Advice on best use of SSD &HDD?

Hi - purchased a 27" iMac a month ago - very happy with it - speed, screen et al all good - and it doesnt overheat.
But, has anyone out there, designers, artists et al, worked out best practice for using SSD and HDD? I use primarily adobe packages - large files et al, need those to operate quickly. The 256 SSD is just about full of my home files. I Have pointed photoshop scratch to HDD, inDesign and illustrator are also process heavy and i use them most. BUT - how well would it work if I just transferred my home folder to the HDD and left the programmes running from SSD?
any thoughts or advice?
I'm not a unix whizz, or a coder but pretty familiar with macs - have been using since early 90's.
please let me know what you use - most appreciated
cheers -
telk

Link,
I thought that there was a new file management system along with the Fusion Drives.
I installed a 240GB SSD Mercury Elite 6g into a late 2012 MacMini 2.66GHZ with16GB RAM. After much frustration of trying to get the drives to be seen properly in Recovery Mode I used Internet Recovery Disk Utility and allowed DU to "fix" both drives. I then got a message saying a new "Logical Drive" had been created and DU saw the drive properly.
In the OS (not recovery) DU the drives were seen as discrete drives and they seemed to respond to operations normally however when I made an iMovie project I got an "unexpected error" and the project didn't save. That is what prompted me to use Recovery to do a Repair Disk where the problem of a "broken fusion drive" was reported by RDU. At first I just tried repairing the drives from Recovery but the folks on telephone support asked me to try Internet Recovery. Didn't really want the Fusion setup but that is the only way the OS would allow the drives to coexist.

Similar Messages

Best use adding SSD to speed up Photoshop?

This is actually a multiple question post.
My aim is to try and cut down some time on Photoshop, mainly when using big files (over 2 or 3Gb) not only when reading and saving but most importantly applying adjustments or modifying image.
Almost every other day my daily working files go to 2 or 3Gb each and its painfully slowing me down the time it takes to sometimes apply some transformations let alone the process of saving as safeguard with regularly over the day.
Today was working on a 10Gb file and it would take Photoshop close to 15min just to open the file...flattening the image would take around that too and saving a little over 25min.
I know on Mac's its a pain in the back to move the system swap files to another disk (although theres an app that supposedly does that for you (Xupport).
I just find it hard to find out what best use I could make for a SSD I would add to my existing configuration that could speed up Photoshop on Mac:
1. Install system and apps?
2. Use system swap and leave system+apps in other HDD?
3. Use for Photoshop scratch disk?
4. Any of the above in same SSD?
Other pertinent data:
Every project once completed is moved to a backup USB disk so the durability/reliability of SSD isnt really a problem althought I aware SSD has some issues regarding tearing over multiple re-writting over time.
Mac Pro dual quad-core 2.8 (MacOSX 16.2 + Photoshop CS4)
8Gb DDR2 Ram (soon to be 12Gb)
1 SATA 320Gb for data in use + system +apps
1 SATA 500gb for general purpose data and backups before going to external HDD plus Photoshop scratch disk
Ty in advance for any help.

You have plenty of system to throw at Photoshop. The application ought not to slow down to the point of un-usability but I'm certainly not working with images at that size.
Here are the techniques I have used to make almost all applications faster:
Add more RAM. That way, any application you use won't have to be swapped out to disk if you are running lots of applications.
Move OS X's swap drive to something faster.
In the case of Photoshop, move Photoshop's swap drive to something faster with lots of space
Get a hotter graphics card that your applications will take advantage of.
With respect to #1, Adobe's Photoshop is a 32-bit application. Photoshop will benefit from your Mac not using its swapfile as additional RAM but Photoshop will not see any more than 4GB of RAM and will probably see a lot less than that (most 32-bit applications use something like 2GB).
With respect to #2, here's how to do this:
Edit the file com.apple.dynamic_pager.plist, located in /System/Library/LaunchDaemons. Replace the/var/vm path with the full path to your swap partition. In my case, the entire plist ends up looking like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
                <key>Label</key>
                <string>com.apple.dynamic_pager</string>
                <key>ProgramArguments</key>
                <array>
                     <string>/sbin/dynamic_pager</string>
                     <string>-F</string>
                     <string>/Volumes/Swap/.vm/swapfile</string>
                </array>
                <key>OnDemand</key>
                <false/>
</dict>
</plist>
Save and reboot, then check your new swap location is being used with this command:
ps -wax | grep dynamic_pager -m1
Finally, you probably want to clear out any old swapfiles from /var/vm:
sudo rm -rf /var/vm/swapfile*
If you have two SSDs, use one for OS X, the other for Photoshop. And remember, for an 8 GB file, Photoshop will want a lot more than 8GB as its pagefile.
You will want to experiment to see what methods work best for you.
Good luck.

