I cannot stress heavily enough how brilliantly fast MacOS is when running off an SSD. I thought windows was peppy when I put an SSD in my desktop. Since putting an SSD in my MBP, MacOS X went from a sluggish annoyance where icons bounced 5-10 times before an app loaded, to a speedy "no time to bounce at all" app start.

I did the same with a first generation MBP (bought in the summer 2006). I replaced the main HD with a Corsair V64, and replaced the optical drive with the old HDD with this kit[1]. The HDD now works in plain old ATA, but it doesn't matter. I use it for mass storage, not for speed.

The results are amazing. It takes:

- 21 seconds from cold boot to login prompt (and 5 more to get a responsive finder),

- 13 seconds to shut down, and

- 22 seconds to wake from deep sleep (2GB of RAM).

As you said, the apps launch almost instantly, including Office 2011 which was incredibly slow from the hard disk.

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[1]http://www.mcetech.com/optibay/ ($99). They also provide an external USB case for the DVD drive.

Ifixit offers a similar adapter, cheaper ($60), but without the case. http://www.ifixit.com/Apple-Parts/9-5-mm-Optical-Bay-SATA-Ha...

I agree, but i kept wondering about the lifespan of my apple-samsung ssd, without trim.