Alright, I've come to a bit of an impasse regarding my budget for a new computer and I was wondering if I might get some help from the rest of the folks here.

If you know me by any means, then you know I'm an Apple geek. Love the OS, enjoy the hardware even if people argue that it's overpriced*; so I'm by choice locked into that particular vender. Currently planning on making my purchase in late May/early June when Apple's historically launched the back to school deal, thus getting me a free iPod.

*Personally, I don't think it's overpriced, in that, you get what you paid for. Apple the software and OS is rather cheap compared to the Windows counterpart, so where does Apple get the money to offset that loss? Oh wait. The hardware is more expensive. Mind games and marketing.

So here's what I'm going to be buying, Apple updated the Pro laptops this past week. I'm aiming for the introductory 15" model. I do more graphic work then anything else, so the processor is irrelevant. 4gigs of ram is a pleasant upgrade from my iMac's 2.5gigs, (And 8 gigs of ram is prohibitively expensive. Not to mention I doubt I could even use 8 gigs at this point in time.)

So my last point of concern is HD space. The default 320gigs isn't bad, per-say. But if I'm planning on retiring my iMac with the 1TB HD, I'm going to need a setup with more then 500 gigs of disk space. I don't necessarily need the full 1TB on my laptop but I'd need something comparative.

So here's where you folks come in, here are some of the configurations I'm debating for my MacBook Pro.

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Config 1: 1TB 12.5mm HD - $180

Western Digital recently put out a new 1TB HD, which is great when you think about it; a one terabyte drive for a terabyte drive. But nothing's ever that simple. The drive, while it will fit in the model I'm looking at, is not quite standard when it comes to drive sizes. It's a bit taller, and is a bit abnormal for a laptop drive in that it has 3 platters in it (Which explains why it needed the extra height). But more platters in a HDD while it does mean more disk space, it also less appealingly means higher latency. I'm not particularly concerned with running the latest and greatest, but I do like my products to run efficiently. Also, because the drive is a bit taller, it may have an adverse effect on internal air flow. I'm not saying I'm expecting this thing to heat up and explode on me, but it's something to keep in mind at the back of my head.

But, for $180, it's not a bad deal, at least considering my other ideas...

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Config 2: 2 500gig HDDs - $250,$175

I don't know about you, but I can't really remember the last time I used my computer's Optical Drive regularly. I mean, sure a DVD here, a software install there, but that may account for like 4 uses per year? Not worth keeping around.

Thus with with the help of a replacement caddy for the default optical drive, I can fit in 2 standard sized laptop HDs. This'll be able to match what I have in my partition table, except actually being two units instead of one on my iMac. People who have done this configuration report a 20 minute shorter lifespan on the battery between charges, but Apple's batteries are quite well in terms of capacity, so I'm not concerned on that front.

The things to consider with this configuration are the comparative cost, all together $250. I could shave off an extra $75 if I were to use the factory 320 gig drive. Thus setting me back to $175. Not really a huge savings over the 1TB configuration; and now in the event that I do want to use a CD or DVD I have to plug in a perpetual (Included in the cost of the caddy). So it's an extra hassle not present in Config 1. Not an omni-present hassle. But one none the less.

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Config 3: 128gig SSD + 500gig HDD - $445

Here's a configuration that gets real pricy real quick but has a few strange benefits.

Flash memory currently is expensive. My personal theory is that it's less due to manufacturing and more about protecting the HDD gravy train, meanwhile charging healthy premiums for the Flash based SSDs. But that's another discussion.

The advantage of flash based memory is durability. Shake it, hit it with a bat, throw it out a building, your data is safe. Very much not the same case with disk based HDDs. (HDDs do have some things going for them that helps protect their contents, such as sudden motion detectors, which will stop the spindle and disk from moving in anticipation of shock damage.) Considering I may have my laptop in my back basket while biking to and from work, this is something to consider at least.

Also, SSDs are ridiculously fast, output little heat. If I were to do this configuration, I may set my computer so my personal files (Frequently backed up of course) were on the HDD, and the system files on the SSD, thus a best of both worlds. Impressive speed where it counts, high capacity for storage.

The REAL problem with this setup is cost. I still need a caddy as with Config 2, plus SSDs are prohibitively expensive. So all together I'd be looking at $445, and that's at a significantly less capacity then the previous two solutions.

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So yes, that's what I think I'm considering right now. If you've got any advice or alternatives to what I'm proposing then by all means.

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Let me say this for all of us.

We didn't understand a word of that.
Even though I have more experience with a Mac than a PC, you just made me confused.

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flip a coin

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Lol, none of you are very helpful at all.

....

My personal suggestion is to go with Option 2 for a few reasons but even then, it doesn't sound like the best deal. My reasons are simple.

Option 1 - There have been a lot of complaints regarding Western Digital's 1tb HD, especially about the size. It sounds too much of a hassle for me, especially with the problem regarding the fans. I try and avoid blocking internal airflow since you have a much higher chance of crashing, restarting etc.

Option 3- Not worth it for the price you are paying. The negative points about it outweigh the benefits so there's really no point in it.

So basically, I'd say go with Option 2 because...who uses the optical drive anyway? You can usually just find drivers online for that sort of stuff now so there's really no point in keeping it. Plus, you can just plug in a perpetual drive when you need it so that isn't much of a problem.

I'll have to get back to you, Wooster. A friend of mine is an Apple geek as well so I'll get his opinion on what to do.

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Hang on, the CPU is never irrelevant for software rendering, especially these days with all the frills and filters in the top-end software. What software are you using to do your graphic work? On top of that, if you're using software with the support (and you're using Mac so 9/10 chance you're using Photoshop so that's a big yes), you might want to spend a little time checking over the GPUs as well as these days they're able to use the GPU rendering pipelines for a much smoother design experience; yay CUDA. Last I checked Macs use nVidia GPUs so you'd have CUDA functionality on your system by default.

Personally due to my studies and eventually line of work I made a point this year of spending crazy amounts of money on getting hardware that I wouldn't need to replace for at least five years, hopefully longer. Unfortunately I probably already need to replace my GPU and augment my hard drives. I definitely regret not picking up an SSD: I have two 1.5TB drives working in tandem (yeah, overkill, I thought so too :D) but their access speeds are pretty bad for what they do. Forcing them to stay spun up when idle helped a lot, yet they're still merely passable. You'd probably do well with getting SSDs although you need to be sure that you're using an OS that doesn't bork the drive formatting and wreck their access speed benefits. Hopefully on a new MacBook that won't be a problem but Windows-side it's a problem for anyone not using Win7 as the older OSes just have no clue how to access data on an SSD properly.

Personally I wouldn't drop the handiness of an optical drive either but that's up to you so long as you don't lock yourself out of installation disc access. I suppose that's not an issue on a Mac. :P

TL:DR; Either option 1 or option 3; you lose more than you gain from option 2. I'd probably go for Option 3 knowing what I know now, but you might want to elaborate a little if this seems off, and I admit I'm no Mac expert, though nowadays the hardware is similar in all PCs anyway.

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