Best size for SSD boot drive?

Hi,
I am looking to replace my optical drive from my iMac 27" with an SSD to be used as a boot drive and to hold my applications for faster loading etc..
I was wandering what would be the best size for a boot drive so that I dont overspend as SSD's are expenive.
Thanks for any help in advance.

The best size is the size you need to store OS X and your apps without getting the SSD full. For example, if OS X and your apps take less than 100 GB, you should consider a 128 GB SSD, and if they take 150 GB, go for a 256 GB SSD.
You can buy the SSD at OWC to guarantee the compatibility > http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/OWC/

Similar Messages

Procedure for SSD boot drive in Mac Pro?

I just purchased a 115GB SSD that I want to use as the boot drive in my Mac Pro running OS 10.6.8. I've read several articles about how to set this up but none seem to be working for me. On the SSD boot drive I want only the essentials: OS, Home Folder, Apps. Everything else (docs, downloads, music, photos, movies, etc.) needs to go on my 1TB storage HD. The problem I'm having using Carbon Cloner and Super Duper to copy the OS, HF and apps to the SSD is they're copying too much data, filling up the SSD with non-essentials (there should only be about 90GB of data being copied but much more seems to be transferred). I can't seem to lean-down what's being moved. Would doing a new install with the Snow Leopard DVD and then copying over only the essential files/folders with Migration Assistant be better, more specific?
Has anyone perfected this procedure, and can give me step-by-step instructions? All help is greatly appreciated!

There are dozens and dozens of threads, MPG, MacRumors and elsewhere.
don't move anything from "home" except the bare essential ~/Library (1GB at most) with CCC and deelect everything else. That should get you down to size.
Before you bought I hope you asdded up the /applications and good estimate. most users can get an OS/apps into 60GB or less (the max I would want to see on SSD you have) FCP and some others or if you hae a lot of large apps - some allow for installing in alternate locations as well as into system/library.
Some - there are always some - have had trouble cloning. Some had trouble with installing, too. Can't win for losing at every turn sometimes.
Been there, but look again at MPG series.
How To Clone a Volume
How to upgrade your system/boot drive
Using Cloning as a Backup Strategy

GT683: swapping RAID0 HD config for non-RAID/AHCI SSD boot drive

A question re: MSI skus which come with 2x HDs in RAID0 config. My system (GT683DXR-603US sku) came with 2x 500GB HDs (WD5000BEKT) in RAID0 config.
First thing I did was to replace this with a Crucial M4 256GB ssd, though prior to this I took an image of the stock system (prior to even booting it up the first time) and restored said image onto the SSD.
The first time I booted off the SSD (no other HD in the unit, as I pulled both of the WD 500GB out to try the SSD alone), I went into the BIOS and changed the SATA config from RAID to AHCI. But Win boot cycle almost immediately resulted in a blue screen. I then changed SATA config from AHCI to IDE, w/the same boot result. Finally, set the BIOS config back to the original RAID, and Win7 booted fine.
Upon confirming SSD Win7 boot and testing operation successfully, I pulled the SSD, place the 2x 500GB HDs back in the system, just long enough to break the RAID 0 array.
Replaced the SSD in the primary bay, and left one of the 500GB HDs in the 2nd bay, and that's how I'm using the system now: Crucial M4 SSD boot drive, WD Scorpio 500GB data drive ... with the BIOS SATA config set to RAID mode.
So the system is working now, but question is - should I pursue trying to change the BIOS setting from RAID to AHCI mode? I'm thinking that in order to get the SATA 6Gbps performance out of the Crucial M4, the Intel SATA config needs to be set to AHCI ... yet apparently I first need to modify the Win7 config (the SATA driver, perhaps?), before I can modify the BIOS sata config?
Any suggestions would be appreciated!

bump ... any thoughts? I'm thinking to leave my sysetm in RAID mode, as from what I've read recently Intel storage mgr supports TRIM in RAID mode as well as AHCI.

Living with a small SSD Boot Drive on New Pro??? Migration?

Hi Folks, I am seriously considering moving to a new mac pro from my 2008 tower. Aside from peripheral issues, my main concern is how to use the smaller SSD boot drive vs. my now current 2T drive? I've been a mac user since 1985 and my user folder with gigs of mail, documents, pictures (iPhoto and Aperture) and videos, etc., plus my application folder, is much larger than a 512 SSD. I now use a 3T drive as a separate movie/video FinalCut drive, so I've stored that separately. It just seems that if I try to do a migration of my current mac to a new one, I'm going to be creating major headaches and problems.
Before I buy something like that, I need to have a good strategy for a move.

