External SSD for new iMac

Hey all,
I'm investing in the late 2012 iMac, the 3.2ghz model ($1999). Rather then get the Fusion Drive, which has no interface for the SSD and can't be messed with, I was going to purchase my own external SSD (OWC Mercury on the go Pro with USB 3.0) which has read/write up to 586mbs. My theory is to install FCPX on that and house all projects and events there, which will give me a faster workflow. A RAID and Thunderbolt is out of my budget, so I thought this would be a good solution and much faster than the internal HDD.
Thoughts? Ideas? Am I in the right direction or should I reconsider the Fusion, or will the internal HDD be fast enough?

Kappy wrote:
Although with a separate SSD and HDD you have to perform the work yourself you do gain some flexibility in your set up. However, should the urge arise there are numerous tutorial around that explain how to turn the SSD and HDD into a Fusion Drive using the same mechanism that Apple uses.
And the converse is also possible and easy: you can turn the fusion drive back into two separate drives.
If possible, I think you should put up the extra $250 for the Fusion Drive - especially considering this is not an option later on. With such a new machine, the internal hard drive will be the slowest part.
Still, even with a Fusion Drive, an external is strongly recommended. You should install FCP X in your regular system drive (fusion or not), and have your projects and events in an external.
Your proposed solution is adequate, depending only on available space. You only need your working projects and events to fit in the ssd. As long as you move them elsewhere when finished, to make room for the new ones, you'll be more than fine even with a smallish usb3 ssd.

Similar Messages

Will I need to buy bigger external HD for new iMac?

I have had my trusty iMac (the snowball one) for 6+ years now and have loved it dearly. It has an 80gig hard drive that is about three quarters full. I have other things stored on an external hard drive, and have been using a 200gig external for Time Machine.
Anyway, I am about to splurge on a new iMac. Going for the 21.5 inch one, but putting 2T hd in it and as much ram as possible.
My question is: what will time machine need for back up? For the past few years I have been using a 200gig external for Time Machine (I also have a 500g one for extra photos and music). It will be quite a while before I have even 100 gigs of stuff to back up with Time Machine. So can I continue to use the 200 gig external for TM? Should I use the 500gig instead? Or am I going to have to buy a new external to equal the 2T?
For what it is worth, I plan to keep my snowball iMac and use it to store some documents or photos that I do not need to access often?
Many thanks in advance.
Jane

Hi Jane,
Pondini has made excellent FAQs for Time Machine to be found here http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html
Quote from it:
+"A general "rule of thumb" is, TM needs 2 to 3 times as much space as the data it's backing-up (not necessarily the entire size of your internal HD).+
+But this varies greatly, depending on how you use your Mac. If you frequently add/update lots of large files, then even 3 times may not be enough. If you're a light user, 1.5 times might do. Unfortunately, it's rather hard to predict, so if in doubt, get a bigger one!"+
Endquote.
So, it seems to me that using your 500GB external HD for Time Machine should be sufficient for your useage.
Hope it helps
Stefan
Message was edited by: Fortuny

In disk utility, how do i format new external ssd for mac mini?

In disk utility, how do I format a new external SSD for late 2009 Mac Mini?

Format it as: Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

Is OWC the only vender making a SSD for the iMac 9,1? $260 seem kind of high for a 480 GB SSD.

Is OWC the only vender making a SSD for the iMac 9,1? $260 seem kind of high for a 480 GB SSD.

I implemented the backup plan I outlined above but have experienced an issue I can't resolve. For some reason, the OWC Elite AL Pro 1T will not boot with the FW400 connection even though it appears in the Startup options. I does not appear as an option when I hold the Option key on startup. If I connect via USB, it works fine and boots as expected.
So, I called OWC Support and they did not have a solution. I decided to return the OWC 1T and bought another 2.0TB (2000GB) OWC Mercury Elite Pro 'Quad Interface' 5900RPM 64MB Cache Solution with eSATA/FW800/FW400/USB2. The other one I bought cloned and booted just fine.
So now I am experiencing the same issues with the new 2T drive that I experienced with the 1T. Connecting via USB works fine, but connecting via FW400 will not boot. The drive is recognized in Finder and otherwise works as expected when connected via FW.
Anyone have any ideas as to solution?
Thanks.

How much RAM should I install for new iMAC ?

