Optimal use of SSD and Rotational Drives?

I have a brand new iMac with 2TB rotational drive and 256GB SSD. What is the best way to optimally use these in combination?

Boot from the SSD and use the rotational drive for storage of big files.
You could also partition it and have a Time Machine backup on there.

Similar Messages

How do i use both ssd and hdd drives on macbook pro together

have a mid 2012 macbook pro 15 inch. I replaced hdd drive with ssd drive and put hdd drive in optic bay. Was wondering what the best way to use both together is

Use your SSD for your system, applications, working projects, as a scratch disk (if you're editing photos or video, for example) and you can use the HD to store you user files (Documents) and infrequently accessed files.
The only disadvantage that I see with a setup like yours is backups. You can use clones to backup both drives, and Time Machine to - at least - backup your boot drive, but you're going to run the risk of losing data if you don't clone your HD. That's a minimum of two clones for one computer (I shouldn't be one to be talking about excessive clones, though, as I keep three clones of my SSD, one clone of my 2TB 'working' drive, and two Time Machine backups of my SSD).
But that's the way I'd treat the drive in the opti-bay - just as an 'internal' external drive.
Clinton

Setting up new MBP with SSD and optical drive and restoring from Time Capsule

Hi Everyone-
Sorry if this has been addressed before, but I couldn't find a specific answer by searching. My last macbook was stolen, but luckily I had everything backed up in my Time Capsule. I just ordered my new Macbook Pro (13"), 16GB Ram, and a 240GB SSD. I plan to install everything next week. My plan is to keep all of my apps and working files on my SSD and use my 2nd hard drive for data storage and possibly my itunes library. My question is- when setting all of this up, what would be the best way to go about doing this.
1.) Restoring my time machine backup to the original hard drive, move it to the optical drive bay, and then copy over the files that I want on the SSD (after installing the operating system) and delete them off of the origan HD.
2.) Restore my backup to the SSD (once it's installed) and then move files over to the formated original harddrive in the optical bay. My problem is that there may not be enough room on the 240GB SSD.
3.) Is there a way to do a slective restore through TM and move where I want to keep them? I think this would be the easiest.
4.) Other way that I haven't mentioned
Thanks for any help with this question.

I used setup assistant last time when I changed from a 2009 mini to a 2010 mini. It caused some file permission errors that still persist today with iPhoto. I have 2 accounts on my mini, 1 for my wife and 1 for myself, but I store all our photos and videos on the shared folder in order to avoid duplication. But when she imports pictures from her profile and I try to view them full screen, I'm unable to. I have to relaunch iPhoto and repair file permissions if I want to view them properly. I was hoping to avoid this happening again.

Backing up Air SSD and external drive to Time Machine

Hi
Sincere apologies if this has been asked and answered but I cannot find an answer or phrase a search properly to do so.
I have a 500gb MacBook and am planning to get a MacBook Air. I would like to move much of the content from my MacBook to an external drive b/c it won't fit on the Air--music, photos, etc.
What I cannot seem to understand is how I will then back it all up. That is, I will have some content on my Air that I use frequently--work files and so forth--and I will have mostly media on the external drive. Do I then use a second external hard drive for Time Machine backups and if so can I set it to back up my Air's SSD and the external drive that is storing my media files? (In case it's relevant, I also currently back up my MacBook offsite using Crashplan.)
I hope I phrased this correctly and that my question is clear.
A related question: Part of the reason for wanting to get an Air is the increased ease of mobility. I would like to have some music stored on the Air, and accessible via iTunes, so that I can listen to it when I take it to the office, when traveling, etc. Is this possible?
Thank you very much

Correct. Having Time Machine store it's backups on the same drive as data it's backing up is mostly self defeating. If that drive were to fail then you'll lose the data and it's backup. Time Machine to Time Capsule is also great because it is wireless and just needs to have power nearby. You can even hide it behind furniture in the house (out of site) and it'll still backup continuously whenever your laptop is in the house and not sleeping. It's so easy you'll forget about it until you need it someday.
If you want an ideal home backup solution I would recommend:
1) A TimeCapsule on your home network to serve as your passive, local, incremental backup system for accidental file deletions, or rolling back changes.
2) Use a cloud backup service such as CrashPlan or BackBlaze for passive, off-site backups in case of a disaster (fire, theft, etc.)
3) And lastly, it's always nice to have a third backup type, a bootable clone (using SuperDuper!, etc.) that you actively create just prior to any major upgrade of Mac OS
Having even one of these puts you far ahead of the majority of home computer users. Having all three backup types should give you great piece of mind that you are really protecting your data files and media.