You should try your cyrrent system and clone the OS to a 250GB SSD and 2-3TB data drive
The difference is nothing but remarjabke znd easy to do.
The 2600xt really should have been retured already and confivurd your system with 16GB RAM or more
Might be able to get more out if your Mac and get another year or more
Using one drive only is never a good idea.
System - data - projects - media - scratch - time machine
And putting scratch and system on multiple SSDs and on PCIE controller card
And then a GTX 680 or AMD Mac 7950 graphic card
The nMP is faster but it still needs work and yiurs isn't dead

Cloning Hdd to SSD boot drive and what happens with Music/Logic Plugins

Hi, my computer is a mid-2012 Mac Pro 12 Core
It's a great computer but I'm considering upgrading my main boot drive (WD Caviar Black 1TB HDD) to a 1tB Samsung EVO 840 SSD drive (I'm using a sonnet tempo PCI card to mount an SSD that holds audio at the moment and will add another SSD for the boot drive I'm referring to) so I just had a question - if I clone the HDD to the new SSD, what happens with things like licenses for my audio plugins, such as Native Instruments Komplete, programs by IKMultemedia. programs that use an ILOK such as Steven Slate Plugins and also, WAVES plugins? Will this info all carry across to the new SSD drive or do you think I'll need to reauthorise some things? I have all the serials etc so this shouldn't be an issue, but just wondered.
Any help would be appreciated as it feels like quite a big step in that it's my main system drive!
Thanks in advance
Sam

CCC is excellent. If it doesn't work then sure, just always have a safety net of your system that is untouched.
Also, after a clean install, CLONE it!
And then use Setup Assistant. Migration Assistant.
Clone of the system can go on sparse disk images too so you don't have to partition (should have at least one though) and you can have clone from different stages and versions: 10.9.4, without Setup Assistant, migrated, full loaded with all your apps. Multiple versions.
CCC is designed to make a working bootable copy of a system so you can move the system to another boot device like hdd and SSDs without the worry.
But I think we were talking about a system that did not see a clean install of Mountain Lion or Mavericks so it is over due for one!

Using existing 1Tb Home Folder from new SSD boot drive

So, I am completely stuck.
My plan;
Mac Pro (2008) with RAID card. 4x750Gb drives as RAID5, Home Folder is resident there at 1.25Tb.
Purchased 160Gb SSD. Performed clean install of 10.6.7 on it connected by e-SATA.
Migrated Applications. Booted into SSD; Used Advanced Users from System Preferences to point at original Home Folder on RAID.
My result ;-)
50% success but many of the sub folders in ~Library are locked with permissions. Preferences, Mail etc.
Everything is 100% OK when I boot from the original Raid (which is great as a fallback)
My hope;
That there is some way that the original Home Folder would be 100% fine when referenced from the new SSD boot drive.
£1,000,000 to the first MacWiz to help me solve this... (joking about the £1,000,000 but I would be very, very grateful indeed)
Cheers

Hi all,
I just went through a similar issue and solved it with a little persistance.
Follow these steps:
1) All you need to do is cmd + i or "get info" on the folders you want access to
2) in the bottom right of the window that pops up click the small padlock symbol
3) enter your password (the login password for you mac) to "authenticate"
4) Click the arrow by "sharing and permissions" to open that drop down
5) click the + button in the bottom left corner
6) in the new window that pops up click administrator or your specific user (both work fine)
7) when it adds that user click the "privilege" and choose Read & Write
Hey presto, when you refresh the finder window the folder will be accessilble!!!
Yay

Installed new SSD boot drive, Time Machine won't backup

I installed a new 240 GB SSD boot drive (cloned using Super Duper) in my Mac Pro and want to use it as my startup disk. When I boot up using the new 240 SSD drive and try to start Time Machine to back it up onto a 500GB external drive it tells me it failed because the estimated backup size is over 2 TB. I suspect that Time Machine still has the last backup from my old boot drive, which was a 3TB hard drive. I go to Options and tell it not to back up any of my other hard drives but that doesn't help. So now what? How can I get rid of the last backup, which was from my 3 TB hard drive, so that I can backup a 240 GB SSD on a 500 GB external drive? Or is it another problem? Help!! Thanks!!