CS4: Best use of SSD drives?

I'm considering adding an SSD or two to the mix and am wondering where I'll get the best performance bang for the buck in a NLE situation. The current box is Vista, but I may be moving to faster ponies on a 64 bit 7 box soon. Doubt there's a difference in recommendations between the two but thought I'd mention it just in case.
First, a tangent. On my Premiere Pro CS4 discs I don't see any indication of 32 / 64 bit versions, but my understanding is that both are available from the DVDs. Can anyone confirm this?
As to the SSDs, the general wisdom for overal performance is to use them as the boot / system drive to boost app load and boot time. For NLE, there are other drive considerations that come into play - the drive(s) where the source footage to be edited resides and the drive(s) that are used for temporary I/O in rendering, playback, etc. There may be other considerations as well, these are just the ones that immediately come to mind.
I'm less concerned about how long the computer takes to boot (it stays up 24/7) or how long an application takes to load, and more focused on the performance of Premiere and After Effects during eding, playback and rendering.
With that in mind, if I bought only one SSD, where would be the best place for it to serve? And if I threw caution and credit cards to the winds and bought two, where would the second one do me the most good?
As always, thanks for any insights you might offer.
Chris

Hi, Harm.
Reading the disk article as we speak, thanks.
Regarding CS4 being 32 bit, I recall you saying the other day that a minimum realistic system would be 12 gigs fo memory. Given the 4 gig limit in the 32 bit architecture, were you referring to CS5? Not sure how CS4 would benefit from > 4 gigs.

Best practice for SSD & HDD

Hi,
I recently acquired a 2011 iMac with 256gb ssd and an internal 1tb HD.
When I migrated my data I decided to keep my media files on the HDD; Movies, Pictures and Music, and use symlinks to link to them.
However, I'm bumping into an issue when I want to move things to those folders. Normal behaviour when moving a file to another drive (internal or external) is to copy the file. I know that holding the command key will force a move process but this is a bit fiddly.
Just wondering what do other users do in this situation? Do you need to change your behaviour?
Thanks

Link,
I thought that there was a new file management system along with the Fusion Drives.
I installed a 240GB SSD Mercury Elite 6g into a late 2012 MacMini 2.66GHZ with16GB RAM. After much frustration of trying to get the drives to be seen properly in Recovery Mode I used Internet Recovery Disk Utility and allowed DU to "fix" both drives. I then got a message saying a new "Logical Drive" had been created and DU saw the drive properly.
In the OS (not recovery) DU the drives were seen as discrete drives and they seemed to respond to operations normally however when I made an iMovie project I got an "unexpected error" and the project didn't save. That is what prompted me to use Recovery to do a Repair Disk where the problem of a "broken fusion drive" was reported by RDU. At first I just tried repairing the drives from Recovery but the folks on telephone support asked me to try Internet Recovery. Didn't really want the Fusion setup but that is the only way the OS would allow the drives to coexist.

How to best use mail in 2 computers?

