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Tell me about SSDs
Topic Started: Jun 12 2012, 01:46 PM (289 Views)
George K
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Finally
Thinking about using a SSD for my boot drive. It would be connected to my iMac via Firewire 800. Would I notice a performance increase? I would keep my music and photos on a regular hard drive, with the boot drive just having the system and my docs and apps on it.
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- Mik, 6/14/08


Nothing is as effective as homeopathy.

I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles.
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KlavierBauer
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HOLY CARP!!!
That's a great way to use an SSD George - just as a boot disk.

I've not seen an OSX machine setup this way yet, though I've done it to some Windows machines, and the bootup performance is very noticeable. It also frees up a lot of resources/space which boosts performance in other areas as well.
"I realize you want him to touch you all over and give you babies, but his handling of the PR side really did screw the pooch." - Ivory Thumper
"He said sleepily: "Don't worry mom, my dick is like hot logs in the morning." - Apple

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George K
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Finally
Since my Mac is an older model (2009) 2.8 GHz core i7 with 8 gig RAM, I was disappointed to see that there were no new models announced this week. It would be nice to get a little more performance out of this machine. RAM is cheap, and I'd probably upgrade to 16 gig.

I haven't rebooted my machine in over a month (35 days to be exact), so the startup time is really not an issue.

The question is how fast performance would be over a Firewire 800 interface. Would I be better off by just investing in another 8 gig of RAM?
A guide to GKSR: Click

"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... "
- Mik, 6/14/08


Nothing is as effective as homeopathy.

I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles.
- Klaus, 4/29/18
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Moonbat
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Pisa-Carp
AFAIK a modern SSD will do much more for you than RAM if you already have 8 gig.

Based on the numbers [url=www.tomshardware.com/charts/ssd-charts-2011/benchmarks,129.html]here[/URL] Firewire 800 will definitely reduce the performance, particularly for high end SSDs. However even the lower speced SSDs are supposedly zippier than standard drives.
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem
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KlavierBauer
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HOLY CARP!!!
The real benefit of the SSD in terms of performance is not having the "seek time" of a drive. In this sense, Moonbat is right, in that reducing that seek time is essentially like having the whole drive in memory, which is obviously a huge performance boost if you're running your OS from that drive.
Anything that reduces slows down the SSD's transfer of data also limits the performance enhancement.
"I realize you want him to touch you all over and give you babies, but his handling of the PR side really did screw the pooch." - Ivory Thumper
"He said sleepily: "Don't worry mom, my dick is like hot logs in the morning." - Apple

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George K
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Finally
I currently boot from an internal SATA drive. I imagine using Firewire 800 as an interface would not be much faster. In fact it might be slower.

However, Other World Computing (www.macsales.com) has an solution that replaces your internal optical drive (which I never use - I have a faster external) with a bracket that accepts a SSD. The bracket is about $60, and you'd have to pay for installation and the drive itself. I could get by with 256 gig - easily - if I store photos, docs and music on another drive.

Tempting.
A guide to GKSR: Click

"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... "
- Mik, 6/14/08


Nothing is as effective as homeopathy.

I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles.
- Klaus, 4/29/18
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Lurkalot
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Junior Carp
Why not fit the SSD internally and put the HD in an enclosure?

Or else use an eSATA port (don't know the innards of an iMac, but chances are it's possible).
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George K
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Finally
There's no eSATA port on an iMac. You'd have to do some serious case mods to do that. But, see my post above yours.
A guide to GKSR: Click

"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... "
- Mik, 6/14/08


Nothing is as effective as homeopathy.

I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles.
- Klaus, 4/29/18
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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
Would you house all the programs on the SSD? I'm trying to figure out the iTunes side, since when I store the music on the D: drive, it seems they also populate on to the C: (SSD) drive where the iTunes / iPhone software is. I have 17 GB of music, which would chew up too much SSD space.
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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George K
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Finally
You can tell iTunes that any directory is the "iTunes Library". In fact, although my library is on my boot drive, all the *music* is on an external. The library only holds the pointers to where the music is. So, that's not a problem.