Hi,
How much RAM should I install for new iMAC* running Logic Studio? It comes with 4 GB - is that enough? (can you run in 64 bit mode..)
*(The 21.5" 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo)
Also, I was planning to get the stock 1 TB Hard Drive & save projects to an external drive.
Does that sound reasonable?
Any other recommendations?
Thanks,
Wm Heart

Unless you plan on running huge projects with enormous sampled instruments, 4 GB will do (very) fine. And your disk plan is sound. Choose an external Firewire drive, rather than USB. FW is easier on the CPU and can handle more tracks than USB.
What you should get, instead of more memory, is a (24 bit) external audio interface, if you want to do serious recording and playback.
What type of audio interface you'ld need, depends on what you want to do with it and of course your budget. From decent to brilliant costs from roughly 100 to several 1,000's of europounddollars. Avoid the 16 bit ones, they're worse than the inbuilt audio chip of your iMac. You can recognize 16 bit Audio Interfaces (in webshops) by their prize (often under 100€£$) and the lack of mention of their bitrate.
HTH
Regards, Erik.

Can anyone recommend a good 2TB external drive for my iMac 10.9 ?

can anyone recommend a good 2TB external drive for my iMac 10.9 ?

The Griffin Survivor is a military-grade case that I use. It's $40 and I purchased it at Best Buy. It has a rubber piece that covers the charging port, but can be easily removed for charging while still in the case. The only downside of the case is because of the added girth, it makes the iPod unusable with iHomes or other docks unless you take it out of the case.

Ssd NCQ support for new iMac

Will there ever be firmware with NCQ support for 256 ssd shipped with new iMacs? My ssd ("TS" marked, most likely Toshiba) does not have one, and that's a bit outdated don't you think.

Kappy wrote:
Although with a separate SSD and HDD you have to perform the work yourself you do gain some flexibility in your set up. However, should the urge arise there are numerous tutorial around that explain how to turn the SSD and HDD into a Fusion Drive using the same mechanism that Apple uses.
And the converse is also possible and easy: you can turn the fusion drive back into two separate drives.
If possible, I think you should put up the extra $250 for the Fusion Drive - especially considering this is not an option later on. With such a new machine, the internal hard drive will be the slowest part.
Still, even with a Fusion Drive, an external is strongly recommended. You should install FCP X in your regular system drive (fusion or not), and have your projects and events in an external.
Your proposed solution is adequate, depending only on available space. You only need your working projects and events to fit in the ssd. As long as you move them elsewhere when finished, to make room for the new ones, you'll be more than fine even with a smallish usb3 ssd.

Audio interface and external hard drive config for new imac 21"

Hi. Just got the new imac 21" and I'm considering using it as my main daw with Logic Studio as an upgrade from my old sonar mobo. I usually run up to 40 tracks of recorded audio with fx plugs. I hope to do this at 24 bit 96 instead of 24bit 44 like I did on the old system. I also run the occasional softsynth and sequencer which I don't mind bouncing down to .wav to conserve cpu.
I really like the specs on the m-audio profire 2626 (I need the 8 mic inputs for recording drums) which needs firewire. But at the same time I'm reading a lot of recommendations about using an fw800 external drive for audio. I've read a little about daisy chaining and I'm wondering if anyone's gotten this type of configuration to work. I'm also open to any other configuration options you have to share that would enable my goal of successfully using this mac with logic.
thanks in advance for the help,
dave

I run three firewire audio interfaces daisy chained together, 2 Presonus FP10's and an Alesis Multimix8.
This gives me 24 simultaneous inputs. I normally record 24 bit at 88.2 . My iMac has a FW800 and a FW400 port. What I tried to do was run all the interfaces through the 400 and record to a FW800 external hard drive but I it kept dropping out interfaces, even if I used only one interface. I switched firewire cables on the hard drive to a 800/400 so that the hard drive was now operating as a 400 and I did not have any more interface drop outs.
Even though the iMac has 2 firewire ports, they connect to a single cable to the i/o inside the Mac. If I try recording to an external hard drive, that is 24 tracks going into the Mac, back out to the hard drive, back in to the Mac and then back out to the interfaces and on to the monitor speakers. That is a lot to ask of a firewire connection.
So, I record to the internal drive and use the external for backing up and saving the projects.