Setup SSD and hard drive combo on 27" iMac?

I have a new 27” iMac with an SSD drive and a second 1TB drive. Somewhere I think I heard reference to arranging them so they appeared as a single drive on the desktop. Is this Tue? Or am I dreaming?I see the advantage in putting the OS and applications on the SSD and all else on the other drive, but is there an article that describes how to do it? Thank you.

Hi Woglesby,
Yes, it is possible to move your system and applications to the SSD.
If you are running from the HD, the procedure is to install OSX Snow Leopard on your SSD.
Boot from the SSD, create an temporary and empty user account, migrate your settings and applications using Migration Assistant. Leave your User Account with all the data on the internal HD.
Change the path to your User Account on the internal HD in System Preferences as above.
Reboot and you should be on your way. You can leave the system folder and applications on the internal HD where they are if space is not a consideration.
Best wishes,
Sam.

I have formatted my SSD and hard drive.... I am running a clean install from disk of 8.1 pro. I cannot determine if it is a compatibility

issue or hardware issue. I had run a memory test and scan disk for bad sectors from the bios. As administrator, I enabled automount in diskpart to allow windows to assign a drive name.
From the bios, I can see both drives and only the ssd. I have not pinpointed when the harddisk is unmounted. It is formatted as NTFS. I can hear it unmount either during boot or upon waking from sleep mode. The bios sees no bad sectors nor does windows.
However, when I had the intel compatibility software installed, my hard drive never mounted. I did a restart and inorder for windows to see my hard drive. I disabled the intel software for the 4th gen i7 processor. This problem is happening less often. I do
not think I have solved the problem. Intel or Windows... I think a bit of both.
If there is a software patch, please guide me to it. I am in school and use my laptop ALL the time. I believe it is a compatibility issue. I have attached this from searching intel's site for downloads and windows is up to date.
I am quite concerned because I can hear my harddrive unmount. It is labeled as healthy NTFS partition. I have checked for hidden volumes and done everything I know to do to check the integrity of the hardware as administrator. I have searched microsofts
libraries and forums and have done everything I can find as suggestions.
I have checked for malware, viruses, etc. My only clue this is going to happen is the hard disk spins up and I hear the fan, then I hear it unmount the drive. Of course, after unmounted there are other issues which I have ruled out as the cause of the problem.
Basically, I am experiencing a lack of swap space after my hard drive unmounts.
Any suggestions, are welcome! I would really like to know if this is a known windows issue. I should not have to disable intel's processor software. I paid for the features of the i7 and would like to utilise the processor.

Hi,
According to your descriptioin, I don't think this is system problem, it should be Intel driver problem. It would be contact Intel to confirm this issue whether this is their driver problem.
Roger Lu
TechNet Community Support

How best to migrate from MacPro to iMac w/ SSD and extrenal drives

Currently I have a MacPro with 4 drives - 3 1TB and 1 2Tb, the 2TB drive is my main hard drive, so it has system, apps, documents, itunes etc....and it has been upgraded and migrated from one computer to the next as long as apple has had the ability to do so (and before that by moving over targeted drive manually). I currently am running 10.6.8 on the machine. I have ordered a new iMac w/ an internal 512gb SSD drive, and after speaking with an Apple rep, I got a THunderbolt enclosure to house my current 4 hard drives. Now my question is how best to get my preferences etc into the new computer w/o dragging along all the old stuff...(ie old apps not compatible w/ Mountain Lion, old system folders, etc). Here is what I would like to do:
1. setup SSD with OS, fresh installs of Apps, and my fonts (i am a designer and i have a gazillion fonts and they always take way to long to load into my font app).
2. I would like my 2TB drive to eventually just include my home directory where all my files, and such will be stored. But I would like to keep the drive as is to make sure everything is working just in case, I dont want to have any down time during the upgrade process (ie if a client calls me and needs something while I am still setting up I could boot off the 2tb drive and work). But after all is working properly then I would like to make it just the home directory and main place for all files etc
3. My remaining 3 drives are broken up for manual backups of my work on 2 of the drives, and then photos and mp3s on one, and movies and tv shows from itunes on the other. I dont currently run Time Machine or Retrospect or RAID....
I see most people saying to create 2 admin accounts, one that would stay on the SSD drive and the other which could be mapped to the 2TB drive and have its home directory there...but what do I do about moving preferences etc? is there a way when setting up that will let me import my current account and let me keep it on the external drive as is? should i move the files that i want to keep off the 2tb drive, wipe it to get rid of the old apps and system and then put back the home directory??I don't want to run into trouble with permissions, and I really dont even want to create 2 accounts because I hate having to close everything and log out for simple installs and updates...i have 2 on my macbook pro now and i run into errors all the time of i cant update this or that because of admin account...even though both accounts are set as admin.
I want to keep the whole upgrade simple, but I would like to keep this fresh system clean as am sure there is way to much left over garbage from upgrades past. So just not sure how best to do any of it.....

