Do SSD's have to 'warm-up' ?

Question

Hello,
I purchased a Macbook Pro Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz 17" 4GB RAM, 160GB Hard drive (see below)
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook_pro/stats/macbook-pro-core-2-duo-2 .4-17-santa-rosa-specs.html
I intentionally purchased the older machine, outside of its warrantee period, so I would not be losing any of the warantee benefits for the modification I planned to make to it.
I wish to use this machine solely to run Final Cut Pro X to create music videos.  I know a new 'quad' processor would provide much better performance benefits, but I also know that my planned 'modified' two-drive machine (with the warrantee-breaking modification) would be equally appealing.
I planned on making two hardware modifications and two software modifications
Hardware:
)    Replace the 160GB hard drive with a 240GB OCZ Agility 3 SATA III 2.5" SSD
)    Replace the CD drive with a 1TB hard-drive
Software:
)    Only install Final Cut Pro X
)    Only upgrade the operating system from Snow Leopard to Lion
I requested the modifications to be made my local PC Shop, Simply Fix It in Edinburgh Bruntsfield.
http://www.simplyfixit.co.uk
During the modification Simply Fix It learned that the replacement for the CD  drive was not compatible with the SATA connection and had to order a different mount for the new hard drive.  They did still install the SSD without issue and sent me home with the machine with a view they would need to order in the connection for the new hard drive.
The machine was initialised with Lion, I then went home, purchased and installed final cut pro X and then the weirdness started, specifically when the pinwheel would visit me and for how long.  Here’s the scenarios I can say with certainty after three days of testing:
)    For the first 30 minutes of using the machine, no matter what state it starts in: full-boot-up vs sleep mode, just about anything action from opening chrome, safari, itunes, cutting and pasting text, will kick off a pinwheel for over a human-count of 15 but never for a count greater than 20 (i never need to count more than my fingers and toes ;-)
)    If during the first hour I run a music video on itunes that is loaded on my machine, or I play a youtube video, or a play a final cut pro clip, again within one hour of starting the machine, it will essentially drop frames… basically the play head in any of the players will continue to move, but first the visual frames will stop and then the audio output will stop, then the audio and video will suddenly catch up and start playing again, or it will just crash the player, again this is itunes, youtube, or FCPX.
)    After about an hour this behaviour seems to go away and I can’t do anything to get the pinwheel to come back except trying to multi-task in final cut pro X while I’m intently doing a heavy render process.
)    Keep in mind, I have only used abut 20GB of the entire 240GB SSD drive.
)    Keep in mind that I’ve been examining all aspects of my activity monitor and the with the exception of the intentional heavy render effort, the pinwheel and dropped frames are coming out without showing any performance hit in any views of the performance monitor.
)  Possibly totally unrelated, they kept the CD drive out the machine to make sure they can match the connector, so there's no CD drive in the machine now.
Thoughts?
Also, I have no idea about video/sound cards, but is this a path I should explore.
Thank you in advance for any help.
Joe

Answer 1

Joe: Your problems may arise in part from the fact that you are using a 6Gbps SATA III SSD on a 1.5Gbps SATA I hard drive bus. That means that the bus limits the data transfer rate of your SSD to 1/4 of its theoretical maximum.
The problem with your optical drive bay arises because the optcal drive connection is Parallel ATA (PATA) rather than SATA. There are not and never have been any PATA notebook hard drives on the market that are larger than 320GB. You won't be able to install a 1TB hard drive in that drive bay unless a PATA-to-SATA adapter is available that will fit in it with the drive. I don't know whether or not that's true. If such an adapter is available, there may still be undesirable consequences from using it, such as slowing down of the data transfer rate of which the SATA drive is capable by the ATA-100 bus (which only operates at ATA-66 speed in that model).
That MBP model also has an NVidia 8600M GT GPU. That GPU has been so troublesome that Apple created a special four-year replacement program for logic boards containing it. If the GPU fails within four years of the machine's original purchase date, Apple will replace the logic board for free. If the GPU fails more than four years after the machine was originally sold, the owner is out of luck and must pay several hundred dollars for a new logic board. The new logic board will contain the same GPU model. Your computer is likely to be past the four-year limit, and if it isn't already, it very soon will be. (Note: The graphics and sound capabilities of the computer can't be upgraded. This is also true of all other MBPs and most other notebooks.)
The issues mentioned here combine to make your choice of MBP model a very poor one for your purposes. You would be far better off with one of the unibody MBPs, preferably as recent as possible.