Hi, I now have 2 computers (an imac and a macbook) connected to an airport extreme. I setup a new email address which SMTP forwards mail for the user of the macbook. However, when you click mail on the macbook, it seems to still be showing the mail of the imac. I may want to be able to access that first email, but I want to be able to primarily open to the new email address when on the macbook. Also, I noticed that when I do view my original email on the macbook, it doesn't reflect things I've already read and deleted from the imac....
Just wanting some advice on best use of 2 computers with mail.
thanks alot!

Before making any changes, be sure to save a copy of all your important mail to an external hard drive, CD, DVD, or flash drive. With Mac OS X Mail, that means copying the entire Users -> yourname -> Library -> Mail and Mail Downloads folder after making sure in Mail your folders are "On my computer" as opposed to on .Mac or your internet service provider. Then you can setup both e-mail accounts as IMAP accounts. And then when you want to backup to one computer or another just option key -> drag mail to the local folder of that computer. A green and white plus sign should appear. If not option key, it is command key (I'm not at my Mac right now, but it is one of those commands).
Thus both computers can act as a backup of each other's Mail. Note, this will only work if both machines are running 10.4 or newer. If one is not, then you have a problem, and might have to use a third party mail client.

Will "fusion drive" on mountain lion manage the user-upgraded SSD-HDD como ?

Hi everyone,
I just finished to see the amasing apple keynote and I found the M-lion supported "drive fusion" technology really interesting.
I recently (feb/2012) updated my mid2010-MBP13" with and SSD drive, boosting is speed and now I'm wondering if drive fusion will be capable of using my SSD-HDD combo?
Whato do you think about it ? In terms of speed and smartness this is sound very powerfull to me!
Bye
ric

I understand, I undestand, but we, both, know that hardware is not linked by magic, and all the interesting stuff fusion drive is supposed to do, is software related stuff (understanding how many times u use an app etc etc).
I was just wondering to find, one day, thath option on "utility disk" :-), "Want to fuse your drives?" YES.
Thanks for the answer :-)
ric

Best setup for iMac with SSD & HDD? Best location of scratch & home folders

Best setup for iMac with SSD and HDD? Best location of scratch & home folders?
Computer:
iMac 2.93 GHz Quad core i7, 8GB RAM, 1 TB HDD + 256 GB SSD
There is not much info from Apple about the best way to set up an iMac with a Hard Drive and Solid state drive. I’ve looked at a few of the forum posts across the web and came up with a plan and lots of questions. (I do use photoshop frequently, but not on a professional level):
1. I will keep OS and Applications on SSD
2. About moving the home folder: I saw some posts about moving the whole home folder, but it makes more sense to me to only move selected fodlers withing the home folder tomake the best use of the SSD. So will keep the home folder on SSD, but move certain folders (document /music/iphoto/download) to 1 TB HDD via instructions I found on the macintoshperformanceguide website:
cd
sudo cp -r Documents /Volumes/Master
sudo rm -rf Documents
sudo ln -s /Volumes/Master/Documents Documents
3. I would like to get 8 more RAM when I can afford it
4. I will attach an external hard drive for most of my documents and backup storage
5. Now here is where I’m not sure what’s best:
a. Should I partition my internal 1 TB hard drive and use the first partition as a scratch disc for photoshop and other applications? How much should I partition? Is there any benefit to this if the rive is partitioned?
b. Should I use an external drive as a scratch disc?
c. Any advice on a good 1-2 TB external drive?
d. Should I just leave things in factory settings?
Don't assume I know the basics - I got all the above just by searching around. Any advice and commentary is appreciatedThanks.
Message was edited by: sfandtheworld

Thanks for the advice and the links. yes, I would like to speed up ps as much as possible.
I wonder if putting the scratch disc on the same drive as the OS would cause them to interfere with each other? Even if they are on different partitions, they would not be able to be accessed at the same time, or could they? That's why I was wondering if I should place scratch disc on the internal HDD -- but then I don't know how much to partition for it (or to partition at all?)
ALso, I read on a few places that too much read/write on the SSD wears it down over time? Is this more of a theoretical concerns - it does not make sense to me since it has no moving parts!
thanks again for the advice ... I'm gonna go digest those links