I purchased the DataTale RS-M4t SMART 4-Bay Thunderbolt RAID storage enclosure. But it can do both RAID if you get their data manager software download, or it can just mount the drives and be used normally. So basically I can plug all 4 of my current drives into it...and it into my iMac and it will be same as if I had it in my tower....so really not moving over a ton of stuff. I will load all apps fresh onto the brand new iMac - so the SSD will be a clean install...my worries are trying to get access to home directories etc on the current main drive and have things get setup correctly, keychains, bookmarks, etc...as well as my iTunes which has iPad and iPhone backups, etc. I am just not sure as how to best setup the SSD to get the most of its speed while being able to get my current account working but on the second external drive.

IMac with SSD and Hard drive very slow startup time

I have a new mid 2011 iMac with a 250gb SSD drive and a 2TB drive. All are from Apple as BTO options. When I first used the iMac my typical startup time from the hardware check chime to desktop was typically 12 seconds. Something, somehow has been changed because now it takes over one minute to boot up from the SSD. After the chime I hear the fans running and also the 2tb drive. After about 20 seconds I hear the hard drive spin down and then after another 20 seconds it starts up again. Once it starts up the boot up sequences contiunes and returns to the desktop. After this the iMac perfprms as normal. I have tried running disk utility from the recovery partition. I have also reinstalled Lion as well from the recovery partition and neither of these change the outcome.
When I first got the iMac I used time machine to restore from a previous machine into the 2tb partition and then went into advanced options in System preferences>Users&Groups to point to my home folder on the 2Tb drive rather than the default one on the SSD. That was working fine until I discovered software problems with both Preview and Textedit where they would not start up with this arangement. I then repointed my home folder to the default one on the SSD which cured this issue with these programmes leaving my data remaining on the 2Tb drive. Since doing this I have had the one minute boot up problem.
Can anyone offer any advice as to how I may overcome this problem and get my iMac back to starting up in twelve seconds from the SSD as it did before. Any help would be appreciated on this topic.
Thanks.

Where do you maintain your Home folder - on the SSD or on the HDD?
If you want to do a clean install (from scratch) then do the following:
Install or Reinstall Lion from Scratch
If possible backup your files to an external drive or second internal drive.
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Erase the hard drive:
Select Disk Utility from the main menu and click on the Continue button.
After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Erase button and wait until the process has completed.
Quit DU and return to the main menu.
Reinstall Lion: Select Reinstall Lion and click on the Install button.
Note: You can also re-download the Lion installer by opening the App Store application. Hold down the OPTION key and click on the Purchases icon in the toolbar. You should now see an active Install button to the right of your Lion purchase entry. There are situations in which this will not work. For example, if you are already booted into the Lion you originally purchased with your Apple ID or if an instance of the Lion installer is located anywhere on your computer.
Before you go to the extreme of the above would you do this:
Open Activity Monitor in the Utilities folder. Select All Processes from the Processes dropdown menu. Click twice on the CPU% column header to display in descending order. If you find a process using a large amount of CPU time, then select the process and click on the Quit icon in the toolbar. Click on the Force Quit button to kill the process. See if that helps. Be sure to note the name of the runaway process so you can track down the cause of the problem.
Just in case your system slowness is due to something eating up CPU time. Oh, and if your system is brand new check the upper right corner of the menubar for a "dot" inside the Spotlight glass. This means Spotlight is indexing the drive. Until it finishes your system will be quite sluggish.

How to correctly configure AE to utilize external SSD and Fusion drive

OK, so I think I'm set up to succeed with the hardware I have now, but I want to make sure I'm configuring my projects and AE to utilize my setup correctly.
Specs:
iMac
32 GB 1600 Mhz DDR3 RAM (8x4)
1 TB Fusion drive
3.5 GHz Intel Core i7
256 GB Thunderbolt SSD
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M
AE CS6
So I see comments around here about separating out footage from rendered output and the cache, but I'm afraid I may need a little more handholding to be confident. With this setup, how would you configure AE and your project (in terms of disk cache location, rendered output location, and footage files location)?
Currently my footage and output are in the same folder on my Fusion drive, while my disk cache is on my external SSD.
Is there another way or additional considerations I should take into account to maximize the speed and efficiency of my AE editing?
Thank you!

