of my original HD. Installed OS X to it.
I then put a 640GB drive in place of my DVD drive. I put /Users on the 640GB. I do have a /Users/darkscout/Library on the SSD then symlinked to /Volumes/640GB/Users/darkscout/Library so that all of my cache, settings, and other stuff is on the SSD.

[woowoodengy]

Or get yourself a Optibay. I think I may use spinning media once, possibly twice a year.

I put a 120GB SSD in place of my original HD. Installed OS X to it.
I then put a 640GB drive in place of my DVD drive. I put /Users on the 640GB. I do have a /Users/darkscout/Library on the SSD then symlinked to /Volumes/640GB/Users/darkscout/Library so that all of my cache, settings, and other stuff is on the SSD.

whats funny is i was looking at this option just before you posted it. this just may be the way to go. does a SSD drive really make a big difference for mac performance. i have a 1st gen macbook (not pro) unibody with 2 gigs ram. i was planning to upgrade to 4 gigs but read that i can go up to 6gigs ram. if i go 4 gigs and an ssd will is be much faster? my mac has been getting sluggish lately

the 60gig vertex 2 just went back down to $129 from newegg. i'm jumping on it for the shuttle =)

[darkscout]

Does a SSD drive really make a big difference for mac performance. i have a 1st gen macbook (not pro) unibody with 2 gigs ram. i was planning to upgrade to 4 gigs but read that i can go up to 6gigs ram. if i go 4 gigs and an ssd will is be much faster?

SSD has been the single best improvement I've made. I can go from cold boot to my desktop in ~5 seconds. It just comes up. It's about equal to the length of time it takes to login now. It's just fast.

It depends on what you use it for if RAM will make a difference. I went to 8GB last year just because when I was batch processing photos (=Lots of RAM), web browsing and the whole OS felt sluggish. Not any more. I can even launch 4 VMs with 1GB each.

[poofyhairguy]

does a SSD drive really make a big difference for mac performance.

Yes, but you have to get the right one with built in file system agnostic garbage collection or the speed quickly goes away due to OSX not having TRIM.

Basically that means as long as you stick to either a OCZ or Intel SSD your Macbook will feel like a whole new machine. Hard drives have been holding back the rest of computers for years now. It is literally a generation gap when you go from HD to SSD.

[Evanrich]

guys, enabling the hardware acceleration for fanart/thumbs makes a HUGE difference in speed of loading images, and openelec.tv reduces load times even further. just need to get an even faster SSD to drop it down to ~10-15 second range that or find a way to speed up bios process.