09-22-2015, 12:27 AM
What are your longer-term plans for this machine?
1) If 2+ years, I would get an SSD. 500GB is likely the sweet spot for you now; spend ~$150 on that, you might run out of space in a couple years, then you can get a 1TB for less than the 500GB (better than spending $300 now if you are not going to use more than 500GB)..
2) If 0-2 years, then a good 7200rpm or hybrid drive would be fine.
RE: Hybrid drives. a) I've used four; they have a history of poorer reliability than standard drives, though I have one in daily service that's well out of warranty and works great.b) Their speed enhancement depends on your usage. IF you only boot into a few apps (and they all live under 8GB with the Mac OS launch), THEN it feels like an SSD. I have a SL media center that basically launches Mac OS X and iTunes; runs super fast and I have 750 GB of media storage. But that same hybrid drive is no faster than a good 7200 rpm hard drive for either my wife or I as we both use more than 8GB-worth of apps we regularly launch.
Final thoughts - whatever you do, be sure to INCREASE THE BACKUP STORAGE SOLUTION accordingly.
1) If 2+ years, I would get an SSD. 500GB is likely the sweet spot for you now; spend ~$150 on that, you might run out of space in a couple years, then you can get a 1TB for less than the 500GB (better than spending $300 now if you are not going to use more than 500GB)..
2) If 0-2 years, then a good 7200rpm or hybrid drive would be fine.
RE: Hybrid drives. a) I've used four; they have a history of poorer reliability than standard drives, though I have one in daily service that's well out of warranty and works great.b) Their speed enhancement depends on your usage. IF you only boot into a few apps (and they all live under 8GB with the Mac OS launch), THEN it feels like an SSD. I have a SL media center that basically launches Mac OS X and iTunes; runs super fast and I have 750 GB of media storage. But that same hybrid drive is no faster than a good 7200 rpm hard drive for either my wife or I as we both use more than 8GB-worth of apps we regularly launch.
Final thoughts - whatever you do, be sure to INCREASE THE BACKUP STORAGE SOLUTION accordingly.