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1449

The same holds true for your iPhoto library. You can put it wherever you want.

So, all I'd really need on the boot drive would be the system, my home folder (with iTunes and iPhoto on another drive) and my applications. I could *easily* get by with 256 gigs.
A guide to GKSR: Click

"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... "
- Mik, 6/14/08


Nothing is as effective as homeopathy.

I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles.
- Klaus, 4/29/18
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Copper
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Shortstop
http://macintoshhowto.com/hardware/how-to-speed-up-your-mac-with-a-ssd-drive.html

Quote:
 

How to speed up your mac with a Solid State SSD Drive

I just upgraded the boot drive on my Mac Mini to an SSD drive and it’s by far the biggest speed enhancement I’ve experienced on any computer! The speed increase is incredible – almost hard to believe – boot time went from 60 seconds to under 30 seconds, and applications launch instantly – no bouncing dock icon.

This is not for the beginner, it’s quite technical, but here’s how to do it.



Now you could upgrade your entire hard drive but with a 480G SSD drive costing $1579.99, it’s not a cheap option! But you can upgrade just to a smaller boot drive (a 64G drive costs $119) to run OSX and your applications. This means your system files and applications are on the new SSD drive, but your user data (iphoto, itunes etc) stay on your old Hard Disk.

An SDD drive looks the same shape as a traditional drive, making it easier to install, but it uses memory instead of a hard disk so it is much, much faster. If your computer is a bit old and slow this may be a better solution than upgrading your whole computer because often it’s not the processor speed that slows things down but the hard drive.

Here’s how to set up an SSD drive to run your OSX and applications off, and keep using your existing hard drive for your user files.

1. Work out how big a boot drive you need.

Everything except your user data will go on the boot drive. To work out how much space you need, do this:

(a) Find your total disk usage. Click on your hard drive and press Apple-I, check how much space is used. For me it’s 587 Gig:



(b) Find your user folder usage. Select your user folder (the onew with a house as an icon – this is where all your documents, music, movies, photos etc are stores) and press Apple-I, it may take a while to calculate it.) If you have more than one user, you’ll need to do it for each folder and add them up. I only have one user and for me it was 550GB:



Subtract (b) from (a) to give you the amount needed for your boot drive.

587GB – 550GB = 37GB. I need 37GB for all my apps and system software. A 40GB drive would just to it, so I went for a 64GB drive. I ordered a 64GB M4 SSD from Crucial in the USA for US$119.

2. Connect the Hard Drive to your mac.

For a mac pro it simply connects into the spare optical bay slot – no adapters needed, a 30 second operation – see how here.
Difficulty: easy – 30 seconds.

For a new aluminium mac mini it can replace one of the internal drives.
Difficulty: moderate – 1/2 hr.

When I replaced the internal SSD drive in my mac mini I needed to pull out the fan and motherboard to get the new SSD drive in! You can get the old hard disk out without pulling out the motherboard but the SSD drives are actually ever so slightly thicker and more uniform in shape so the motherboard needs to come out to manoeuvre the SSD drive in place.

For a macbook or macbook pro you’ll need replace the internal optical drive with your old Hard Drive (OWC who also sell SSD drives provide a kit to do this here) then to put the SSD drive where your old Hard Drive was. The other more expensive option is to order a large SSD drive and replace your old hard drive with it.
Difficulty: hard – 1-2 hours.

iMac: Forget it! Your simplest option is to put the SDD drive in an enclosure and leave it plugged in all the time.

3. Format the SSD Drive using disk utility.

After your SDD drive is plugged in you’ll need to power on your computer and use Disk Utility to format it – Mac OS Extended (Journaled):



4. Copy everything except your user directory onto the new boot drive.

Now you need to copy your system folder and applications onto your SSD drive. You can’t do this by hand – there are hidden files that need to be copied, so use Carbon Copy Cloner. Using Carbon Copy Cloner, select your boot drive as the target Disk and then select Incremental backup:



Now select your main hard drive as the source disk, but then deselect your main user directory so that you don’t copy across all your user data (it won’t fit!)



