Help Needed Mini MD387 with added SSD Drive

fskywalker · Mar 8, 2013

Hi Everyone:

I purchased last week (got it yesterday) a slightly used basic Mac Mini (MD387LL/A ; machine was sold to original owner on December 12, 2012), to which was added a second Intel 120GB SSD drive with the use of the OWC kit. It came with 4GB of memory, but I upgrade it to 16GB by installing two 8GB SIMS (Corsair Vengeance RAM DDR3 1600 MHz PC3 12800, model CMSX16GX3M2A1600C10) even before starting it for the first time and sucessfully went through the initial setup and showed the 16GB memory without any issues.

When I checked the hard drive space, I noticed that it reflected a 620GB hard disk instead of the expected 500GB and 120GB hard disks, noticed it said "hard drive + flash storage", as shown below:

Screen%2520Shot%25202013-03-08%2520at%25206.47.04%2520AM.png

I went to the disk utikity option and this is what it shows:

Screen%2520Shot%25202013-03-08%2520at%25206.47.47%2520AM.png

Screen%2520Shot%25202013-03-08%2520at%25206.47.23%2520AM.png

Screen%2520Shot%25202013-03-08%2520at%25206.47.36%2520AM.png

It talks about a logical volume group (fusion drive). Is this the way that it should be configured? I wonder if Mac Minis with 2 HD's always shows like this. Furthermore, I did a Mac OX update after installing a few programs and the machine startup is really slow (took several minutes to start), which makes me beleive there is something wrong with the way the HD's were configured by the original owner. Your help will be appreciated.

Francisco

philipma1957 · Mar 8, 2013

you have a fusion drive setup. there is nothing wrong with a fusion drive setup.

as to if it is slow or a broken setup that is another story.

and your ram has been known to not work well. test the ram with this free program

(wait for link) http://www.kelleycomputing.net/Rember/

test all ram and run 2 passes takes a few hours. you may have a ram issue not the fusion setup >

I have a fusion setup with a 256gb ssd and a 500gb hdd. see snap shot

fskywalker · Mar 8, 2013

Thanks, will check the memory tonight. I just educated myself on the fusion drive setup and understand the machinhe should be actually booting from the SSD, so this should provide a fast booting and better performance on daily access of data versus the standard 500GB spinning HD.

fskywalker · Mar 8, 2013

Hi Phillip, just finished running the suggested memory test, it said it was successful:

Screen%2520Shot%25202013-03-08%2520at%252011.59.27%2520PM.png

What else may you or someone suggest?

Thanks

justperry · Mar 8, 2013

fskywalker said:
Hi Phillip, just finished running the suggested memory test, it said it was successful:

Image

What else may you or someone suggest?

Thanks

Very simple, put the old RAM in again, fast and simple and see if it is any faster, if so the RAM is faulty and as in a reply to another post elsewhere I would suggest running Apple Hardware test extended first, to do so hold the D key at startup.

fskywalker · Mar 9, 2013

Hi, I re-started my computer again after the memory test and it again took a long time to start. I shut it down and re-install the OEM 4GB memory and re-start and it was still very slow. I decided to test the machine without an external USB HD that I have from my old PC, which holds some data I want to pass to the Mac Mini, and the machine started up really quickly. I then switched back to the new Corsair memory and it also went up pretty quickly, so seems that the issue is with that external drive.

I just run BlackMagic on the fusion drive and this is the result:

Disk%2520Speed%2520Test%25203-9-2013.png

Is this good for a fusion drive?

Thanks,

Francisco

justperry · Mar 9, 2013

Somehow I don't get it, now you say from external drive, when this is not attached it is much faster.

Another thing is, don't upload huge files, were about 7 posts in and it's already 4 MB, not everybody is on a fast internet.

philipma1957 · Mar 9, 2013

justperry said:
Very simple, put the old RAM in again, fast and simple and see if it is any faster, if so the RAM is faulty and as in a reply to another post elsewhere I would suggest running Apple Hardware test extended first, to do so hold the D key at startup.
...