Problem solved, wasn't using Options/Exclude items properly.

NEW - 2.4 Westmere 8 Core, 240 SSD boot drive won't start

Brand new, out of the box 2.4 Westmere 8 Core with a 240 SSD boot drive and 12GB RAM will not boot up.
Safe mode won't work.
Boot from disk won't work.
I can't even get the DVD tray to open. I hear no chime on startup then, it goes as far as the gray apple screen then....nothing.
CrN.

Who sold you this?
You dont' get 3rd party from Apple. And who installed the OS?
Pulling the SSD would still let you boot from a DVD as long as it is your Mac's OEM.
Then you can install OS to a drive of your choice that you have on hand.
Yes, take it back.
For $2100 Mac Pro 2.8 4-core, upgrade to 3.3GHz $590, add OWC SSD $240 (120GB, usually more than enough for OS and apps, all the data goes to WD Black 1.5TB $109) and 3 x 8GB RAM (high capacity ram shows 15% boost in memory bandwidth and performance).
I strongly recommend against 2.4GHz - unless you plan a DIY to dual 3.3's - then yes. 2.4's on a PC are good for OC'ing to near 4GHz speeds so they are easy to sell.

New SSD boot drive. Confused about "Incompressible Data Rates"

Hi everyone,
My editing machine is a 2011 17" MacBook Pro with the OEM 128GB SSD. I'm getting close to filling this drive and so I was thinking of upgrading to a larger capacity and faster SSD for my boot drive. (All my media storage, caches and whatnot are stored on FW800 drives). I was looking at the OWC Mercury 6G drives. For the price, I'd love to get the 480GB Mercury Electra drive, but I see that it states that the read/write speeds are severely lessened for "Incompressible Data Rates" such as photos and video. The OWC people obviously recommend to me to buy the Extreme. Is it necessary to get the Extreme? I find that even the OEM SSD I use now allows me to run PPro CS5.5 perfectly fine. I'm not editing 4K footage or more than 2-3 camera angles (I primarly do news video production).
Thank you,
William

If you don't keep footage on the drive (and you shouldn't), then you don't need to worry about it.

Best size for previews

What is the best size for standard previews when working with a 27 inch iMac? screen size 2560 by 1440
Also would you go high quality preview or just low.
Stepping back a little - here's my work flow
Import
Convert to DNG fast load previews
render embedded and Sidecar
applying a preset to auto set lens corrections
assessing in library
view / select - 1st run thru check images through larger thumbnails
weed out - full screen / 100%zoomed in images
Develop modeThis assessing is where things fall down, often the rendering takes 4-8 seconds, sometimes starting with a totally pixellated image.
files and LR data are stored on firewire 800 RAID 5 external hard drive
Lightroom 2 Catalog-2-2 Previews.lrdata
Lightroom 2 Catalog-2-2.lrcat
Lightroom 2 Catalog-2-2.lrcat-journal
Lightroom 2 Catalog-2-2.lrcat.lock
images
cache is on iMac set at 50 Gb
So - any thoughts on the below would be appreciated
size for standard previews
render - embed and sidecar or standard
Thanks
hamishNIVENPhotography

Rob, you read the Help??
For archived files 1:1 is completely unnecessary and you should have noticed, I have the space.
Have you noticed that if you zoom in on an archived image with a standard preview a 1:1 is automatically generated, too easy!
If you are wanting to recover from previews then you need to look at your back up strategies. Or just export full sized jpegs!!
Rob Cole wrote:
The points in having 1:1 previews for archived images are:
* So you can zoom in if you want.
* To maintain the potential for recovery.
* So you don't have to bother computing an optimal size for standard preview, nor wonder if you computed it correctly or not, nor remember to recompute it when you buy a new monitor...
Granted, if you don't have enough space, or you'd rather use the space for other things, then yes: standard preview size matters. But since I've never been faced with such constraint, I've never computed an optimal preview size. The general principal though is to save a preview that will fit nicely in the area you will be using to view it. So if I were to compute an optimum, I would:
* Compute viewing area.
* Figure out how willing Lightroom is to upsize an existing preview before rendering a larger version (if image is online), and how willing I am to view reduced quality upsampled image if Lightroom is willing to upsize some (or if image is offline).
And from that one could derive the optimum size for standard preview on their system and workflow.
UPDATE: From the Lightroom help file:
Standard Preview Size
Specifies the maximum pixel dimension for the rendered preview. Choose the size that accommodates the display you’re working with: select a standard preview size that is equal to or larger than the longest edge of your screen resolution. For example, if your screen resolution is 1920 x 1200 pixels, choose Standard Preview Size > 2048 Pixels. If your screen resolution exceeds 2048 pixels, Lightroom generates a 1:1 preview instead.
Rob

