Macbook Pro Upgrade - 16GB RAM or 128GB SSD

I am asking myself which constellation is better: should I stock up my RAM up to 16GB (from 8GB), or should I buy a SSD with 128GB??

I really dont know :/

Cheers!

BTW: My macbook supports 16GB RAM, i already checked this ;)

Solution 1:

While I agree with others here that an SSD will give your MacBook Pro a great speed boost, the problem with a 128GB SSD is that it's probably smaller in capacity than your currently installed hard disk. If that's the case and you'll need to have a hard disk in the optical bay as well, the SSD solution is less attractive if you need the optical drive.

The problem with storage solutions that are too small is that they become less effective (fast) as you fill them close to their capacity. This is true of both hard disks and SSDs.

So, best to ask the questions:

How big is my installed hard disk and how much of it am I using, how much more of it will I be using in the next year?
Do I need the optical drive built into my MacBook Pro or could I move my current hard disk into that bay with an adapter.

If you can fit your MacBook Pro's current installed stuff into 64GB (unlikely but possible) then a 128GB SSD might work out well, even without the use of a hard disk for additional storage.

Solution 2:

RAM upgrade above 8GB if...

you do run Virtual Machines excessively because you need to allocate a lot of RAM to the virtual OS
Other than that, this will most likely not be necessary. Mac OS X operates very efficient with 8GB of RAM. If you do not run VMs, there will be no increase in performance in most cases!

SSD upgrade if...

you want a snappier response throughout the system.
you run big programs such as Adobe or photo editing software that take long to load.
you need faster boot/shut down/sleep times.
if you carry your MBP around a lot. SSDs are very shock resistent. No mechanical parts move.
if you want a more quiet MBP.

SSDs also consume less power. But you won't notice it significantly.

Think of this: In today's computers, the bottle-neck of processing is usually the hard drive. Processors generally need to wait for the hard drive's read/write operations which are a lot slower. Thus a faster hard drive is needed for a better overall performance in processing. RAM won't help if the needed amount is saturated.

Solution 3:

Go for the 128GB SSD. Your MacBook Pro doesn't use much more than 4GB of RAM with normal processes, and music/video editing will work well enough with 8GB. The SSD will make your MacBook Pro a lot faster, will give you greater battery life, and will have a lesser chance of crashing compared to your stock HDD. I hope this helps, and good luck!