Transferring files from original imac AND external CD for old imac

I have an original iMac that has tons of files on it I would like to save. I created a LOT of materials when I was teaching and they are all on the old iMac. It also has two games I bought on floppy discs that I would really like to keep. I tried to load files on a Passport, but the iMac won't recognize it. I have two other old iMacs (not quite originals) as well, but they won't take the Passport either. They will both take a flash drive. I can take word processing files (I can't even remember the application at the moment) off the older one and convert them to Apple Works on the other one, then take the converted files to our iMac 9.1 and convert them to Pages. Then I put them on the Passport. It is a pain, but at least it works. I can also save the documents as pdfs and put them directly on the newer iMac and copy and paste in a Pages document.
The original iMac does not lend itself to any of this. What is the best way to transfer files? It seems like a very long time ago I tried to connect it to my newer iMac with an Ethernet cable but it wouldn't accept the cable. If I am remembering correctly I called Apple Support and they said it lacked something that would allow it to connect. I do not remember if I have tried a flash drive on it or not. I believe I did and it would not recognize it.
Also, does anyone know how I can manage to save a copy of the games? Since I bought them on floppies I can't reinstall them if something happens, but I believe it is within the law to make a backup copy. Someone please correct me if I am wrong. I do have an external floppy reader for the original iMac, but it only works on user created floppies, not commercial ones. If I can manage to hook up to a flash drive or another computer and I simply save the game application, will that be enough? Or is it not possible to know until I try? Will saving the application get all the necessary files?
My second question concerns the newer (but still really old) iMacs. My daughter would love to play some of the games she used to play on them, but the CD drives do not work. Does anyone know where I can get an external CD drive that we can attach to these old iMacs so she can enjoy her games? The computers work fine; she just can't insert the CDs, because it's next to impossible to get them out again.
I believe on the "newer" two we are running OS 9, at least on one of them. I do not recall the OS on the original, but it is whatever it came with. OS 8, perhaps? It has been probably half a year since we fired it up.
I appreciate any advice and help anyone can give me. We really like these old iMacs, which is why we still have three of them. If we can save the files off the original iMac, we would still keep it so we could play our two old games from time to time. :-) I would part with one of the other old iMacs, but I really need to get the files first, and since it won't take a Passport I'm wondering if I'm stuck putting files a few at a time on a flash drive. Do you think it would take an ethernet cable? It seems like I tried to connect to my newer iMac but I couldn't get the computers to recognize each other. I followed all the steps for sharing, but I still couldn't get it to work.
Thank you so much.

Have you formatted the Western Digital Passport drive as a Mac OS Extended (HFS+) volume, or is it factory-formatted for PCs? If the oldest iMac is only running OS 8, it can't recognize HFS+ volumes. It was OS 8.1 that introduced that feature. Additionally, the version of the USB support files (which is somewhat OS-dependent) on the iMacs hard drives affects what will or will not be recognized by those older computers. With each successive release of the USB Adapter Support, the database of supported devices was broadened. The easiest way to transfer the contents of the iMac's hard drive is to physically remove it from the computer and connect a USB-to-IDE adapter directly to it. These adapters come with an external power supply to provide the 12 & 5 volts needed to power the drive. The data connection block is designed to fit either a 3.5" hard drive or the smaller 2.5" laptop drive, as well as newer drives that connect via SATA. It has an included USB cable that connects to a standard USB port, enabling direct reading/writing/file transfers from the hard drive to the computer to which it's connected. These adapters are not Mac-specific in terms of design, so you can buy one at a PC store and use it. For the purpose of identifying such an adapter, here's one that's often recommended in these Forums, carried by Other World Computing. As I mentioned, this adapter is not platform-specific, so you can buy/use a less expensive one sold by PCs stores. I bought one for $15 from Micro Center (PC store), and it has worked with Macs and PCs. As for removing the hard drive from the old iMac - and I assume that it's one of the original models with a tray-loading optical drive (as opposed to the slightly newer ones that have a slot-loading optical drive), you can find directions for accomplishing that if you do a web search. The link that I had for one site (that was good for years) is no longer valid. The iMacs that have a problem ejecting disks are undoubtedly slot-loading models. There are two wide rubber rollers inside those optical drives that grip the disk to pull it in or feed it out. Over time, the rubber dries out, causing the rollers to lose their natural gripping capabilities. If those iMacs have a FireWire port on the side, I'd suggest an external FireWire optical drive. Today, the only type you'll find is a DVD±RW drive, which is more than you need for your intended purpose. A basic CD-ROM drive isn't manufactured/sold anymore. Other World Computing has a few FireWire optical drives, but their least expensive model sells for about $100. Obviously, that costs more than the value of the entire iMac at this point, but the drive will also have USB connectivity as well. You may find other uses for it with your other computers (Macs & PCs), especially if they don't have a CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-ROM, or DVD±RW drive. As for transferring a program itself, there could be other associated files. You'd want to check the Extensions and Control Panels folders for any that are named to likely indicate being a part of the program's installed files. The Preferences folder will probably have a file that has saved game settings, but a new one would be created when you run the program in another supported computer. Depending on the age of the program - and you indicated that it was on floppy disks - its compatibility with newer, pre-OS X releases might be limited. The external USB floppy drive that you use with the older iMac should read commercial floppy disks, but it will not recognize the older 800K (Double-Density) Mac-formatted floppy disks. They're disks that typically format as 720K floppies in a PC, but the variable-speed FDD in older Power Macs was able to fit an extra 80K of data onto those disks. A standard 720K "PC" floppy disk should be read by that drive, but it can't recognize an 800K "Mac" disk. A 720K/800K Double-Density floppy disk only has the slide-lock hole at one corner, while a High-Density (1.44 MB) floppy disk has an additional hole at the opposite corner to differentiate it from the older type.

