On my current mid 2010 iMac I have 1 tb hd. 750gb is in use filled mostly by 450 gb music. I'm thinking of getting a 512gb ssd and putting all my current music on a external HD. Is this a mistake ? I'm also not sure what happens when i buy new music? Do I need to download it to the iMac, then move it to the external HD then delete it from my Mac? TIA
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New iMac 1TB fusion or 512GB SSD
- Thread starter gelie
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No, this is the right choice. After struggling with the options, a couple of things decided it for me. One, the new fusion drive has gone down from 128SSD to a 24GB flash and the 512 SSD is now 2.5 times faster than the previous very fast version. You should be able to download music directly to your external drive by setting up your iTunes library there. Give it a Google.
What you do is this
1) buy 2 external USB3 drives (a 2TB and a 4TB)
2) make the 4TB a time machine backup drive, call it backup
3) make the 2TB a media drive, call it media
4) make sure your iTunes preferences/advanced tick boxes are selected that say "keep media organized", quit iTunes
5) copy the entire folder "iTunes Media" from your home iTunes folder to the external "media" drive
6) start iTunes and go into iTunes preferences/advanced and tell it your new media folder location
7) quit and restart iTunes, test your songs, movies, ...that they play
8) now you can delete your old "iTunes Media" folder in your home iTunes folder. It is no longer used.
9) turn on time machine and have it backup both macintosh HD and media
IF you add music, it will go automatically to your external media drive. The artwork cache is still on the SSD so seeing your stuff will still be fast.
1) buy 2 external USB3 drives (a 2TB and a 4TB)
2) make the 4TB a time machine backup drive, call it backup
3) make the 2TB a media drive, call it media
4) make sure your iTunes preferences/advanced tick boxes are selected that say "keep media organized", quit iTunes
5) copy the entire folder "iTunes Media" from your home iTunes folder to the external "media" drive
6) start iTunes and go into iTunes preferences/advanced and tell it your new media folder location
7) quit and restart iTunes, test your songs, movies, ...that they play
8) now you can delete your old "iTunes Media" folder in your home iTunes folder. It is no longer used.
9) turn on time machine and have it backup both macintosh HD and media
IF you add music, it will go automatically to your external media drive. The artwork cache is still on the SSD so seeing your stuff will still be fast.
BTW, this is my favorite external drive. I have two! Extremely fast RAID (hard to get better read/writes in a non-SSD), compact, and bus powered http://www.seagate.com/external-hard-drives/portable-hard-drives/performance/backup-plus-fast-hdd/
Just a warning about that Seagate drive - it's in RAID 0 and it's not configurable, so if one of the drives fails, your data is gone unless you have a backup.
If you're looking for a portable RAID option, either LaCie Rugged RAID (there seems to be an issue with the TB cable but it also has a USB 3 port, so you have a fallback if the cable fails) and WD My Passport Pro (TB only, like Rugged RAID, cable is integrated to the case, if that fails, you'll have to replace the entire case) are nice options, both of these gives you the option to pick either RAID 0 or 1 (and I think JBOD too).
Edit: I just realized your iMac is 2010 model, so that rules out WD My Passport, since that model doesn't have TB port, 2011 and later models have them iirc.
If you're looking for a portable RAID option, either LaCie Rugged RAID (there seems to be an issue with the TB cable but it also has a USB 3 port, so you have a fallback if the cable fails) and WD My Passport Pro (TB only, like Rugged RAID, cable is integrated to the case, if that fails, you'll have to replace the entire case) are nice options, both of these gives you the option to pick either RAID 0 or 1 (and I think JBOD too).
Edit: I just realized your iMac is 2010 model, so that rules out WD My Passport, since that model doesn't have TB port, 2011 and later models have them iirc.
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Yes, you could. You get the performance of the RAID for both the media and backup. But as someone pointed out, if one drive fails, they both go. But I wouldn't stress about that...