Best way to set up ssd/hdd

Hi guys,
I just upgraded my MacBook pro with an intel 80gb ssd along with a 500gb caviar blue hdd. I have found many conflicting answers to this question and was wondering if anyone found the best solution. I intend to use the SSD as the boot drive with applications. I have already used CCC to clone everything but the users folder, and it seems to be working fine, but I have seen in other places that it may bog down SSD performance by just cloning the drive, and a clean install would be best, but I had a hard time figuring out how to best transfer the applications should I go down that route. So essentially my question is, what would be the best way to divide up my data and how would you go about doing it? Thanks in advance for any help.

If your original drive and the files on it are in good shape, no errors, and you use good cloning software there should not be any problem cloning the old spinning drive to the new SSD.
What I think may be happening in other cases is they never enabled TRIM support and without it the SSD can nget fragmented (fragmented may not be the correct term) which will lower the performance of the drive.
TRIM is only enabled by default when you install a SSD sold by Apple. There are hacks to enable it on any SSD drive. Just do a search for it on google.

Using migration assistant from HDD only to SSD+HDD?

Hi,
Usually, when buying a new mac and starting it for the first time, I use the migration assistant to get everything (software, settings, data...) from my time capsule backup.
I am currently using an iMac 24'' which only has a "standard" HDD. I am however thinking about upgrading to the latest iMacs, potentially with the "SSD+HDD" option.
The description on the "Configure" page of the online store says : "If you configure your iMac with both the solid-state drive and a Serial ATA hard drive, it will come preformatted with Mac OS X and all your applications on the solid-state drive. Then you can use the hard drive for videos, photos, and other files."
My question is therefore the following : would the migration assistant be "smart enough" to place my OS and applications on the SSD drive, and the rest of my files ("videos, photos, and other files.") on the HDD?
Thanks in advance!

I had the same issue some time ago: I added a 32 gb SSD to my mac running leopard. Then wanted to use install Snow Leopard and use migration assistant to restore the sytem with Snow leopard and applications on the SSD, and the user folders on the old 250gb HD. Turns out this isn't possible. Manually accessing your time machine or other backup up to restore files by hand is a pain. Just installing Snow Leopard and pointing the user folder to the Leopard user folder on the HD creates problems too, just as pointing it to a newly created folder.
Solution:
-Backup your old system with time machine to an external disk
-Note: make sure you don't mix up SSD and HD in this manual.
-Install SSD (If this means you no longer have a cd drive, use a copy of snow leopard on an external drive).
-BE SURE YOUR OLD SYSTEM IS BACKED UP WITH TIME MACHINE.
-Then install OS X TWICE: once on the old HD and once the SSD. Wipe your HD with Disk Utility before install.
-Start up OS X on the HD, use the option key at startup if necessery to select the right disk.
-Use migration assistant to restore from the time machine backup. Now you have a fresh install of OS X, with your user files and applications intact.
-Now startup OS X on the SSD.
-Make the SSD startup disk in system preferences -> Startup disk.
-Go to System preferences -> Users. Unlock. Create an extra user, so you end up with a spare user account, and one you will actually use. Now right click on the user account thats going to be used, and select your user folder on the HD that you just restored with Migration assistant. Just leave the spare one. It is for emergencies and also disk failures: OS X is designed to have user and system files on the same disk, so you should always have one user account sticking those rules.
-Restart OS X on the SSD as asked.
-Now all thats left to do is migrate applications from the HD application folder to the SSD application folder by simply copy/pasting. This is trial and error, but in my case 90% of the applications gave no trouble at all. The ones that did are library based media applications like Aperture. All I needed to do is go to their preferences and point them to their old libraries on the HD. MS Office was the only application that needed full reinstalling. The applications that ship with the OS don't need to be migrated of course since they are already there on the SSD.
-Point your dock icons to the right folders (on the HD) and applications (on the SSD)
-Make a new time machine backup
-Last step, optional: clean up the HD. You don't need the system folder that is still there, but I chose to keep it for a while as a backup. I left the library in place there too, since I don't know which applications still use it, but in time I will clean it up too.
And one more thing: Since Migration assistant doesnt' just copy files, but also seams to adapt application databases of Apple apps to work with a newer version of an application coming with a new OS, such as Mail, Safari, iCal and Address Book, this is probably going to be the best way to upgrade an SSD+HD setup to Lion too. (Lion has better SSD support). Provided of course that Apple doesn't update Migration assistant, which is what should actually be done. Upgrading this way took me 2,5 hours, most of which was spent waiting ofcourse.
Message was edited by: jason487
Message was edited by: jason487