Best Practices for new iMac

I posted a few days ago re failing HDD on mid-2007 iMac. Long story short, took it into Apple store, Genius worked on it for 45 mins before decreeing it in need of new HDD. After considering the expenses of adding memory, new drive, hardware and installation costs, I got a brand new iMac entry level (21.5" screen,
2.7 GHz Intel Core i5, 8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3 memory, 1TB HDD running Mavericks). Also got a Superdrive. I am not needing to migrate anything from the old iMac.
I was surprised that a physical disc for the OS was not included. So I am looking for any Best Practices for setting up this iMac, specifically in the area of backup and recovery. Do I need to make a boot DVD? Would that be in addition to making a Time Machine full backup (using external G-drive)? I have searched this community and the Help topics on Apple Support and have not found any "checklist" of recommended actions. I realize the value of everyone's time, so any feedback is very appreciated.

OS X has not been officially issued on physical media since OS X 10.6 (arguably 10.7 was issued on some USB drives, but this was a non-standard approach for purchasing and installing it).
To reinstall the OS, your system comes with a recovery partition that can be booted to by holding the Command-R keys immediately after hearing the boot chimes sound. This partition boots to the OS X tools window, where you can select options to restore from backup or reinstall the OS. If you choose the option to reinstall, then the OS installation files will be downloaded from Apple's servers.
If for some reason your entire hard drive is damaged and even the recovery partition is not accessible, then your system supports the ability to use Internet Recovery, which is the same thing except instead of accessing the recovery boot drive from your hard drive, the system will download it as a disk image (again from Apple's servers) and then boot from that image.
Both of these options will require you have broadband internet access, as you will ultimately need to download several gigabytes of installation data to proceed with the reinstallation.
There are some options available for creating your own boot and installation DVD or external hard drive, but for most intents and purposes this is not necessary.
The only "checklist" option I would recommend for anyone with a new Mac system, is to get a 1TB external drive (or a drive that is at least as big as your internal boot drive) and set it up as a Time Machine backup. This will ensure you have a fully restorable backup of your entire system, which you can access via the recovery partition for restoring if needed, or for migrating data to a fresh OS installation.

Migrating iTunes, iPhoto from external drives to new iMac

We've finally decided to upgrade from our trusty Power Mac G4 tower (10.4.11) we've had since 2002 to a new 21.5-inch iMac. It arrives tomorrow.
I'm already anticipating problems migrating to the new system, tho'. The 20Gb startup disk seemed science-fiction large in 2002, but obviously we quickly ran out of space. Currently, our iPhoto library lives on a second internal SATA HD, and iTunes on an external FireWire drive.
What's going to be the best way to migrate all that stuff to the new iMac's 2Tb (science fiction numbers, again!) drive? Will the migration assistant find the iPhoto and iTunes files on those other disks?

den.thed wrote:
Open iTunes on your new iMac and go to File > Add to Library then navigate to the iTunes library on the External HD and hit the Choose button.
Do the same for iPhoto File > Add to Library while your connected to the G4.
Just for clarity's sake, you're talking about selecting the iTunes/iPhoto media folders, right? Not selecting each file individually, I hope.
And from what you're saying, it doesn't sound like Migration Assistant is going to pull anything over from my old iTunes or iPhoto settings, much less media stored on external/expansion drives, is that correct? I'll have to drag those files over via Ethernet, I imagine.

