SSD Thunderbolt vs SSD new iMac

dany74m · Nov 27, 2012

Hi, I have a top 27" IMAC with SSD Lacie thunderbolt that I use as boot drive. It is worthed to spend more money and buy the new IMAC with internal SSD or I should just go for the Mechanical, and reuse my Lacie SSD? I guess the second, since the performance should be similir, so I will save lot of money.

Is the top gamma CPU the same of the previous IMAC? Thank you.

SerefAFC · Nov 27, 2012

Hey can you give me a tutorial on how you make a external ssd a boot drive? Pros? Cons? Please

SR20DETDOG · Nov 27, 2012

dany74m said:
Hi, I have a top 27" IMAC with SSD Lacie thunderbolt that I use as boot drive. It is worthed to spend more money and buy the new IMAC with internal SSD or I should just go for the Mechanical, and reuse my Lacie SSD? I guess the second, since the performance should be similir, so I will save lot of money.

Is the top gamma CPU the same of the previous IMAC? Thank you.

There would be almost no benefit to buying the new iMac for an internal SSD, less stuff on your desk would probably be the biggest difference

dany74m · Nov 27, 2012

SerefAFC said:
Hey can you give me a tutorial on how you make a external ssd a boot drive? Pros? Cons? Please

its very easy, I just bought a lacie refurbished external thunderbolt HD, and replaced the mechanical hard drive with SSD one. Than if you go under preferences you can set any HD connected as your default boot device.

Pro: is fast like an internal SSD
Cons: is external, so wasting of space and wires.

CWallace · Nov 27, 2012

I would expect the SSD performance would be similar to the point you would not notice the difference.

As for the CPUs, both models have 3.4GHz models (2600K for the 2011 and 3570K for the 2012). The 2600K does have a bit more SmartCache (8MB vs 6MB), however the 3570K has higher memory bandwidth (26GB/s vs. 21GB/s).

Based on Geekbench scores from pre-production models, the 2012 iMac with the 3.4GHz i7 scores about 1000 points higher than the 2011 iMac with the 3.4GHz i7 (~12,000 vs. ~11,000).

dany74m · Nov 27, 2012

CWallace said:
I would expect the SSD performance would be similar to the point you would not notice the difference.

As for the CPUs, both models have 3.4GHz models (2600K for the 2011 and 3570K for the 2012). The 2600K does have a bit more SmartCache (8MB vs 6MB), however the 3570K has higher memory bandwidth (26GB/s vs. 21GB/s).

Based on Geekbench scores from pre-production models, the 2012 iMac with the 3.4GHz i7 scores about 1000 points higher than the 2011 iMac with the 3.4GHz i7 (~12,000 vs. ~11,000).

Thank you very much, so the rendering will benefith from the new processor, even I don't expect so much difference. I am a professiona videographer that works with HD videos, so Im interested to upgrade for the new Monitor (less reflection) and the graphic card. I have 32gb of ram, is the frequency the same on the new imac?

CWallace · Nov 27, 2012

dany74m said:
I have 32gb of ram, is the frequency the same on the new imac?

The chipset does support PC-1333 (which is what you likely have), so yes, it should work on the 2012 model (though PC-1600 will be a bit faster).

xgman · Nov 27, 2012

Does anyone have some specs on the "throughput" of the TB vs internal in the new imac for ssd's? I am curious how they compare specs wise.

edit: here is some info:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1365548/

hfg · Nov 27, 2012

I did some experimenting over the weekend with a Thunderbolt GoFlex, USB-3 GoFlex, and a Thunderbolt "LaCie LittleBigDisk" RAID-0 2.5" hard disk ... all running from a 2012 Macbook Air (only Mac I have with a USB-3 port).

I used 2 different GoFlex hard disks, one normal and one Pro, and a Crucial M4 512GB SSD. These Seagate GoFlex TB and USB-3 interfaces are pretty cool since you can simply plug in any standard 2.5" SATA device to test, and you can purchase empty shells on eBay if you want to make it more permanent. They also have a FireWire 800 interface cable available.

