Joined the SSD club.

[elagache]

Dear WeatherCat fans,

Tuesday evening Tech Tools Pro informed me that my hard drive on my MacBook Pro had a failure of the SMART status.  It was time to replace my hard drive and in a hurry.  Since I've been a customer of Other World Computing for close to 2 decades, I went with them and bought their own brand of solid state hard drive:

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/OWC/Mercury_Extreme_Pro_6G/

I had it shipped via next day air and installed it Thursday afternoon.  Fortunately, the old drive held out until I could shutdown my computer without exceeding the data storage capacity in the Davis data logger.  Just as important, I was able to restore the contents of my old drive from my Time Machine archive without a hitch.  By yesterday evening, WeatherCat was back to normal operation.  Indeed it snagged all the data from the data-logger without problem and also uploaded the historical data to Weather Underground as it is supposed to.  Thanks Stu as always for great software!   

It is a little early to judge how well this drive is doing, but indeed the difference in speed is dramatic.  The drive comes with a 5 year warranty and I would hope a solid-state device would be much more durable than any mechanical drive.  So far I'm very pleased!

So, here is another option you might consider should you find yourself in the market for a SSD.

Cheers, Edouard 

[Randall75]

Hi Edouard
 Glad all went well for ya Sound like a good deal with the 5 yr warranty and glad you was able to do all that without loosing anything
Are you still running Snow Leopard or did you up grade?
cheers
 

[Steve]

Edouard,

You may recall that back in late July, I had a hard drive failure on my iMac, which was replaced under warranty. My Time Capsule backup worked with the same results as you, getting the system back up and running quickly and easily.

Oddly enough, just a week before that, the hard drive in my wife's 17" Macbook Pro failed as well. It didn't give any indication it was going; it just stopped dead! Fortunately, Time Capsule came to the rescue for her, too, but this time on a new 15" Retina Macbook Pro, which has the SSD. I don't know how much is the newer/faster machine and how much is the SSD, but that sucker is blazingly fast!

I took her old 17" MBP and replaced the drive with an Other World Computing SSD as well. It turned a slow computer back into something worth using, so it is now my laptop for when I go anywhere. (I keep it in sync with my primary computer, my iMac, using a paid Cubby account so that all files except system and application files are identical.) And added advantage of the SSD, is that with the HD this Macbook Pro would last about 30-45 minutes without needing plugged in for charging. With the lesser power requirement of the SSD, I'm getting closer to two hours now. This saves me having to buy a replacement battery.

I went with the OWC Electra 3G SSD because the 17" MBP is a mid-2009 model, and can't use the additional speed of the 6G drives. Is your MBP a 2011 or newer model that has SATA 2.0 and can take advantage of the faster drive? If not, the only advantage of the additional cost for the Extreme 6G over the Electra 3G is the two year longer warranty.

Enjoy your "new" speedier computer,
Steve

[elagache]

Dear Randall, Steve, and WeatherCat fans,

Thanks for the nice words! 

Are you still running Snow Leopard or did you up grade?

Yes I'm still marooned at Snow Leopard.  I really need my illustration/CADD program Canvas.  It has saved my life on my trusty wagon restoration on several occasions.  There is supposed to be a beta of a new Mac version of Canvas this upcoming spring.  I'm hoping I can limp along until then before upgrading.

My Time Capsule backup worked with the same results as you, getting the system back up and running quickly and easily.

Certainly Apple did something very useful with the Time Machine software.  I've had to use it on several occasions and it is tough as nails.  Sure wish Apple had decided backup should have been part of the operating system a lot sooner!

I took her old 17" MBP and replaced the drive with an Other World Computing SSD as well. It turned a slow computer back into something worth using, so it is now my laptop for when I go anywhere. (I keep it in sync with my primary computer, my iMac, using a paid Cubby account so that all files except system and application files are identical.)

Very clever!  That is a lot better than having a laptop that you have to connected to an external monitor and have to disconnect to take it.  Besides, I suppose that means that your iMac is constantly collecting WeatherCat data and you can get snapshots with your MacBook Pro wherever you go.

Is your MBP a 2011 or newer model that has SATA 2.0 and can take advantage of the faster drive? If not, the only advantage of the additional cost for the Extreme 6G over the Electra 3G is the two year longer warranty

D'oh!!

When I discovered the problem Tuesday night, it seemed like Other World Computing could have shipped out the drive that night so I ordered it in a real hurry and didn't look carefully as the specs.  My MacBook Pro is also a mid-2009 model.  So indeed all I got was the longer warranty.

Oh well!!

Cheers, Edouard 

[WCDev]

Congrats on the upgrade Edouard - SSD's rock!

[elagache]

Howdy Stu and WeatherCat fans,

Congrats on the upgrade Edouard

Thanks Stu!  Definitely very happy with how my MacBook is now behaving.  Even if it is 4 year old computer, it is zipping right along now! 

SSD's rock!

Actually while they may rock in the symbolic sense, they have an unexpected benefit in terms of noise (or lack of)  I sleep in the room where my computer is located and never realized that the hard drive noise could disturb my sleep.  Sure a disk drive doesn't make very much noise, but late at night there is no competitive white noise so the effect of a activating drive is enough to rouse you a little.

With the SSD drive, this room is really quiet.  The only noise is the periodic Time Machine backup and somehow that isn't as disturbing.  So for those of us who sleep with our computers there may be an unexpected benefit!

Cheers, Edouard 

   . . . .  P.S. Not sure how to get your doctor to write up a prescription for one if you have insomnia!!