1. I haven’t used it in clamshell mode, but I don’t really see how that’s relevant to the SSD, unless you’re wondering if it simply works or not. I do hook it up to my 60″ tv all the time as a second monitor @ 1080p to play movies while I work. I was just watching a blu-ray rip of avatar while editing files in lightroom, so it’s got the capability to do both.

2. I’m a photographer and graphic designer (AD for The Wave Magazine) so I know what your workflow is like. I haven’t had any instability problems up to this point. The system has retained its snappiness. I even recently loaded a few thousand fonts, which I was concerned about since this always makes my programs load sooo sloooow on my PCs, but I haven’t noticed a difference. At all. Pretty amazing. That could be more about how the mac handles fonts than the SSD, I don’t know. I have tried putting files on the SSD temporarily to work on to see if it would be faster, but I haven’t really found this to be the case. I think the Filemate works best for running the system and apps and working with files on another drive.

3. I know you can back up the OS and SSD to your main drive using super duper or whatever but I haven’t tried it. I have most of the apps installed on the main drive so if I chose to boot to it or if something happened to the SSD it wouldn’t be a huge pain. The main drive is still used for all my document storage at a system level so if the SSD crapped out I’d just lose out on some of the apps I’ve installed since I made the initial dupe and any settings I’ve changed in the apps. Not a huge deal, but I’ll admit it would be ideal to just sync the OS once a week. I’m relatively new to the mac as this laptop was my first mac, but I should probably make the effort to figure this out

4. I think it makes the most sense to run all your apps off the filemate, unless they won’t fit of course. I don’t see why any app wouldn’t benefit, and it just seems “messy” to distribute your apps over multiple locations. I imagine that would make backing up that much more complicated.

Hope this helps, good luck!

My reasons for going the Filemate SSD route, is the same as yours. I have been juggling back and forth between doing this, or buying a very expensive internal SSD, which I knew could only go to 256 GB. And I NEED at least 400 GB for al my stuff. Could have bought the optional 52 GB SSD for the new MBP’s, but jeesus, what a price.

So here I am, with the Wintec Filemate 48 GB handy, my new MBP on the way, and I have some questions for you before I get some of that sweet SSD love.

A bit about myself: I am an independent graphic designer, have worked with Macs for around 18 years, I do heavy Photoshop, Indesign, Acrobat work, often working with files from 300-1000 mb. I also use Aperture alot, and some other 3D rendering apps.

Ok, to the questions:

1. The way I often work is that I have my Macbook Pro in Clamshell mode, connected to a 24″ Eizo screen. Do you have any experience with clamshell mode and this SSD?

2. I am a backup freak. I use three different systems (and offline system too), to make sure all of my clients files are safe. I need to know that if my internal HD dies, I can keep working on the clone (via SuperDuper) with almost no downtime, for as you so correctly state: Time IS money. How stable is this SSD in terms of heavy graphics work. How long have you been using it now?

3. Third. I read on Macosxhints, that he had the system on the SSD synced with a version on the internal HDD, so that if the SSD died, he could just boot up from the internal HDD. Have you done something similar?

4. Do you keep ALL your apps on the SSD, or just the ones that benefit the most?

Thanks for this excellent review, anxious to read of your experiences after these 3 months…

Best,
Lars

These speeds are required for fast boot installations but 48GB is just a bit small (though people, like yourself, are installing them on MacBook Pro’s with impressive results.)

Anything bigger than 48GB “with the same r/w speeds* would be a big help, and, of course, 128GB would be ideal. But not been a movement above 48GB at these speeds since early 2009. All the bigger capacity ones so far (May 2010) are at slower USB 2 speeds (but btw, are advertised as “fast”.)

Thanks for the article: expresscard ssd’s are a great way to make an older laptop faster even than newer ones (provided, of course, the older laptops can boot from the expresscard slot – and some machines manufactured in the past 3 years can do this.)