Somehow I don't get it, now you say from external drive, when this is not attached it is much faster.

Another thing is, don't upload huge files, were about 7 posts in and it's already 4 MB, not everybody is on a fast internet.

yeah his external may cause the problem. to the op try running your setup with out the external hdd.

fskywalker · Mar 9, 2013

justperry said:
Somehow I don't get it, now you say from external drive, when this is not attached it is much faster.

Another thing is, don't upload huge files, were about 7 posts in and it's already 4 MB, not everybody is on a fast internet.

Hi, sorry about the big files

What I meant is that the external HD apparently was causing the delay in the booting of the computer; without it being connected the issue has been solved. I'm now copying all it contents to a USB3.0 2TB external drive just purchased (on a Windows based computer) to then transfer the pictures, etc. I need to the new Mac Mini through the USB3.0 drive.

The blackmagic test above refers to the combined 500GB HD plus the Intel 120GB SSD drive, which the machines see as a single, "fusion" drive; question is whether that performance is good as compared to other fusion drives, either the one sold by Mac or the ones done by users, just like mine (done by the original owner).

Regards,

justperry · Mar 9, 2013

fskywalker said:
Hi, sorry about the big files

No worries, just a tip, if you only want to show a window on your desktop as a screenshot, hit Command-Shift-4 and then the space Bar, it allows you to select just the window you want to capture.

fskywalker said:
What I meant is that the external HD apparently was causing the delay in the booting of the computer; without it being connected the issue has been solved. I'm now copying all it contents to a USB3.0 2TB external drive just purchased (on a Windows based computer) to then transfer the pictures, etc. I need to the new Mac Mini through the USB3.0 drive.

The blackmagic test above refers to the combined 500GB HD plus the Intel 120GB SSD drive, which the machines see as a single, "fusion" drive; question is whether that performance is good as compared to other fusion drives, either the one sold by Mac or the ones done by users, just like mine (done by the original owner).

Regards,

There are more knowledgable people here on MR concerning Read/Write performance so can't really give you advice, you could do a search yourself with the help of this search tool, it searches MR only.

MRoogle

philipma1957 · Mar 9, 2013

fskywalker said:
Hi, sorry about the big files
What I meant is that the external HD apparently was causing the delay in the booting of the computer; without it being connected the issue has been solved. I'm now copying all it contents to a USB3.0 2TB external drive just purchased (on a Windows based computer) to then transfer the pictures, etc. I need to the new Mac Mini through the USB3.0 drive.

The blackmagic test above refers to the combined 500GB HD plus the Intel 120GB SSD drive, which the machines see as a single, "fusion" drive; question is whether that performance is good as compared to other fusion drives, either the one sold by Mac or the ones done by users, just like mine (done by the original owner).

Regards,

the read is good the write is mediocre.

my diy is a 256gb samsung 810 sata II and the stock oem 500gb 5400 rpm hdd.

my write is very good for a sata II ssd. (260-270 is best possible) same for the read. your ssd model can be found look at my thumbnail for my ssd.

if you show your ssd model I can tell if it is writing up to speed. it is reading well for sata III

fskywalker · Mar 9, 2013

philipma1957 said:
the read is good the write is mediocre.

my diy is a 256gb samsung 810 sata II and the stock oem 500gb 5400 rpm hdd.

my write is very good for a sata II ssd. (260-270 is best possible) same for the read. your ssd model can be found look at my thumbnail for my ssd.

if you show your ssd model I can tell if it is writing up to speed. it is reading well for sata III

The model is Intel SSDSCW120A3K5 (520 series)

philipma1957 · Mar 9, 2013

fskywalker said:
The model is Intel SSDSCW120A3K5 (520 series)

okay I will check/ meanwhile here are results on my diy fusion look at the random write and random read 4k numbers.