BIOS setup for SSB boot drive and 2 RAID 0 data drives

I'm trying to setup my new rig. I was able to get Win 7 to see all drives when plugged into the white SATA connectors. This with no BIOS RAID. If I change the BIOS from AHCI to RAID, Windows fails to boot completely.
After some research, I tried plugging the SSD boot drive into the JMicron controlled blue SATA 7 connector. It works. The 2 WD 640's are in the South Bridge controlled SATA 1-6 connectors (3 & 4). Windows sees the drives with On-Chip ATA Devices set to AHCI. I can setup the 640's with On-Chip ATA Devices set to RAID and the BIOS sees them during boot up, but Windows can't. I did install the RAID drivers as specified in the manual Appendix B.
My system specs are in my sig. I don't see them in preview, so I hope the show up.
So, what did I miss? Thanks if advance for any assistance!
Scott

I did this from the manual appendix B:
Installing the RAID Driver Under Windows
(for Non-bootable RAID Array)
1. Insert the MSI DVD into the DVD-ROM drive.
2. The DVD will auto-run and the setup screen will appear.
3. Under the Driver tab, click on AMD chipset drivers by your need. The AMD chipset
drivers includes RAID Driver.
4. The driver will be automatically installed.
Plus, I installed the JMB36x drive under the RAID button on the MSI CD.

Bay 1 or bay 2 when installing a 120gig SSD Boot drive with 10.8 into a MacPro 3.2Ghz Quad core ?

Im about to install a 120gig SSD into a MacPro 3.2Ghz Quad core. It shipped with a 1TB Hitachi Ultrastar HDD Sata III, that runs 10.7 and is the boot disk running form bay #1. I plan to run 10.8 on the new SSD and use that as the boot disk.
Should I swap over the Hitachi HDD and SSD so that new SSD boot drive is in bay #1 ? If so am I correct that it would be okay to download and install Mountain Lion on the SSD using bay #2 first and then swap them over once installed ?

Thanks. FYI the planned build is this...
Bay 2 - BOOT DRIVE. 120gig SSD running OS 10.8 plus all apps (although not sure whether to wait a while regarding upgrade to 10.8 ? )
So far Im quite happy with 10.7.3 and the machine seems very stable
Bay 1 - 1TB HDD running OS 10.7.3 (so can boot from this HDD disk if required to should the SSD fail (if or when ). This is disk already running 10.7.3 as boot disk now.
Bay 3 & 4 - On horizon... x2 1TB Western Digital Black Caviar HDD set up with RAID '0' stripe. Not sure on whether to use a RAID 0 or not yet.... Might just go with one 2TB drive... TBC.
BACKUP: 3tb external HDD or Synology DS411j NAS drive
So from what I understand once I've installed the OS on to the new SSD along with any apps, use Carbon Copy Cloner to make an fresh image before I use the system... is that correct ???

Best size for facebook marketing picture?

Hello,
has anyone experience with designing a facebook post / timeline picture for marketing purpose? If yes, what is the best size for desktop and mobile and how would you do the fill.
In my opinion it should be a size that fills a large part of the users screen so they must see. For the content I think a teaser and then a click to the webpage for more info.
I'm curious what other designers do or would do.
Thanks,
Jorik

Hi Jorik,
Facebook will actually resize any photo you post to fit the timeline. With that said, even if you upload an extremely large screensaver image 1600x1200px, it will appropriately fit and scale it according to the window size. This will also scale appropriately on mobile devices. Generally speaking, that means the larger your image the better. This is because when displayed on a desktop or large screen, you can still view it at a high resolution, but when scaled down to a mobile device, it won't make a difference. Note the maximum photo upload size is 2048x2048px.
One other thing to note, is that Timeline previews the image as more square and vertical. This means that if you have a landscape photo or very wide photo, the two sides will probably not be visible in the preview. So for marketing purposes, aim important content in the center of the composition. If you want your marketing content to PERFECTLY fit the Timeline post displayed on Facebook, you would want to design an image 404x404px.
For more Facebook Dimensions, check out this website: Facebook Timeline Image Sizes Made Easy
Hope it helps!
Clarice