MacBook Air with MiniDP as external monitor for 27" iMac

Hi,
I just found out, that the new iMacs can be used as external displays for MacBooks with MiniDP.
Now I'm considering to buy an 27" iMac, but I've one question:
As my MacBook Air is much slower than an iMac, I was wondering if I could get my MBA (or any ohter MB) in Target Display Mode, with the Command/F2 key combination?
I know about ScreenRecycler, but I want something that works right out of the box;)
As you can connect 2 iMacs together and use either one in Target Display Mode, I hope the same will be possible with an iMac and an MBA
Thank you

You can put the 27" in target display mode to act as a monitor for the MBair but the reverse is not true. You can't make the MBair a monitor for the iMac 27".
Regards,
Captfred

Suggestions for new iMac, hard drive and Thunderbolt vs FW800 vs USB3?

Ordering a new iMac 27" and leaning toward fusion drive, and wondering if anyone has any suggestion or experiance with this drive? Any suggestions for drives would be welcome.
I am going to have to decide what to do as far as storage and I assume USB3 will be the best choice - been using FW800 and lots of new things coming.
Thanks for any input and suggestions.
Don

anybody have any comments on the use of Thunderbolt vs USB3? I am using FW800 not and will be changing my 2 external drives. I have to keep FW800 on them so I am able to daisey-chain them. My use is normal and wondering if I should stay with USB3 & FW800 for external or make the TM drive a Thunderbolt. Those seem to be priced higher just wanted some suggestions, recommendations.
Thanks,
Don

Transfer iTunes files from external drive onto new iMac

I had all of my iTunes files on an external hard drive with an old eMac. I want to transfer the files to my brand-new iMac.
It's easy to copy the iTunes Library folder from the external drive onto the iMac hard drive, and change the preferences so that new songs are stored onto the iMac, but it doesn't change the settings for iTunes. Then, if I "Add to Library" I get two copies of everything: the file that's on the external drive PLUS the file that's on the new iMac. If I delete all of the "old" duplicates, it will mess up my playlists.
Isn't there an easy way to point iTunes to the new Library on the iMac and have it change the location setting for all of the songs?

okay, let me rephrase my question:
when you moved your files from the old Mac to the external, did you
(a) drag the entire iTunes folder from <MacintoshHD>/users/<yourname>/music to the external
or
(b) use the +consolidate files+ command to move the files to the external
if (a), connect the external to the new Mac and launch iTunes while pressing option on your keyboard. when prompted, click on +choose library+ and select the iTunes folder on the external.
if (b), copy the iTunes folder from <MacintoshHD>/users/<yourname>/music on the old Mac to <MacintoshHD>/users/<yourname>/music on the new one, overwriting the iTunes folder in place there. connect the external to your new Mac and fire up iTunes normally.
if you want to move the media files from the external to the internal disk of your new Mac, go iTunes > preferences > advanced and point +iTunes media folder location+ to the iTunes folder in <MacintoshHD>/users/<yourname>/music. also on the advanced tab, make sure there is a tick in the boxes next to +keep iTunes media folder organized+ and +copy files to ... when adding to library+.
then file > library > organize library > consolidate files. this will copy all your media files to the location you specified earlier in the advanced tab. when done, you can (if you want) erase the external and use it for other purposes. or keep the files there and use the external as your backup.
JGG

Best USB CD/DVD 'Superdrive' drive for new iMac

I've been reading several posts about external (USB?) optical DVD +/- burner/reader drives for the latest desktop iMacs, and several comments have been about various third party ones being superior to the external Apple one that's also available (i.e. that Apple drives often give trouble and are less reliable).
Having seen the likes of LaCie, Western Digital and Seagate mentioned, I'd appreciate comments/recommendations before I go ahead and buy a new iMac - along with an external Apple? or third party? drive.

The new iMacs use USB 3.0 speeds, now.
I would look for an optical drive that uses the new USB 3 connections.
This will be a very fast drive.
If you can't find an optical drive with USB 3.0, then look for a drive that uses FireWire 400/800 and use an Apple FireWire to Thunderbolt adapter to connect the drive.
FireWire 800 optical drives are pretty fast at up to 85Mbps transfer speeds.
Here is one such drive.
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/MRF82SD24S/
And the Apple adapter.
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MD464ZM/A/apple-thunderbolt-to-firewire-adapte r?fnode=51
Good Luck!

External SSD for new iMac

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