There are a couple of issues in play. Read-write speeds on SSD's are MUCH faster than hard drives. SSD's don't suffer from physical wear & tear as hard drives do, either. You'll most likely see a performance increase by putting footage files & renders from AE on the SSD along with the cache.
Hence the earlier admonition about keeping the SSD cleaned off -- that baby could fill up fast after a few projects! For archiving AE projects & media files, use a hard drive, and consider the SSD as a sort of workhorse rather than a storage unit. That is, of course, until SSD's become price-competitive with hard drives. Until that pont, 256 gigs should serve you well with a little housekeeping now and then.

Using both internal and external drives for iTunes

Hi
I know this is a basic question . I did a few searches and my head started spinning .
I've been using an external drive for my music but it only has 3GB left .
My internal drive has 12GB so I would like to start to use it for storage of music along with the external . (I'll be getting a new mac soon)
In Importing I have >Create file names with track number
Advanced>Keep iTunes Music folder organized
This is on my Panther eMac with iTunes 4.7.1
thanks in advance for any help
----------bob
Powerbook Mac OS X (10.4.6) Panther eMac

The only thing you have to do is to click the 'Reset' button in Preferences>Advanced>General.
Your 'iTunes Music folder location' will be reset to the default location on the internal disk.
All new imported music will be stored there.
New added music will be stored there if you have the checked 'copy files to iTunes Music folder location when adding to library' in Preferences>Advanced>General.
When your new Mac arrives and you want to transfer the library, first copy the entire 'iTunes' folder (in ./Users/YourUsername/Music) from your eMac to the exact same location on the new Mac.
To transfer the iTunes folder, you can burn it on CD or DVD, but a lot easier is to put the eMac in Firewire target mode.
This article tells you how to do that:
How to use FireWire target disk mode
After the transfer of the iTunes folder is completed, connect your external drive and run iTunes.
The new Mac will have a newer iTunes version and it will take some time to convert the old library format to the new format.
Once all works OK and If you want all your music on your new Mac, use the 'Consolidate Library...' command from the Advanced menu in the menubar.
All music from the external disk will be copied to the internal disk.
Hope this helps.
M
17' iMac fp 800 MHz 768 MB RAM Mac OS X (10.4.6) Several ext. HD (backup and data)

Animate using Puppet tool and rotation. Continually rasterize messes it up.

In After Effects CC....Trying to animate a vector arm using rotation and the puppet tool. The animation looks good until I hit the continuously rasterize button on that layer. Then it gets distorted and chopped up. I need it to be continually rasterized so that it is not pixelated. Any suggestions on how to fix this would be awesome.

SiliconPixel wrote:
I get soooo frustrated with the puppet pin effect!
I import an illustrator file, select the continuously rasterise switch and apply the puppet pin effect.
I find that AE just doesn't like AI files with the puppet pin - mesh seems to get all screwed up. If you apply any scale to that AI layer, it's even worse. REALLY difficult to work with and to me, it seems like there are some bugs when the source is an AI file - am I wrong?
Your issues are probably occuring because you're not using the puppet pins correctly. This page in the AE help should help explain things. Here's a relevant portion:
Note: Don’t animate the position or scale of a continuously rasterized layer with layer transformations if you are also animating the layer with the Puppet tools. The render order for continuously rasterized layers—such as shape layers and text layers—is different from the render order for raster layers. You can precompose the shape layer and use the Puppet tools on the precomposition layer, or you can use the Puppet tools to transform the shapes within the layer. (See Render order and collapsing transformations and Continuously rasterize a layer containing vector graphics.)