Best SSD Boot drive

Im looking to buy a Solid State Drive and it will only be used to boot and run my programs and applications. I want to get a very fast one and i only have 24gb worth of applications so im thinking about 60GB when it comes to size, I dont think i will need more than that would it be better to get a larger one? But im looking for something very quick, i read online that OCZ vertex is the best solid state drive when it comes to using them as boot drives since it has a high read rate which is all that you really need when it comes to Boot drives. i was also looking at that OWC mercury electra 6g and extreme pro 6g
Thanks for all your help,
john

You can read a lot of conflicting things. But I would avoid OCZ.
Even Crucial while good you HAVE to first update the firmware. Goes for any SSD.
Samsung (Apple uses theirs) and Intel will have high marks.
You are not going to see 500MB/sec - your SATA2 but still good.
128GB are $100 and sweet size and price, and even 180GB are $160 or less (and more) from Intel and Corsair (I have 2 x Intel and 7 Corsair myself, on 3-4 systems).
SSD have a lot to know if you want but never cut it short on size. Room for BCG and TRIM, overhead, and helps to have 50% free or more. 60GB will format to 54GB probably at best. How much I/O writes in a month? plan to have that much free cell space.
Larger means more SSD channels and performance too so there are other advantages and most reviews are done with a 240GB model. Which sell for around $200-240.
OWC is just SandForce controller and that is all though they tend to be behind on testing or updatiing firmware they also now have Mac utility to do so probably, which can be a plus. But then Corsair I really do trust and their firmware is current.
Even as of June this year all the SSD vendors had to work through firmware bugs and issues, incl. Intel so SSDs are not your plug and play piece of cake like mechanical drive. And speaking of which a WD 10K 250GB $100 also is a nice solid boot drive, 180MB/sec read and writes. Or 1TB WD Black is $89.
Moving your media library and such off the boot drive is going to help no matter what you do.

SSD Boot Drive for Mac Pro

Apologies in advance, I’m really not great with this sort ofstuff.
Basically, what I would like to do is add an SSD to my MacPro and use that as my boot drive. Ihave a 1TB HDD which is currently doing everything but I’d like to use thispurely to store music, videos etc.
As well as booting to Lion, I’d also like to use the SSD torun Windows 7 with VMware Fusion – presume this doesn’t cause any problems?
The plan would be to have the system software andapplications on the SSD and everything else on the HDD. Only thing I’m not sure of is where the homedirectory should go?
Does this all sound like a realistic goal? Also, will this be an relatively straightforward process? Migration Assistant?
Thanks.

So in effect, lets just say your SSD drive fails. As you are currently setup, can you boot from your secondary drive to your backed up OSX, or do you have to have restore that backup image to a new hard drive?
My whole rational of keeping the home dir separate (disk) from the boot dir is that I can switch among any number of boot drives any time I want to. For example, as a hypothetical case*, I use 10.6.5, and I want to update to 10.6.6, 10.6.7, or 10.6.8, I just do it to my ssd. Now I can still boot from my 10.6.5 backup, say for the sake of comparison to some weird behavior I see on the update, without a blink of the eye. I'm still using my same (common) home dir because it is not involved with the update. If I want to go "back" I can restore the ssd from my 10.6.5 backup.
Of course I would actually do it the other way and boot and update from the backup leaving the ssd alone (don't want to write to it any more than I have to). Only if I was satisfied with the new OS on the backup would I then update my ssd.
The point of all this is keeping the home dir off the boot dir allows you to "flit", "jump", switch, whatever, to different OSs (or backups of the same OS) at will. Your home dir is none the wiser unless the OS dramatically changes or screws things up (so that's why this technique may or may not work across major OS revisions -- Snow Leopard to Lion for example, but its great with a single OS sequence).
While everyone always debates the pros and cons of keeping the home dir separate from the boot dir, what always seems to get lost or not mentioned is the benefit of being able to switch among the OSs when they are separate.
So all of this was a long way of answering your question -- no you don't have to backup to the original boot drive before using it. Just boot from the backup. Your home dir couldn't care less.
* For me going to 10.6.6, .7., .8 is hypothetical since I use 10.6.5 and have no current plans of updating beyond that (can you say "app store"? -- don't want it my machine -- and I won't debate any comments on this -- its my personal decision. And besides this is off topic.).

Best size for SSD boot drive?

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