Maybe I'm missing it, but I'm unable to find a best setup guide to setting up SSD and SATA drives on a Macbook Pro. I have an early 2011 Macbook Pro and just installed a Samsung 840 drive in the main drive slot and moved the original SATA drive into an Optibay enclosure where the Superdrive was originally. I used Carbon Copy Cloner to copy the original hard drive to the SSD. I switched the boot disk to the SSD and no problems. I formatted and partitioned the original hard drive leaving 150 GB for a backup of the SSD and another 350 GB for Data. Here is where I am stuck. I believe that the more you write over the SSD, the slower it gets. That being said, what is the best way to configure the program/storage on the two disks to have the optimal performance and storage without slowing down the SSD over time? I'm not sure how to move the storage folders for movies, iTunes, Mail, Downloads, etc to the Data drive and configure future data to be stored in those folders as well. I have heard people say to move the entire Home folder to the data drive, but that seems as though it would defeat the purpose of the SSD. Any ideas or direction?
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SSD Setup Questions
- Thread starter abmidds
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I've got the same set up. I moved my iTunes and iPhoto data to the HDD. You don't need SSD speed to play music or videos, etc. I now have less than 90 gb on the SSD. Mostly OSX and apps.
How to move iTunes media folder:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
How to move iPhoto Library:
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH2506
How to move iTunes media folder:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
How to move iPhoto Library:
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH2506
I did clean install so I can avoid all the junk being written on my SSD.
Also all my heavy data files goes to my 1TB HDD in my optibay.
Also all my heavy data files goes to my 1TB HDD in my optibay.
What I did was place my Downloads, Documents, Music, Pictures, pretty much all my media, on the HDD, then deleted the respective folders from the SSD and set up some symbolic links so that everything would still work perfectly. A symbolic link is a lot like an Alias (shortcut), but think of it as being hardwired into the disk.
EDIT: Check this link for more info on symlinks: LINK