SSD for system directory (boot drive)?

I'm curious why anyone would recommend an ssd drive for the system directory (boot drive). From what I read about ssd's, if there is a lot of (re)writing to the drive, the performance will degrade with time due to the way ssd's (re)allocate free space. Given that the paging space (backing store) would be on that drive (unless you go out of your way to place it elsewhere) and also the system caches, wouldn't you expect the performance to degrade with time? Yes, you can stick a bunch of memory on the machine and that may reduce paging. But still, over time, I would still expect the performance to still degrade.
So explain to me what's the _long term_ benefit of a ssd drive for your boot device?

Most people when it comes to storage know about StorageReview.
That's you're assumption.
I've only started researching this question since last week. There's nothing at that site that specifically answers it so I wouldn't be attracted there.
And because I just posted on Thursday a couple long replies on
SSD in another thread with a link, that I would hope was picked
up and read by others
A search of "storagereview" yields a hit on one of your posts On Sept 4 ("Are SSD harddrives faster ?"), four days before I even joined these forums! Searches here didn't yield anything and I wasn't about to wade through 200 pages of titles if searches didn't yield anything. And I don't know you from Adam so there would be no reason to look for your posts.
Sheesh

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I have a Mac Pro using Lion, with a SSD for system. Restored drive from backup. Now logon password doesn't work. Account password still works. Changing password in user group preferences no longer works to change logon password.

I have a Mac Pro using Lion, with SSD for system drive. Drive stopped booting, but otherwise appeared healthy. Restored from system backup. Now drive seems to work properly, BUT my logon password no longer works. Password OK for account; can access system preferences, and change user password there BUT logon still refuses to accept password. No luck changing password for that account after adding new administrator account and logging on from that account. Suggestions? Thanks.

If you redirect Accounts to another location (not on the Boot Drive) you need to direct them back there again after a restore.
SystemPreferences > Accounts/User&Groups > ...
... Unlock the lock, then hold down Control as you click on an Account to get access to the Advanced Options pane.

Adding a msata ssd to l430 as boot drive

Is it possible to clone my standard 320 GB HD to a msata ssd and put it in the pci slot on my Lenovo L430 and use that as the boot drive and use the 320 gb HD for storage?

Hi,
As Hemanth points out, the stock mSATA SSD as shipped (if your L has one) is too small to use as a boot drive. The stock SSD is intended as a fast cache for the HDD.
However, it should be possible to install a larger capacity mSATA drive and clone to that - or fresh install via recovery media or MS media. This is commonly done with Thinkpads - mine included.
The mSATA slot is dual-purpose: WWAN or SSD. If you have a WWAN card installed the slot won't be available for an SSD.
Note that cloning will probably "kill" the local recovery partition. It will still be there but not usable for local recovery - so it is essentially wasted space.
Hardware Maintenance Manual
Z.
The large print: please read the Community Participation Rules before posting. Include as much information as possible: model, machine type, operating system, and a descriptive subject line. Do not include personal information: serial number, telephone number, email address, etc. The fine print: I do not work for, nor do I speak for Lenovo. Unsolicited private messages will be ignored. ... GeezBlog
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What's the best setup for a dedicated boot drive (Lion) with a separate storage drive?

I have a 120GB SSD and 4 x 3TB drives striped together for storage on my hot off the shelf Mac Pro. This may be an elementary question and I'm sure it's like every other post in these forums but what really is the best way to maintain a dedicated OSX Lion boot drive while keeping user profile type stuff on the storage drive? A few thoughts...
1) I know the risks with striping, which is why it will all be backed up online. Yes. Online.
2) I am specifically curious about how to keep pretty much all of the User folder type stuff on the storage drive...at least the big stuff.
Any recommendations? I know Win7 had some big problems with doing this kind of thing. My main goal is to be able to reinstall OS X every day if I wanted and not affect the users or their respective data. Possible?

