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Snow Leopard Optimization for SSD?

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tejota1911

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Nov 10, 2006
283
33
I have a 2.26GHz 13"MBP, and I just ordered the intel 160GB Gen2 SSD for it. I'm curious if there are any changes I should make in Snow Leopard to optimize it for the SSD. I did some searching and saw that a lot of people are disabling the Sudden Motion Sensor in the Terminal. Are there any other things I should do? Also, I plan on doing a fresh install on the SSD, not cloning my existing drive. Will the SL Upgrade DVD that Apple sent me do the job, or will I need to first install Leopard, off the DVD that came with the MBP, then install SL? When I first install the intel SSD, will it be recognized, or do I need to format it a special way to get it to show up? Thanks in advance. I'm just trying to get everything squared away before the SSD arrives, so that I can do it right the first time.

Also, I don't know if this matters or not, but I DO have the 1.7 Firmware Update installed.

Compiled List Of Suggestions:
1. Disable Sudden Motion Sensor
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1934
2. Uncheck "Put the Hard Disk to sleep when possible", under Energy Saver in System Preferences.
3. "noatime" *Check OCZ Forum for How-To.(I haven't decided if I am going to do this one.)
 
maflynn

maflynn

macrumors Haswell
May 3, 2009
73,448
43,369
What's the advantage if disabling the sudden motion sensor for SSDs? I don't see why you'd need or want to do that since SSDs have no mechanical parts.
 
Bostonaholic

Bostonaholic

macrumors 6502
Aug 21, 2009
439
0
Columbus, Ohio
maflynn said:
What's the advantage if disabling the sudden motion sensor for SSDs? I don't see why you'd need or want to do that since SSDs have no mechanical parts.
Click to expand...

Since the SSD doesn't have moving parts, the motion sensor is useless. So disabling it will remove 1 (or more) process(es)--possibly freeing up some resources.

I'm not sure how the motion sensor works i.e. if it's controlled by the OS or strictly hardware but if it is controlled by the OS, with the motion sensor on, if it is triggered by a "sudden movement", the OS would stop reading from the HD--which would be useless when using a SSD.
 
fehhkk

fehhkk

macrumors 6502a
Jun 11, 2009
730
202
Chicago, IL
Agreed! ^^.

If you placed your SSD in the optical drive SATA port, I believe the sudden motion sensor doesn't apply there.

I have this disabled, since my SSD is on the regular HDD drive bay. Disabling it is a good idea, in my opinion.
 
pgharavi

pgharavi

macrumors 6502
Nov 25, 2004
308
229
I'm having terminal issues. I only have my default (admin) account. There is no password. In other words, whenever I am prompted for a password, I just hit enter.

In Terminal, when I try to do the command described here, it tells me that my password is incorrect.

Anyone know why?
 
G

Grimmeh

macrumors member
Jul 6, 2009
55
0
Isn't the Sudden Motion Sensor a hardware thing, mainly? Turning it off would yield negligible performance boosts.

What does preventing the disk from sleeping do for the SSD? (Apart from the obvious)
 
D

Dan73

macrumors 6502a
Jul 30, 2009
505
0
Grimmeh said:
Isn't the Sudden Motion Sensor a hardware thing, mainly? Turning it off would yield negligible performance boosts.

What does preventing the disk from sleeping do for the SSD? (Apart from the obvious)
Click to expand...

Possibly if you trigger it, it causes the SSD to stop reading/writing because the SMS can't tell the difference between a SSD and HDD...

Also why turn off put the hard drive to sleep? Just curious.
 
T

twitchgreen

macrumors newbie
Jun 14, 2009
28
2
I've got a MBP (3, 1) with a Crucial 256GB SSD (M225) as the internal boot drive w/SL 10.6.1. I've tried repeatedly to turn off Sudden Motion Sensor w/no success via Terminal. "About this Mac" still continues to show it as enabled. I also unsuccessfully tried several utility programs (such as Cocktail & MacPilot) to help turn it off. Any ideas?
 
mackmgg

mackmgg

macrumors 68000
Nov 2, 2007
1,660
572
The only problem with disabling the SMS, is there goes programs like iAlertU
 
Craiger

Craiger

macrumors 6502a
Jul 11, 2007
846
285
pgharavi said:
I'm having terminal issues. I only have my default (admin) account. There is no password. In other words, whenever I am prompted for a password, I just hit enter.

In Terminal, when I try to do the command described here, it tells me that my password is incorrect.

Anyone know why?
Click to expand...

I think to use sudo command you MUST have a password. An empty string won't work.
 
B

bware189

macrumors member
Sep 14, 2009
59
0
If the TS is looking at taking out his old HDD, and replacing the optical drive with it, then there is a lot more to do. The SSD is very straightfoward if the HDD is to be removed entirely from the machine.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/680228/
This post is choke-full of goodness on the SSD/HDD setup.

Otherwise, the Intel ssds are flawless bits of hardware. I have not run into a single problem with mine.

On this note about having an extra HDD in the optibay along side an SSD, does anyone know a method of getting sudden motion sensor to work for the optibay HDD? I've been trying to figure this out for a while, as the HDD always comes to a shrieking halt when restarting or when ejected.
 
E

Essjay

macrumors regular
Jul 12, 2008
132
0
Just put my Intel X-25M 160GB in my June MBP, best thing I ever did. Disabled SMS and the sleep feature right away. Also updated the firmware. Gotta love 18 second boot times. :)
 
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