When you use your notebook primarily for applications that perform only few read/write operations on the disk drive (e. Professional desktop publishing (DTP) users, in particular, will benefit enormously from installing a SSD.Īn additional plus from the point of view of our graphics designer: whereas the performance of the original system was just about good enough for Photoshop CS3 (CS5 was pretty sluggish on the original machine), after the upgrades, Photoshop CS5 can be used productively.

Nevertheless, the user still has to wait 10 seconds longer for the file to open than when the HDD is upgraded to SSD (irrespective of whether 2 or 8GB of RAM are installed). However, when opening the (relatively small) image file, we saw a discernible 37% improvement. The RAM-only upgrade did not show any improvement in performance when we launched Photoshop. Performance boost during operationĪs expected, the SSD results in a massive performance boost when working with the system: with the SSD installed, Photoshop CS5 starts 4 times faster than with the original HDD the 1GB image file opens 3 times faster.

The difference can be immediately noticed when you switch on the MacBook Pro: the RAM-only upgrade results in a 25% faster system boot, the SSD upgrade noticeably reduces boot time by 54%.Ĭompared to the performance boost of a SSD, the “fully tuned” system (RAM upgrade plus SSD) only squeezes out 2 more seconds during system boot. Please take a look at our photo tutorial “Upgrading a MacBook Pro with an SSD” when starting your system for the first time. opening a 1GB Photoshop image file (3,508 x 4,961 pixels, 300 dpi) containing 174 layersįor a hands-on tutorial on how to replace the original MacBook HDD with a SSD, please refer to our photo tutorial, “ Upgrading a MacBook Pro with an SSD“.In each scenario we measure performance through Full-on tuning: RAM upgrade to 8GB and installing a Samsung SSD 840 Pro, 256GB.HDD to SSD upgrade: the system with its original 2GB memory and a Samsung SSD 840 Pro, 256GB, replacing the original 250GB HDD.RAM upgrade: the system after upgrading the RAM to 8GB (keeping the 250GB HDD).Status quo: the existing system unchanged (HDD and 2GB of RAM).There are about 250,000 folders and 933,000 files on the drive. The technical specifications for the test system:

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