The desktop is implemented by a folder by the same name in the Home folder for each user.
Before you move it, it will be here:
/Users/<your_shortname>/Desktop
I would first try providing an alias in Finder to replace that Folder.
If that does not work, you may need to use Terminal to create a Symbolic Link.
ln -s <desired location> <where the link should be created>
You can open up terminal and type in man ln to see the other options and how the command works.

Can I use Time Machine for just the boot drive?

Is it possible for me to set up Time Machine so that it ONLY backs up the boot drive and not any of the other drives? If so, how can I do that?

Sure, just go to System Preferences -> Time Machine and click Options, then add the drives you don't want to back up to the list by clicking the + button.

SSD RAID0 as a boot drive on a Mac Pro

I'm buying a Mac Pro early 2008
I'm using Final Cut Pro and After Effects.
Option 1: (5) drives
1. OSX boot drive 80GB SSD (under the DVD drive)
2. 32GB SSD RAID0 (scratch/render drive) bay 1
3. 32GB SSD RAID0 (scratch/render drive) bay 2
4. 1TB RAID1 (backup) bay 3
5. 1TB RAID1 (backup) bay 4
or
Option 2: (4) drives
1. OSX boot drive 64GB SSD RAID0 (OS/scratch/render drive) bay 1
3. OSX boot drive 64GB SSD RAID0 (OS/scratch/render drive) bay 2
4. 1TB RAID1 (backup) bay 3
5. 1TB RAID1 (backup) bay 4
I've always had my OS on a separate drive than my scratch/storage disks. but I'm wondering if it's okay to RAID0 the OS and scratch/render drives together.

Move the mirror RAID to external backup.
Keep the OS and scratch volumes separate; as I said, keep to what you use to do, keep the OS separate. Yes, you should RAID both, but not together. No to option #2.
If you work with 1-2GB files, 16GB RAM is essential (maybe more). I assume you bought 2008 to save a little over 2008 in part to have 8 DIMM slots.
http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/specialdeals/mac/mac_pro

G5 2.3ghz DP support for 3TB as boot drive?

Hi all,
I've read mixed reports as to whether the G5's can use the newer 3TB drives as boot drives? I have box running 10.4.11 and want to fill both drive bays with 3TB drives. Don't plan on RAIDing them just want to make sure I can use one them as a boot drive.
Cheers.

OK, you can put 3 TB drives in and so long as they can throttle back to SATA-1, you will be OK there. However, there is a rub having to do with Apple Partition Map (APM).
G5 computers must boot from an APM drive. GUID will not work. Unfortunately, the largest partition size that APM will support is about 2.2 TB. Thus, to get full use of your 3TB as a boot device, you would have to partition it into at least two partitions, neither of which is greater than about 2.2 TB, using Apple Partition Map. This should be doable, but I haven't gotten a 3TB drive to try it on, so YMMV. Nonetheless, the PPC Macs can only boot from an APM disc.

Can I install clone of system on same HD as Time Machine for a repair boot drive?

Can I install clone of system on same HD as Time Machine so I can use the external as a second boot?
I have an external connected to new iMac and installed Time Machine on it. I then realized that I cannot boot from TM so can I clone my system onto the same HD as the TM is on? For purpose of rebooting so I can use Disk Warrior or other diagnostics?
Thanks.
Jeff

I did try that but the only options I was ofered were:
Restore from Time Machine Backup
Reinstall OS X
Get Help Online
Disk Utility
I didn't want any of those options. I just wanted to boot from the external.
You used recovery option - that is not what you need for this. Follow lowluster's suggestion to create another partition on your external drive, then format it using Disk Utility if necessary (in your applications folder). After that, use CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper to create a bootable clone on the external while booted from the internal.
Didn't know TM was to be installed on internal boot. Thanks.
Isn't there an advantage to having it on an external as well?
Time Machine is an application program and installed on your internal by default. You activate it from there and it works on its own to create backups on an external drive. It backs up everything.

