OWC Mercury 6G or Mercury Extreme 3G SSD for MBP 17" 2010?

[FrankieP]

Thinking of getting a 240GB SSD for my MBP 17" Early 2010 in a couple of days. I'm going for the OWC SSD's since I will be also purchasing their Data Doubler. Which one though?

Mercury EXTREME™ Pro 3G SSD 240GB
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20 ... /SSDMX240/

or

Mercury Electra™ 6G SSD 240GB
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/SSDEX6G240/

or

Mercury EXTREME™ Pro 6G SSD 240GB
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/SSDMX6G240T/

Also, i'll probably re-use the stock 500GB 7200RPM hard drive for samples storage. Should I install that using the Data Doubler or leave it where it is and install the SSD in the Data Doubler instead? Anybody care to share their thoughts and experience? Thanks!

[ekwipt]

top one 3g, unless you think you'll be buying another laptop soon that can use the faster speeds.

Although not sure if the o3g ones will be older chips or the same but just a slower interface

[trevox]

Not sure if early 2010 MBP's take advantage of the faster speeds, but in saying that, you can always take the SSD from your old machine to your new one when you do upgrade and you will reap the benefits then. I agree with ekwipt though, if you are not thinking of upgrading soon and your machine will not take advantage of faster speeds, go with the 3g one.

I have a newer MBP (Feb 2011) and have a very similar setup to the one you are looking at. My SSD is not as big or fast as the ones you are looking at (80Gb Intel drive), but I installed my OS/Apps on that and also have a 500Gb 7200RPM drive installed for audio and more temporary files like downloads etc. I would most definitely install the SSD as the main drive and the mechanical drive in the data doubler. If you work off battery a lot and are not accessing the info from the drive in the data doubler, you can unmount it - it really does save on battery.

Another suggestion in terms of backup is to get a 750/1000 Gb drive and time machine the whole lot together. I actually got a 750Gb 5400 RPM drive in my machine when I bought it and just use that in an old firewire caddy I had. Overall, the setup has been great and caused me no problems at all.

[FrankieP]

Great advice especially the battery life using the Data Doubler. Thanks to you both.
Yeah, after spending the whole night scouring and researching the net for this upgrade, looks like the 3G is my best bet.

Trevox, any heat issues using a mechanical drive with the Data Doubler?

[trevox]

Great advice especially the battery life using the Data Doubler. Thanks to you both.
Yeah, after spending the whole night scouring and researching the net for this upgrade, looks like the 3G is my best bet.

Trevox, any heat issues using a mechanical drive with the Data Doubler?

The drive itself does not overheat at all. My MBP can get pretty hot when the CPU is being thrashed, but nothing to do with the data doubler. It's extremely quiet too!