specs show that drive can read and write at 500.

http://ark.intel.com/products/66248/Intel-SSD-520-Series-120GB-2_5in-SATA-6Gbs-25nm-MLC

now your read is good 400 plus.. the write is not so good but and here is the big but. if i remember the speed test you are using does compression and the ssd you uses does not so write scores are not accurate. that ssd uses a sandforce controller so the test scores vary a lot on test to test.

try doing xbench disk only see your scores on that. you should smack my scores hard. my scores are on a sataII ssd.

http://xbench.com/

fskywalker · Mar 10, 2013

philipma1957 said:
okay I will check/ meanwhile here are results on my diy fusion look at the random write and random read 4k numbers.

specs show that drive can read and write at 500.

http://ark.intel.com/products/66248/Intel-SSD-520-Series-120GB-2_5in-SATA-6Gbs-25nm-MLC

now your read is good 400 plus.. the write is not so good but and here is the big but. if i remember the speed test you are using does compression and the ssd you uses does not so write scores are not accurate. that ssd uses a sandforce controller so the test scores vary a lot on test to test.

try doing xbench disk only see your scores on that. you should smack my scores hard. my scores are on a sataII ssd.

http://xbench.com/

Will check it tonight, thanks!

Giuly · Mar 10, 2013

The Fusion Drive has to learn which files to put on the SSD and which on the hard drive, so you'll have to reboot the Mac Mini a couple of times and the boot gets faster.

It might be that the system installs itself on the hard drive, as you don't really shut down Macs, but rather you put them to sleep. But if you happen to restart it more often, it adapts itself and the booting time decreases.

As far as the write speeds go, I guess you didn't turn on TRIM after reinstalling.

fskywalker · Mar 11, 2013

philipma1957 said:
okay I will check/ meanwhile here are results on my diy fusion look at the random write and random read 4k numbers.

specs show that drive can read and write at 500.

http://ark.intel.com/products/66248/Intel-SSD-520-Series-120GB-2_5in-SATA-6Gbs-25nm-MLC

now your read is good 400 plus.. the write is not so good but and here is the big but. if i remember the speed test you are using does compression and the ssd you uses does not so write scores are not accurate. that ssd uses a sandforce controller so the test scores vary a lot on test to test.

try doing xbench disk only see your scores on that. you should smack my scores hard. my scores are on a sataII ssd.

http://xbench.com/

Hi Phillip, just ran the Xbench test and these are my hard disk results:

Results 392.39
System Info
Xbench Version 1.3
System Version 10.8.2 (12C3104)
Physical RAM 16384 MB
Model Macmini6,1
Drive Type Fusion
Disk Test 392.39
Sequential 233.73
Uncached Write 455.35 279.58 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 390.87 221.15 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 94.76 27.73 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 553.71 278.29 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 1221.63
Uncached Write 1107.73 117.27 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 742.66 237.75 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 2768.90 19.62 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 1506.28 279.50 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Looks like here it does reflect a much better read and write performance, close to the 400 spec of the Intel SSD

Regards,

Francisco

peterson12 · Mar 12, 2013

philipma1957 said:
okay I will check/ meanwhile here are results on my diy fusion look at the random write and random read 4k numbers.
specs show that drive can read and write at 500.

http://ark.intel.com/products/66248/Intel-SSD-520-Series-120GB-2_5in-SATA-6Gbs-25nm-MLC
now your read is good 400 plus.. the write is not so good but and here is the big but. if i remember the speed test you are using does compression and the ssd you uses does not so write scores are not accurate. that ssd uses a sandforce controller so the test scores vary a lot on test to test.
try doing xbench disk only see your scores on that. you should smack my scores hard. my scores are on a sataII ssd.
http://xbench.com/

Giuly is right. TRIM functionality especially in SF drives is a class apart and hence will certainly affect the rw speeds. Try enabling this and should help handle compressible/incompressible data better than what it is right now.

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