Using LabView, Arduino, and Easy-Driver to control a Stepper Motor

Hello fair folks of the LabView forums!
I am a humble engineering student in need of some advice and input on a project I am working on.
I’ve also done a fair amount of reading on the LabView forums with people trying to use LabView and Arduino to control stepper motors, and I’ve used as much information from each as I could. However the problem I'm encountering now is one which is unique to my VI Configuration.
So, here is what has been done thus far:
-Installed LabView Interface for Arduino [LIFA]
-Installed necessary VISA drivers for LabView to communicate with arduino
-Uploaded firmware to Arduino to allow it to communicate with LabView
-Properly wired Stepper Motor with Easy Driver and Power Supply; I have verified this by first using the Arduino independently of LabView, using example code found here.
-I have created a VI, and have just recently got it to run without reporting back any errors. While I suspect the behavior I’m encountering has to do with something inside the VI, it is difficult to determine as there are no errors being reported!
But here is general problem I am encountering:
-Connect Joystick to USB Port, connect Arduino to USB Port.
-Plug in outlet for Power Supply
-Open LabView VI
-Run LabView VI
-LabView successfully detects Joystick, and Arduino.
-Tilt Joystick; Stepper Motor moves in proper direction, but it only takes a single step. If held, it does not move further. If returned to zero, and then tilted, it again only takes a single step.
I know that in the example code, the Arduino issued the step command by writing the signal from LOW to HIGH, and varied the speed by how often it did this.
I assumed that the Write-PWM feature would do this same thing, but perhaps my assumption is wrong. I will continue to tinker with this myself, but I would be extremely grateful for any insight you might be able to lend.
I’m thinking, if not the Arduino Write-PMW feature perhaps a simple timing-sequence that could be used to alternate between writing 0 and 1, with the timescale of the sequence being scaled to the X-Axis from the Joystick. But, I am open to suggestions, and certainly appreciate any thoughts you may have to offer!
Attached to this is the VI used in this setup, a picture of said VI, as well as a rough sketch of the hardware configuration.
Thank you!
Attachments:
Arduino Stepper Control.vi ‏1224 KB
VI Picture.png ‏82 KB
Configuration Sketch.png ‏522 KB

Hi danjifraga,
I am not so familiar with the Arduino toolkit functions, but you may have better luck looking at the Arduino page at:
www.ni.com/arduino
I'll ask around on Monday to see if anyone is more familiar with the toolkit.
Good luck,
Brian
Brian G.

Proper setup for using two computers and backup drives?

I've just purchased Aperture 3 and want to fix a longstanding problem I've had with my workflow and setup in Lightroom. I've got an iMac and a MBP and what I'd like to do is use the iMac as my main computer for Aperture. My plan is to import my existing files into Aperture and copy them to an external (non-portable) hard drive for back-up purposes. Based on this, I'd have two copies of each file, one each on the iMac and the back-up drive, right?
I also use my MBP for a lot of photo editing work while on the road, but don't have a lot of drive space on it. I've bought a 750GB hard drive and I'd like to have the Library on this drive as well for use on the MBP. I know this would give me three copies of each file, but it would also give me some peace of mind in the event I somehow lost the info on the 750GB drive. I don't want copies of the images on the MBP directly as I don't have enough space.
Can this setup be "easily" done and if I make a change in an image on one computer will it be synchronized between the two computers and the two external hard drives? I guess in plain English, what I'd like to achieve is the ability to work on either computer and have the most recent versions synchronize when I attach the 750GB drive to the iMac, with the non-portable external drive as the back-up for the synchronized Library.
Thanks in advance for any help,
Kevin

No, vaults only look after a managed library. A referenced library has to be backed up manually.
There are a few reasons i prefer to use a referenced set up. I use a MBPro on the road for long periods and sometimes high volumes of large image files, so the limited capacity HD is no longer a problem.
Aperture does not slow down with a referenced library as the HD fills.
The Vaults cannot be accessed like manual back ups can, there is no way of knowing what is in there, you hope it is your entire Aperture library.
With manual project backup you have a more manageable size that is much more versatile, and is viewable because of its smaller size. You can delete stuff and then restore it from the backup.
It is safer in my opinion to not have all the library in a single library folder. Much safer split up by project.
When i did use a managed library and Vaults there were times when i wanted stuff off the Aperture library but still kept in the vault, which was not possible.
Allan

Bootcamp using both SSD and HDD

I have just purchased an iMac, with a both a SSD(256Gb) and a HHD (1Tb) and am looking to install windows 7 using bootcamp. I am planning to install the windows OS partition with half of the SSD space, but how do I also half my HDD to use with windows aswell?

you adjust the disk partitions when you setup bootcamps you can set more then 1 hd's space into ntfs

Use G5 Hd and DVD drive in a MacPro?

My G5 has a hardware problem and am looking into purchasing a MacPro (the problem is not with the hd). Will the hard drives from my G5 go into the Mac Pro? Do they need to be reformatted? What about the DVD drive?

Your drive should work, but you do want to reformat it so it uses GUID partition table. There is a 2nd optical drive bay too.

Optimal use of SSD and Rotational Drives?

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