TB speeds are mainly necessary for SSD drives, and RAID stripped ones at that. You will be more limited by the speed of your drives (even in a RAID configuration) than USB 3. But if it's not too much more expensive, get a TB drive. Otherwise you are fine with USB 3
OP:
Something that you must do if you move the music to an external drive.
You will also need a SECOND external drive to serve as a backup.
... Unless you don't care about losing all the music you have accumulated.
I would suggest a 1tb or 2tb drive.
Then, partition it.
Make one partition to serve as a backup of the internal SSD.
Make the other partition to serve as a backup of your external music drive.
Then use either SuperDuper or CarbonCopyCloner to create clones of each to their respective partitions...
Something that you must do if you move the music to an external drive.
You will also need a SECOND external drive to serve as a backup.
... Unless you don't care about losing all the music you have accumulated.
I would suggest a 1tb or 2tb drive.
Then, partition it.
Make one partition to serve as a backup of the internal SSD.
Make the other partition to serve as a backup of your external music drive.
Then use either SuperDuper or CarbonCopyCloner to create clones of each to their respective partitions...
I went in the Apple store this afternoon. They made me little nervous that the 512SSD might not be large enough to fit my needs. they suggest a 2TB fusion that has a 128 SSD. does this make sense? I mention that I don't mind having my 500gb of music on a separate drive, but would like the ~100 gb of photos on my mac. Really confused now.
Hi. I'm not what I'm doing wrong. I have a external drive called"media" hooked up. I have not deleted my old "iTunes media folder" yet. I changed the folder location on iTunes to /Volumes/MEDIA. I have all three boxes checked. Keep iTunes media organized, copy files to iTunes media folder when adding to library , share iTunes library XML with other applications. Then i purchased a song and it did not show up on the media drive or iTunes. What am I doing wrong? Thanks
Simply move whole iTunes folder to the external drive, and hold option when open iTunes, then choose the .itl file in the iTunes folder on your external drive. That would do the trick.
Of course, don't delete the original iTunes folder until your new library works fine. Good luck.
p.s. I have the same confusion with you now. I'm hesitate about 3TB fusion drive or 512GB SSD. I have 1TB SSD on my rMBP which is full of stuff now. I prefer internal storage to external storage because I can't completely believe the reliability of anything that need to be 'connected' to my computer. But fusion drive seems to be much worse than SSD. I'm totally confused now.
You must change the folder from
/Users/your_user_name/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media
to
/Volumes/MEDIA/iTunes Media
You almost got it right. That is why it is important to test before deleting anything.
My recommendations work really well and you get fast access to artwork which makes it seem like your media is on a fast drive.
No, for most of the SSD drives USB 3 with a cheap UASP capable enclousure is all you need.
A Samsung Evo 850 has read/write speeds around 470 MB/s, USB 3 is capable for that speed if you use UASP enclousures.
TB comes into the game, if you set up RAID systems, or if you need the full speed of more than one SSD at the same time.
If given the choice always go for the biggest SSD you can internally. I'm not a big believer of having your boot drive as an external due to reliability issues. The new SSDs are also much faster than last gen. Maybe Thunderbolt can keep up, but no USB 3.0 interface can keep up with a PCIE NVMe SSD.
Thanks that worked ! still not sure about which build to get. But, I'm leaning towards SSD.
There is most likely already an 'iTunes' folder on the 'MEDIA' drive. I would rename that one something like 'iTunes Backup' (or delete it entirely if you know it's safe) and then rename the 'iTunes 1' folder back to 'iTunes'.
Either way, the naming convention won't change the fact that 'Option-Clicking' the iTunes icon will allow you to browse to the appropriate library file, wherever it may be located.
Great to hear that worked. It may because you already have a folder named iTunes in this place.
I'm leaning to Fusion because I cannot imagine how can I put 1 TB stuff into 512, and I cannot afford 1TB SSD on iMac.
Does the path in iTunes preference/advanced MATCH the same location on your external media drive? If you show a screen capture of you iTunes perferences/advanced window and also show the contents of /volumes/MEDIA we can help verify its right.
here are mine
And
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