Any external displays? Not TB of course, but even without TB it's still a display output.
Laptop drives push around 90-100MB/s last I looked for myself, might be better now. That was with 5400RPM 1TB drives at the time, while there's 1.5-2TB drives now which (theoretically) should be faster due to increased density. Desktop drives are in the 150MB/s range I think? I think some can push over 200, and can burst from cache more than that (albeit most drive caches are pretty small so that's mostly a moot point). I vaguely remember a test showing improved latency and in general performance tests over TB as well, i.e. it's not just purely a max throughput advantage.
As for TB enclosures, at this time you just gotta choose to bite the price bullet at some point I guess. There's .5M cables now at least. The
Seagate 1TB ain't
too horrible I guess, but that's just relative to other TB options. The adapter alone (w/no drive case) goes for $90 and .5M TB cables are $30, drive cases on eBay are $20-30. Shouldn't be too hard to swap for 2TB, although I figure you might as well use the 1TB drive since it's already there. Some company called Delock has an enclosure but it's around $100 by itself without a cable.
Buffalo's TB/USB one is similarly priced but I remember reading that it's kind of a bitch to open up.
No general electronics stores like Best Buy any closer?
In any case if/when you check it out, also test out the different resolutions on the MBP. If screen real estate matters it can make a big difference.
The native res is equivalent to 1280x800, but the scaled modes go up something like 1440x900 and 1680x1050 I think.