On my iCloud account I can see an alternate email ID which can be used to login to my account, this email ID does not belong to me so I need to delete it. Please advice the best possible way as it does. It show any option to delete that ID

On my iCloud account I can see an alternate email ID which can be used to login to my account, this email ID does not belong to me so I need to delete it. Please advice the best possible way as it does. It show any option to delete that ID

Do the alternate e-mail address ends with me.com or icloud.com?

Best use of 24GB SSD ExpressCard? ln? JFFS2 or YAFFS? MacFUSE/Fuse4X?

Ok, so I just got a 24GB SSD ExpressCard ("Wintec FileMate SolidGO" MLC flash drive; Max. Sustained Sequential Read: 115 MB/s & Write: 65 MB/s. ) for my MacBook Pro (MB133LL/A).
I'm hesitant to put the whole OS on it, because I've read that many small writes to the disk are slow and hazardous to the life of SSDs. Also trying to evaluate the pros and cons of having /tmp and/or /var (including /var/vm) on the SSD... I guess my frequently used apps are the most important thing to have on the SSD.
I would guess that if I set up the appropriate symbolic links using ln(1), the OS, apps, user homes and data will work fine spread out over 2 disks, but perhaps there are some gotchas I'm not aware of, or lessons someone's learned by trying this before me...
Wear leveling helps, and, well the Macs sold with SSDs work... and this SSD comes with a 2 year warranty, so maybe I shouldn't worry... I think this SSD doesn't have TRIM support,
There are detailed FAQs and product specs on Wintec's site, but at least some of the info is wrong, so I'm here seeking other opinions on how best to use it. For example, I have no trouble sleeping and waking it and do so often; I didn't have to enable hibernate mode. The specs suggest that booting off the SSD is a good idea, but the troubeshooting/FAQ don't seem to agree with that at all.
What would be fantastic is if I could set up the computer to work like the Seagate Momentus XT 500 GB 2.5 Inch Solid State Hybrid Drive - in other words, the computer would figure out what files were good candidates for caching on the SSD, I wasn't able to find any software that does that, but I'm guessing it's something that could be developed using FUSE(Filesystem in Userspace) implementation such as Fuse4X. It would keep track of accesses and use the SSD for files that were read often, and other optimizations that flash filesystems like JFFS2 and YAFFS have.

