More and more I’m coming to rely on my MacBook Pro as my main editing machine, as my 2008 MacPro is really showing it’s age. OK, to be honest I’ve been relying on it as my main edit machine since I bought it. But my laptop isn’t all the new either. It’s a mid-2012 non-retina MacBook Pro. Now, this model is also getting a bit long in the tooth, but I feel it still has quite a bit of useful life in it yet. And since I’m not one to chuck away a computer when it’s just a little old, I relied on my 2008 for four years…I’m hoping I can get more life out of my laptop. I thought I’d look at options to extend it’s life as long as I can.
When I first bought it, I buffed it up a bit by installing 16GB of RAM. A year later, I buffed it up even more by replacing the main drive in it with an SSD drive.
Most of the time I’ve used it, it’s been on side projects, as I’ve been working in an office on their Avid machines. These smaller side projects always end up needing me to attach a hard drive to my computer. This is quite normal…but there are some inconveniences. First off, the power drain is pretty quick, requiring me to constantly be plugged in. Second, and this one is the biggest problem…those hard drives occasionally unplug and throw all the media offline, and the app to crash.
Then I came up with a solution. I have this optical drive that I rarely use. I happen to have an external one for the two Mac Minis and two MacBook Airs in the household, so if I needed one, I have one. So why not take that thing out and put in a second SSD? A large one, and fast one, to store media on? I’ve been seeing ads online, and hearing about the Mercury Extreme Pro 6G from MacSales (AKA OtherWorldComputing) from friends, and how fast they are. So I sent for one (the 480GB model), and for an optical drive replacement kit (known as a Data Doubler).
They arrived last week. Instead of going into all of the boring details of how to install it as they are in the nice manual they send…
which I at first I thought would be confusing, but as it turned out, it was very straightforward and easy:
So the first thing I had to do was get the SSD drive into the Data Doubler…that was easy enough…just a couple mounting screws:
Now to get it into the computer. I’ll just say that while I had to disconnect a couple cables and take out a lot of screws (and keep track of what went where), and disconnect and reconnect a couple small and delicate cables…I was able to do that without much effort, and pretty quickly (20 min total).
This computer surgery took place on the dining room table, with my kids watching on…wondering if I’d end up breaking or losing anything. Nothing of the sort happened, and I couldn’t tell if they were happy, or saddened by that. Sometimes I think they want me to break something by accident just once, as I often take apart my computer or other electronic thing.
But I did have a couple leftover screws. Which is always a bit worrisome…but in this case, the manual said this is perfectly normal, as they provided two screws to mount the Data Doubler, making these two no longer needed:
So the new drive is in…and happily on the desktop underneath my system drive:
And it is FAST. See for yourself…here’s the AJA Speed Test:
And the Blackmagic Design Speed Test.
Plenty fast for 1080p ProRes or DNxHD…or 2K footage. Not that I get 2K footage, or 4K. I mainly deal with 1080p. But it is plenty fast for my needs. Faster than the SAS RAID I have in my office, and TONS faster than eSATA. Approaching Thunderbolt RAID speeds. F-A-S-T.
I’ve been using it for the last few weeks for a sizzle reel…a show pitch for a network. The only issue I’ve had is a slightly higher power drain. My battery used to last about 5 hours, now it lasts 4 hours. That’s longer than when I have an external drive attached…my battery drops to between 2-3 hours with one of those attached. But I tell you, when I installed my first SSD, replacing the spinning OS drive…THAT was a big change. That alone will make your machine like new.
So I’ve extended the life of my computer even more. I’m hoping to get two more good years out of it. And with all I’ve put into it…I think I will.
If you happen to have a laptop with optical drive, and don’t need to author DVDs…I highly recommend replacing it with an SSD. Or at least replacing your main OS drive with one. Having an SSD as the main boot drive is amazing. 12 seconds to boot the computer, just a few seconds to launch applications. Night and day compared to the older spinning drives.
Worried about TRIM? How some drives can slow down over time…and how certain OS versions, such as Yosemite, don’t support TRIM? Well, no need to worry. OWC SSDs don’t do trim.
My buddy Scott Simmons did a similar thing for an aging MacPro tower over at Provideo Coalition. Check it out.
(The Mercury Extreme Pro 6G and Data Doubler were provided by MacSales at no cost to the reviewer. I’m pretty sure this did not sway my review in any way. It would have been just as fast and just as handy had I bought it, which I was planning on doing.)
