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Switch to SSD for OS & Apps

T

TheDoc

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 18, 2008
71
0
Hello all - forgive me if this is explained somewhere, I promised I tried searching.

I'm looking at popping a SSD into my 2010 Mac Pro but have a couple of questions/concerns before I plunge into purchasing it.

Current Drives Setup:

Bay 1: 1TB HD (OS X)
Bay 2: 70GB Raptor (Windows)
Bay 3: 2TB HD (Backup)
Bay 4: (empty)

I'm looking at grabbing a OCZ Vertex 2 2.5" 60GB (on sale). I don't need too large of a drive as I don't have a plethora of apps, so I think the 60GB will do.

My question - how do I transfer just the Apps and OS from the current boot drive (1TB) to the SSD? Can I run Migration Assistant to another internal drive?

Do I need a special bracket for the Mac Pro to convert the 2.5" SSD to 3.5" or will any bracket do the job?

Thanks all! These forums are an amazing resource.
 
Install OS X in the SSD from the install discs that came with your Mac. Then simply run Setup Assistant (that's what shows up in the end of the installation) and transfer your apps from the other drive.

ICY DOCK is pretty popular bracket but those cheap metal ones should work too
 
Hellhammer, cheers for that. Simple and concise! All signs seem to point to the Icy Dock. Would rather have something mounted than some of the shoddy cheaper fixes.

Mac Hammer Fan, thanks - today most certainly is the best day to be looking. I'm actually going to grab this:

http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=57167&promoid=1264

...since I was going to upgrade my RAM anyways (still using the stock 3GB). Might as well essentially get a free SSD while I'm at it!
 
TheDoc said:
Hellhammer, cheers for that. Simple and concise! All signs seem to point to the Icy Dock. Would rather have something mounted than some of the shoddy cheaper fixes.

Mac Hammer Fan, thanks - today most certainly is the best day to be looking. I'm actually going to grab this:

http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=57167&promoid=1264

...since I was going to upgrade my RAM anyways (still using the stock 3GB). Might as well essentially get a free SSD while I'm at it!
Click to expand...

That's one way of doing it, but I would just use disk utility to create a disk image of your boot drive, then restore the SSD with that boot image, tadaaa everything is exactly how you left it, but super fast!
 
TheDoc said:
I'm actually going to grab this:

http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=57167&promoid=1264

...since I was going to upgrade my RAM anyways (still using the stock 3GB). Might as well essentially get a free SSD while I'm at it!
Click to expand...

I don't think the OCZ RAM in that kit includes a thermal sensor which may cause you some problems. Search the forums for more info, but I recall reading that it will report it as failed and ramp your fans to full speed. At the very least, you will lose the ECC capabilities.
 
TheDoc said:
Hellhammer, cheers for that. Simple and concise! All signs seem to point to the Icy Dock. Would rather have something mounted than some of the shoddy cheaper fixes.
Click to expand...

There is also a 3.5 version of the vertex 2
 
VirtualRain said:
I don't think the OCZ RAM in that kit includes a thermal sensor which may cause you some problems. Search the forums for more info, but I recall reading that it will report it as failed and ramp your fans to full speed. At the very least, you will lose the ECC capabilities.
Click to expand...

how many people here really benefit from ECC?

I don't think a thermal sensor has to do with anything, or at least not with the fans. I tried Mushkin 1333 RAM that didn't work, I just got beeps on boot.
 
toxic said:
how many people here really benefit from ECC?
Click to expand...

Anyone exposed to an unusual amount of solar radiation and cosmic rays? :confused: :D :p

toxic said:
I don't think a thermal sensor has to do with anything, or at least not with the fans. I tried Mushkin 1333 RAM that didn't work, I just got beeps on boot.
Click to expand...

Hmm... that's not what I would have expected but reinforces my caution that just any old DDR3 may not work properly.
 
Cheers for the warning on the RAM, I'll report back with results when I get the shipment (probably next week). With the discount on the package I'm sure I can make some money back by selling the RAM and keeping the SSD.

Edit: After a bit of reading, it looks like the Non-ECC RAM will work just fine as I plan to dump all of the stock Apple RAM out of there. Looks like the only problem can come from the Thermal Sensor - of which it doesn't say that it has, so I'm assuming it doesn't. It does read has having their own "Xtreme Thermal Convection" technology, so fingers crossed I guess!
 
Last edited:
Update: Got the shipment today and installed the RAM. Looks like everything is working as it should. Started up wonderfully and provided the 'Memory has been installed correctly' (unsure of wording) message when I reached my desktop.

You'll see below that ECC is disabled (as expected) but everything else looks good (to me):

1a4e5ac603f37cdc82829612d22710cb.png


Now to tackle that SSD...
 
inphluence said:
just confirming - 12GB is the way to go as opposed to 16gb ram?
Click to expand...
As far as I know, more is always better. There is a lot of talk about 'triple channel' yadda yadda, but at the end of the day I think 16GB is better than 12GB.

I'm sure there are other people here that can answer that question on more of a technical level, but that's the gist of it that I've been told.
 
TheDoc said:
Update: Got the shipment today and installed the RAM. Looks like everything is working as it should. Started up wonderfully and provided the 'Memory has been installed correctly' (unsure of wording) message when I reached my desktop.

You'll see below that ECC is disabled (as expected) but everything else looks good (to me):

Now to tackle that SSD...
Click to expand...

Good stuff! That's a great deal then and they still appear to have some of those bundles for sale.
 
inphluence said:
just confirming - 12GB is the way to go as opposed to 16gb ram?
Click to expand...
There's precious little software that can utilize a triple channel memory configuration. Available capacity is far more important with the vast majority of applications, and will remain so for some time (may never change, depending on the type of application).

So don't worry about triple channel, and make sure you've enough RAM for what you're doing. Fulfilling your capacity needs is far more important to keep the system from paging out to disk when there's insufficient RAM available (disk is far slower than RAM, so you want to avoid this if at all possible).
 
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