I saw someone post somewhere that things had worked fine for them doing this using symbolic links, so I tried that. It was not a good experience. Most of the apps would run, but the Dock would treat them as different apps, as would Little Snitch. I want to have a more stable setup - one that will keep working (after a reboot) if I have to remove the SSD to use another ExpressCard (like for eSATA) or to save battery or because it's failed.
I logged the output of df -h as well as of mount while a bootable 10.7 Lion DVD was running, which looks like a good method to copy, though I'm not sure what the OS was doing to make it so; IIRC there was no fstab file. Here are the output logs:
Filesystem     Size   Used Avail Capacity Mounted on
/dev/disk2s3 1.4Gi 1.1Gi 361Mi    75%    /
devfs         126Ki 126Ki    0Bi   100%    /dev
/dev/disk4    512Ki 144Ki 368Ki    29%    /Volumes
/dev/disk5    512Ki 140Ki 372Ki    28%    /private/var/tmp
/dev/disk6    512Ki 156Ki 356Ki    31%    /private/var/run
/dev/disk7    512Ki 144Ki 368Ki    29%    /System/Installation
/dev/disk8    512Ki 252Ki 260Ki    50%    /private/var/db
/dev/disk9    6.0Mi 1.9Mi 4.1Mi    32%    /private/var/folders
/dev/disk10   2.0Mi 224Ki 1.8Mi    11%    /private/var/root/Library
/dev/disk11   1.0Mi 148Ki 876Ki    15%    /Library/ColorSync/Profiles/Displays
/dev/disk12   512Ki 160Ki 352Ki    32%    /Library/Preferences
/dev/disk13   512Ki 152Ki 360Ki    30%    /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration
/dev/disk14   1.0Mi 140Ki 884Ki    14%    /Library/Keychains
/dev/disk0s2 465Gi 364Gi 101Gi    79%    /Volumes/HD
/dev/disk3s3   45Gi   34Gi   11Gi    75%    /Volumes/FastestContent
/dev/disk1s3 3.9Gi 3.5Gi 317Mi    92%    /Volumes/Image Volume
/dev/disk2s3 on / (hfs, local, read-only)
devfs on /dev (devfs, local, nobrowse)
/dev/disk4 on /Volumes (hfs, local, union, nobrowse)
/dev/disk5 on /private/var/tmp (hfs, local, union, nobrowse)
/dev/disk6 on /private/var/run (hfs, local, union, nobrowse)
/dev/disk7 on /System/Installation (hfs, local, union, nobrowse)
/dev/disk8 on /private/var/db (hfs, local, union, nobrowse)
/dev/disk9 on /private/var/folders (hfs, local, union, nobrowse)
/dev/disk10 on /private/var/root/Library (hfs, local, union, nobrowse)
/dev/disk11 on /Library/ColorSync/Profiles/Displays (hfs, local, union, nobrowse)
/dev/disk12 on /Library/Preferences (hfs, local, union, nobrowse)
/dev/disk13 on /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration (hfs, local, union, nobrowse)
/dev/disk14 on /Library/Keychains (hfs, local, union, nobrowse)
/dev/disk0s2 on /Volumes/HD (hfs, local, journaled)
/dev/disk3s3 on /Volumes/FastestContent (hfs, local, journaled)
/dev/disk1s3 on /Volumes/Image Volume (hfs, local, read-only)
It's good to see that there's a way to do it that is likely to work well, as Apple uses it.
Bluehz' comments I noted above are from 2003, but are still more impressive/thorough than anything recent I've seen! BlueHz's post incudes a link to good scripts for handling mount points for swap and applications (of Oct 11, '02 vintage • Contributed by: Numbski) that I'm planning to use/adapt.

Mpower// if i use 2 ssds in port 1&2 in riad 0 can i not use hdd in sata ports 3

mpower// if i use 2 ssds in port 1&2 in riad 0 can i not use hdd in sata ports 3 4 5 6 as my hdd wont work
does not show up in bios or windows// help help

Isn't this your 2nd post on this? Did you intel rapid storage (raid controller)? Are you able to see the drives in there? Did you set them up as simple drives or w/er you want?
Did you check in disk manager and assign a drive letter?
The directions for how to do this are in your manual towards the end.
The As Media controller ports 7&8 are SATA III, that is what I use for my storage HDD.

Can I use the Optibay solution to have an SSD+HDD in my 2008 Macbook (MB402) in place of HDD+CD/DVD?

As anyone might have imagined, I am planning to upgrade my 2008 Macbook (MB402). So I am thinking of upgrading the RAM from existing 2GB to 4GB and getting an SSD in place of the CD/DVD drive, which I have rarely used. I am just wondering if there are any issues related to Optibay or Macbay support for White non-unibody Macbooks of 2008 (MB402 specifically). Can somebody help?