Is a 64GB SSD good enough for a primary boot drive on a Macbook Pro?

My hard drive just failed and I am thinking of going the SSD way - installing a 64GB SSD as my bootable drive and taking out my optical disc to install a 500GB HDD. Will the 64GB work for my purpose? Or do I need to go higher? Thanks!

I would go with a min of 128GB personally, ideally a 256GB drive is best, but depends on what you are going to run as to how much space you will require.
cheers Mythandra

Considerations before installing SSD for system only

I Have 3 2 Tb HDD in raid5 via mdadm working wonderfully, providing me of a 4 Tb /home partition.
I just purchased a 128 Gb SSD to use it just for arch installation (root) and I have a couple of questions:
First of all.... I will use syslinux as boot loader... is it better to use GPT over MBR?
Second.... I used to put /boot on a separate partition but, as I have been reading, the less you partition a SSD, the better... so, better just create a single 128 Gb ext4 partition and install all the system there?
I currently have 4 GB 800Mhz RAM, and the machine is used for dwnloading purposes and for browsing and HD movie playback..... I'm thinking about not using a swap partition anymore...
Any recommendations?
Thank you guys!
EDIT1: The RAID5 is using MBR... can I run into trouble if there are some other disks using GPT?
Last edited by Xi0N (2012-10-16 14:03:16)

hunterthomson wrote:Use GPT on SSD becuase GPT will always create aligned paritions.
As will plain fdisk these days. GPT is a better option anyways (unless you lack UEFI and need to boot Windows from the drive), but either major cli filesystem tool will align by default to 2048 sectors.
When I redid my system, I just made / and /boot on my 64 GB SSD (and in hindsight I could probably have gotten away without /boot but meh, ~habit~. A 100 MB /boot won't do much to the drive either way). I haven't gotten around to remaking my HDD yet beyond a 4 GB swap partition; I won't know what filesystem to use for the rest of the HDD until I know whether or not I'm reinstalling Windows (the swap partition is mainly for hibernation and Windows 7 can stick its mostly-mandatory page file in it with SwapFS). My main data storage is over my home network.
As far as data partitions, I tend to put them in /mnt/$HOSTNAME/LABEL - sure, it might be easier to just mount them in $HOME instead of sticking them in /mnt and symlinking if/when needed, but I like to at least maintain the illusion of a multiuser system (or just forgo symlinks altogether and cd in the /mnt tree ...)
Adding the discard mount option can have noticable performance drawbacks; you could instead manually or up a cronjob to run fstrim when you're not actively using the system and such impact would be less noticable. Pros and cons w/ either method
(As an aside, one thing you can do if you want to do something that'll go somewhat over your 4 GB ram limit - like linking Firefox PGO x64 which uses somewhere around 5 GB - you can use zramswap. It acts as a high-priority swap and compresses RAM contents when needed. Slower than plain RAM once you start "swapping" but quite a bit faster than disk i/o!)

Best practice for dual SSD RAID0 boot drive configuration

What is optimal stripe size for RAID0 OS/Boot Drives in OSX Software RAID?

You are talking about SSD too.
Usually the default or 16/32k would be fine for all those small frequent I/Os.
RAID though can affect SSD TRIM and it may depend on the SSDs. There are RAID optimized editions.
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/internalstorage/Mercury_Extreme_SSDSandforce
http://macperformanceguide.com/SSD-RealWorld-SevereDuty.html

How to upgrade to m.2 ssd as boot drive in Ideapad U430 touch?

I would like to install a 128 gb m.2 SSD (NGFF) as the boot drive for this system while leaving the 500 gb hybrid drive for file storage and applications. Can you recommend a step-by-step process to accomplish this? I haven't seen other forum posts where the m.2 drive would be the boot drive. The O/S is Win 8.1 and the only system backup I have made to this point is on the main drive. (Specific model number is 20270; part number 59399722 if that helps!) Any help or guidance you can provide would be greatly appreciated!

bumping this post.
Is this a good idea?
I assume moving the os to the m.2 ssd drive?
How to do this step-by-step?

