Adding a solid state drive SSD as boot drive

[qveda]

Hi,
I have a relatively new Mac Pro with a 320gb sata system drive. I'm giving some thought to getting a SSD and making it my system drive for booting and applications (including Photoshop CS4), and using the 320gb drive to store photos and videos.

Can anyone offer their experience doing this?

 

[m1stake]

Nothing to it, it acts just like a regular hard drive. You'll need an adapter of sorts because the 2.5" aren't compatible with the drive sleds, in addition to being 1" too small. It's called a MaxPower or something like that. I'd link you, but I don't want to irritate my stolen wireless.

 

[qveda]

Hi M1stake,
How would you migrate your current system/applications drive to the new SSD? would you need to mount the SSD in the computer and then use some s/w to copy the entire drive image from the system/applications drive to the SSD, power down, then swap drive locations and boot up. (then prehaps reformat the sata drive) ?

something like this? or is it more complicated?

 

[m1stake]

Clean installs are your friend. Install osx on the sad, then install your programs, then drag and drop your data. There are certainly easier ways of doing this, but the clean install runs better.

I'll edit this post in a minute with that drive holder.

Edit- google "maxconnect" for the drive mount. Once you've got the sad installed just boot off you install disk and go! Once you've got your stuff on the sad you can reformat the drive and use it for scratch or external backup or something.

 

[jjahshik32]

Man I'm itching for a Mac Pro (even the current ones) and stick my intel x25-m in as a boot drive.. it'll be insanely fast as its already crazy fast on my 2.53ghz unibody mbp!

Only problems is that my 24" led acd wont work with the mac pros...

 

[m1stake]

I just finished ebaying one of those guys I got for $400.

 

[bigbossbmb]

I've been thinking about grabbing 2 of the 32/64gb SSDs off of newegg and putting them in RAID0 for a boot disk in the lower optical bay.

How are the write times with the intel drive? Better off to just wait for the X25-m to come down in price?

I'd like to put one in my MBP, but I just installed the WD 500gb today.

 

[m1stake]

Go look up some benchmarks instead of waiting for a response