Hi
If you are happy with your current hdd, you might clone its entire content to the new msata SSD and then remove, resize partitions you don't need on both drives. And, finally, use msata SSD as bootable drive.
Somewhere on the forum I posted detailed instruction, can't find that now. If you want I'll try to search. But the cloning task isn't so difficult.
Note, Lenovo preload systems with win7 have 3 partitions. The 3rd partition - System_DRV - is a system, hidden one, includes Recovery Environment, is accessible from the Disk Manager.

I like to use the 2nd HDD tray to add SSD drive

Hello,
I like to use the 2nd HDD tray in order to add a SSD drive.
Are there any additional parts required in order to fix the new drive? If yes, please mention the name and part number.
Yours
Stephan

> Is there a specific HDD caddy or maybe a compatible model from another Toshiba notebook which fits into the 2nd slot?
What you need is an HDD bracket for a 2.5 HDD as posted by Dr.Lamp
Such part can be purchased from different computer dealers also from an Toshiba authorized service partner available in your country.
Ask or search simple for 2.5 SATA HDD bracket
By the way: 2nd HDD is possible ONLY if the 2nd HDD slot would contain the HDD connector

How can I use an SSD in a 2006 Mac Pro 1,1 2.66Ghz

Hi everyone,
I'm trying to work out how to use my new SSD in an old 2006 MacPro. Bear with me, I'm not an expert and trying to work out what is best for me.
I recently bought a 1TB Samsung SSD 840EVO to use in my old Mac Pro, not to use as my main machine, but as a network slave to save RAM with sound sample libraries.
I also got an Apricorn SATA III Velocity Solo x2 - Extreme Performance SSD Upgrade Kit to get high speeds
http://www.apricorn.com/products/desktop-ssd-hdd-upgrade-kits/vel-solox2.html?gc lid=CLOi46bvqMICFVGCMgodPG8AdA
After installing the HD using the SATAIII connector in a PCIe slot, I did a hard drive test and realised I could only get about 160mbps, not 300-500mpbs which I think the SSD should run at. I had my friend test it on his machine too, and we realised the problem is the "Link Width" which says "x1" and not "x4" or something, so that the speed isn't running at full speed.
So apparently it's not compatable.
Apparently what I CAN do is install it in a regular Hard Drive bay with a sled, which will be SATA II ... will that work?
I think I can use this: http://www.amazon.com/Mac-Pro-2006-2008-Sled-Drives/dp/B00AN55034
Anyway - is this what I should be doing to get the fastest available connection?
Any advice would be great- thanks!!!

SATA II is generally just fine, no fuss no muss, for the system. Using PCIe to boot adds problems and most if not all such PCIe SSD cards do NOT WORK in 32-bit Mac Pro 1,1 and 2,1 (and the 3,1 is also sometimes difficult with some cards).
Data uses though are useful, work, and benefit. Lightroom, Aperture, scratch, even iPhoto - all those graphic libraries.
I would rewrite and make it "will the native SATA II drive bays" work, and the answer to that is YES. But not faster.
You have a 4x and 8x slot, so one of those is fine.
It is the reads and zero latency seeks along with queue depth and high 90K IOs per sec that help an SSD shine.
Putting a 250GB or 500GB EVO 840 is the easiest and best return on system improvement you can make for $120-240 (plus $14 for Icy Dock adapter).
Even the 2008 has two 4x PCIe 1.1 slots. The 2009 has PCIe 4x 2.1 slots that share bandwidth and cap out (only learned from stripping SSDs using two PCIe cards and 2-4 SSDs), so they aren't perfect either! ONLY the 5,1 really has the best PCIe design and setup.
Sonnet only supports or recommends their Tempo Pro which is what I bought, so I don't know off hand how well yours works and if it even will. Some cards do require EFI 64-bit, AND 10.8.x or later, and maybe even PCIe 2.0 - but only to work, ie they don't work or not supported in PCIe 1.0... but NOT about the bandwidth.
Booting in 10 seconds is nice. Launching a full dozen apps in 10 seconds (and ready to use) also. Only larger program suites takes 20 seconds now.
250MB/sec is nothing to sneeze at when it comes to boot drive SSD.

Advice on best use of SSD &HDD?

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