Yosemite crashed and my default boot drive is not visible

I installed Yosemite with no problems, but while playing a game my 2009 Mac Pro crashed, which has never happened before. On reboot, it now seems to be booting from a secondary internal drive, which is essentially a clean 10.9 install. My SSD, which was my main drive, is no longer visible. It can't be seen from Disk Warrior 4.4, Disk Utility, or under the About this Mac system report.
I have a Time Machine backup, on an external drive, from this afternoon, but it is not configure for the "new" boot drive. I am not sure how to use it to overwrite this drive. Maybe I should have posted this in the Time Machine forum, but I thought the Yosemite crash was the important point.
Any Ideas on how I can recover my old drive or restore my backup on my secondary drive?

I am up and running again. I removed my SSD and replaced it with an older drive that I had removed when I put the SSD in. The old drive could not be seen on reboot, but the SSD could be seen through a USB port. I assumed this meant my SATA controller had a problem. I decided to reinstall the SSD in the empty optical drive bay. Int he process I had to remove the 2 OS X hard drives, the one that booted in bay 2, and the one that could not be seen in bay 1. I also reinstalled those 2 drives. Bay 3 and 4 have windows drives.
Upon booting all three OS X drives could be seen. After giving them all unique names, I was able to boot back into Yosemite. I have no idea what was wrong. Was it the OS, the drive, the SATA controller? All seem to be working now.
Lets see what happens when I try to play my game again!

Mac OS X 10.9.4 - Entire CC Ent edition installed to boot drive

I have a Mac running OS X 10.9.4. I too selected my destination to NOT be my boot drive as it is a SATA LIF SSD drive that can NOT be upgraded. I installed the entire CC ENT collection and the installer put EVERYTHING to my boot drive. not a single file was placed in the destination folder I selected. This seems to be a long running issue and must be corrected. MOST high end systems run boot drives that are SSD and are not capable of holding Adobe and our OS to run efficiently.
Please advise ASAP! The installation killed my Mac and I had to rebuild my system.
Tyler

Hi,
Try rebooting your Mac, as soon as it starts click the Apple cion and then Software Update.
Be sure to install any available HP or Apple software update and check again.
If the same persists, download an instal the following package and then try printing and scanning again:
http://support.apple.com/kb/dl907
Please let me know if that may help,
Shlomi
Say thanks by clicking the Kudos thumb up in the post.
If my post resolve your problem please mark it as an Accepted Solution

Recommended SSD for a DV7-2170US

Hi all,
I bought a OCZ Vertex 3 SSD for my DV7-2170US but Windows 7 is blue screening whilst completing setup. (Tried everything to resolve it but nothing's working). My understanding is that AHCI needs to be turned off in the BIOS in order for this part of the setup process to continue and can then be subsequently turned back on after setup has completed. The problem is the DV7 does not have the BIOS option to turn off AHCI so I'm hooped.
Does anybody have any recommendations on which SSD brand/model would work with this DV7?
Thanks!

I'm a guru in this area (I do it for clients) Here's my best advice. Use SSD for system. Replace optical drive with 7200rpm rotational drive for recording audio. You can get the bracket from MaxUpgrades.com Installation is straightforward and the performance is optimal. They also sell an enclosure for the optical drive you take out.
I've been using Crucial M4 512GB SSDs since release and performance is like day one. However, I only use these drives to READ sample libraries for Kontakt, EastWest, etc. That is where SSDs excel, not recording audio. Unless you are recording 16+inputs in one take @192KHz, you don't need high write speed for recording that a 7200rpm drive can't give you.
On that note, I advise you max out your ram.

SSD for system directory (boot drive)?

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