Don’t buy a new Mac without an SSD or you’ll regret it, says Robin Harris, writing for ZDNet. It is a trap I fell into last May when I bought a 27in iMac and wouldn’t wait the six weeks it would have taken to get the internal SSD. Instead, I opted for the standard 7,200 rpm hard drive and have regretted it ever since. Two weeks ago I described one solution, the addition of an external Thunderbolt SSD as a boot drive. It works and has totally transformed the performance of my i7 3.4GHz iMac, which previously was seen off by my lowly 1.6GHz 11in MacBook Air. Harris had a similar experience:
Let’s just say that my 1.86GHz Core Duo 2, 4GB MacBook Air with a 128GB SSD outperforms my 3.4GHz quad-core i7, 16GB iMac on ≈90% of the work I do. And it is more stable.
So I totally agree with Robin Harris. If you are buying a new Mac and it doesn’t already come with a standard SSD, pay the extra for the faster disk or you will certainly regret it.