Click Clone and your boot disk will be created on the SSD disk.

5. Reboot from the new SSD boot drive.

Under System Preferences click Startup Drive select the SSD Drive, then restart! (wow – notice how fast it is!)

Since it is now looking for your user data on the new drive, it won’t find anything and so your desktop and dock will be the default ones and all your files will be missing. Don’t panic – in the next step we will get your old files back.

6. Select your old User folder.

Go to System Preferences, then Accounts, (in Lion this is now called ‘Users and Groups’) then ‘Click the lock to make changes’ and control-click the main user account and click Advanced Options.



In the advanced options tab choose your old user directory, which is back on your original hard drive.



Your computer will tell you that you need to restart, and when you restart you will be running off your new boot drive,with your user directory on your old hard disk.

So how fast is it? Here’s a demo of how quickly applications launch from my new SSD drive…



http://vimeo.com/18116571
The Confederate soldier was peculiar in that he was ever ready to fight, but never ready to submit to the routine duty and discipline of the camp or the march. The soldiers were determined to be soldiers after their own notions, and do their duty, for the love of it, as they thought best. Carlton McCarthy
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Mark
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HOLY CARP!!!
Put it internal.

Get the 480gig from OWC.

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/OWC/Mercury_Extreme_Pro_6G/
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jon-nyc
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Cheers
I have a PC laptop with SSD, and it only takes two times longer to boot than my Mac, instead of the usual 4 times longer. That's a big gain.
In my defense, I was left unsupervised.
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George K
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Finally
Mark
Jun 12 2012, 05:01 PM
If I put my iTunes and iPhoto libraries on an external drive (or, even external to the SSD), I don't need 480 gigs. 250 or so would be more than adequate. OWC will charge $80 an hour to install their bracket where the optical drive was, and the bracket is $60. It's probably a reasonable upgrade.
A guide to GKSR: Click

"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... "
- Mik, 6/14/08


Nothing is as effective as homeopathy.

I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles.
- Klaus, 4/29/18
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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
George K
Jun 12 2012, 03:48 PM
You can tell iTunes that any directory is the "iTunes Library". In fact, although my library is on my boot drive, all the *music* is on an external. The library only holds the pointers to where the music is. So, that's not a problem.

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1449

The same holds true for your iPhoto library. You can put it wherever you want.

So, all I'd really need on the boot drive would be the system, my home folder (with iTunes and iPhoto on another drive) and my applications. I could *easily* get by with 256 gigs.
Hmmm.. I have all the music stored on the D drive, but on my C drive, if I click the properties (library>music>itunes>itunes media>music) it lists the C drive as the location and the size of the file (say 5 MB).

:shrug: Not sure how to tweak this -- I'll read through the link.
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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KlavierBauer
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HOLY CARP!!!
IT: The normal route to go with the SSD is to store the OS and any applications that you can on the SSD - which is almost like storing them all in RAM.
The data that those files use, would be stored wherever you want (i.e., you could have Photoshop on the SSD, but all of your graphical assets on the other non-solid-state drive.
"I realize you want him to touch you all over and give you babies, but his handling of the PR side really did screw the pooch." - Ivory Thumper
"He said sleepily: "Don't worry mom, my dick is like hot logs in the morning." - Apple

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George K
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Finally
iTunes is funky. The "Library" does not necessarily contain your files, only the *pointer* to the files. So, my library is in my home folder, but the actual music files are on an external drive.
A guide to GKSR: Click

"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... "
- Mik, 6/14/08


Nothing is as effective as homeopathy.

I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles.
- Klaus, 4/29/18
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Axtremus
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HOLY CARP!!!
I have a MacBook Pro with internal SSD -- fast boot time, fast application load time, freaking impressive Windows 7 boot time from Parallels virtual machine.

Definitely a significant speed boost for the whole system.

That said, if you're going to go SSD, why not swap out your current internal drive and put an SSD in?

Swap an SSD in, put your original internal drive into a Firewire enclosure.

You should be able to find an authorized Mac repair shop that can do that for you.

Good luck. :)
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