There was no benefit in speed between the Thunderbolt and USB-3 interface when using either hard disk. The speed was disk I/O limited.

There was noticeable benefit in speed with the SSD when using the Thunderbolt interface.

The advantage of the Thunderbolt interface to me with hard disks is that all of my Mac computers have a Thunderbolt interface on them, but only 1 has a USB-3 port at this time.

The LaCie performed well with the RAID-0 hard disks ... but my intention is to remove the hard disks and put dual SSD drives in the Thunderbolt enclosure to use with my new iMac.

Here are some numbers:
Wr/Rd MB/s -- interface -- drive type
-------------
45 / 49 -- USB3 -- slow hard disk (5400 rpm ??)
43 / 49 -- TB -- slow hard disk

84 / 82 -- USB3 -- fast hard disk (7200 rpm ??)
83 / 82 -- TB -- fast hard disk

167 / 194 -- USB3 -- SSD
260 / 382 -- TB -- SSD

148 / 154 -- TB -- LaCie RAID-0 hard disk
368 / 475 -- TB -- LaCie RAID-0 M4-SSD

The Crucial M4 SSD has 260 / 506 MB/s when on a SATA-III PCIe card in my Mac Pro. I have not tried them as Raid-0, but a pair of OWC SATA-II SSD in RAID-0 show 306 / 311 MB/s on the Mac Pro SATA-II ports.

All measurements were made with BlackMagicDesign "Disk Speed Test"

(This table will probably lose all formatting when I post it ... sorry)

-howard

Edit: added the SSD RAID-0 LaCie data with 2ea Crucial M4 500GB SSD.

dany74m · Nov 28, 2012

CWallace said:
The chipset does support PC-1333 (which is what you likely have), so yes, it should work on the 2012 model (though PC-1600 will be a bit faster).

So it's not the same, its faster, so I should sell the ram too and buy pc1600.

----------

hfg said:
I did some experimenting over the weekend with a Thunderbolt GoFlex, USB-3 GoFlex, and a Thunderbolt "LaCie LittleBigDisk" RAID-0 2.5" hard disk ... all running from a 2012 Macbook Air (only Mac I have with a USB-3 port).

I used 2 different GoFlex hard disks, one normal and one Pro, and a Crucial M4 512GB SSD. These Seagate GoFlex TB and USB-3 interfaces are pretty cool since you can simply plug in any standard 2.5" SATA device to test, and you can purchase empty shells on eBay if you want to make it more permanent. They also have a FireWire 800 interface cable available.

There was no benefit in speed between the Thunderbolt and USB-3 interface when using either hard disk. The speed was disk I/O limited.

There was noticeable benefit in speed with the SSD when using the Thunderbolt interface.

The advantage of the Thunderbolt interface to me with hard disks is that all of my Mac computers have a Thunderbolt interface on them, but only 1 has a USB-3 port at this time.

The LaCie performed well with the RAID-0 hard disks ... but my intention is to remove the hard disks and put dual SSD drives in the Thunderbolt enclosure to use with my new iMac.

Here are some numbers:
Wr/Rd MB/s -- interface -- drive type
-------------
45 / 49 -- USB3 -- slow hard disk (5400 rpm ??)
43 / 49 -- TB -- slow hard disk

84 / 82 -- USB3 -- fast hard disk (7200 rpm ??)
83 / 82 -- TB -- fast hard disk

167 / 194 -- USB3 -- SSD
260 / 382 -- TB -- SSD

148 / 154 -- TB -- LaCie RAID-0 hard disk
? / ? -- TB -- LaCie RAID-0 SSD

The Crucial M4 SSD has 260 / 506 MB/s when on a SATA-III PCIe card in my Mac Pro. I have not tried them as Raid-0, but a pair of OWC SATA-II SSD in RAID-0 show 306 / 311 MB/s on the Mac Pro SATA-II ports.

All measurements were made with BlackMagicDesign "Disk Speed Test"

(This table will probably lose all formatting when I post it ... sorry)

-howard

Did you remove the Fan? They are so noisy, so Im very tempted, but I also need a reliable system.

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SSD Thunderbolt vs SSD new iMac

dany74m

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