Best Dual Hard Drive Setup For Late 2011?

[Chris Travels]

Hey guys, thanks for taking the time to read my thread. I am currently doing some research on installing a dual hard drive setup on my late 2011 MBP. I am currently running 2.4 Ghz, i5 over clocked with 16GB ram. I was looking into running a SSD (1TB?) for my adobe/editing programs and a large (largest I can find) HDD for my storage. The reason I am looking for a very large HDD is because I travel nearly full time and find myself storing a very large amount of content until I get time to sit down and edit.

From my research samsung produces the best SSD and WD produces some decent HDD. Any thoughts or suggestions on these drives? Any experience with OWC SSD's?

I have also found that the tray that replaces my CD drive can be the cheaper prices tray as it works perfectly fine.

Is there anything I should be concerned about with this year of MBP or relating to my current setup?


I have a youtube channel that helps me pay for this so the $ really isn't a issue. I just want a very solid setup if I am going to commit.

Thanks again for your time,

Chris

 

[JPamplin]

I have your exact model

Check out post #3 here:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1748549/

I did the Samsung 250GB 840 EVO SATA3 and paired it with an HGST 1TB SATA3 7200RPM drive as a Fusion Drive. Fast as greased lightning!

Fusion Drive is truly slick, BTW. Set it up in the terminal right before installing Mavericks clean.

 

[gochi]

how much slower is the fusion driver compared to raw ssd?

also they do make 2tb internal hard drives for laptops, might consider that.

 

[JPamplin]

I think you'll find that Fusion is quite intelligent about moving data from HD to SSD and back based on usage. In practice, just as fast as raw SSD - and the 250GB EVO is $140 - can't beat that. But marry it to a 7200RPM SATA3 drive for minimum effect - and the drive I showed you is 7200 - the 2TB may be only 5400. Check carefully.

how much slower is the fusion driver compared to raw ssd?

also they do make 2tb internal hard drives for laptops, might consider that.

 

[Barney63]

I think I read somewhere that there is a 1TB limit for the MBP HDD.
Just research it before you purchase one to make sure.



Barney

 

[simonsi]

I think you'll find that Fusion is quite intelligent about moving data from HD to SSD and back based on usage.

Perhaps but I wouldn't want to have it randomly deciding to move my iPhoto library back and forth depending on my usage pattern.

If it is a Fusion drive built out of discrete SSD and HDD then running Fusion also means when the HDD fails you have to restore both drives to rebuild the Fusion drive...better IMHO to still have a bootable system (from SSD), and simply replace the HDD and restore it - I would still have a productive system while that is carried out.

 

[JPamplin]

Err...

Not exactly. If the HD fails, but the SSD is still good, then you just replace the HD. You then have to recreate the Fusion volume (easy), do a clean OS install, and restore from your Time Machine backup of the previous volume.

So, from a hardware standpoint, you just replace the bad drive. The extra steps are quick and really pale in comparison to the advantages.

Perhaps but I wouldn't want to have it randomly deciding to move my iPhoto library back and forth depending on my usage pattern.

If it is a Fusion drive built out of discrete SSD and HDD then running Fusion also means when the HDD fails you have to restore both drives to rebuild the Fusion drive...better IMHO to still have a bootable system (from SSD), and simply replace the HDD and restore it - I would still have a productive system while that is carried out.

 

[simonsi]

Not exactly. If the HD fails, but the SSD is still good, then you just replace the HD. You then have to recreate the Fusion volume (easy), do a clean OS install, and restore from your Time Machine backup of the previous volume.

So, from a hardware standpoint, you just replace the bad drive. The extra steps are quick and really pale in comparison to the advantages.

How is that different to what I said - you have to restore both drives.

Obviously you only have to replace the failed hw but the drive is a single drive, the effect is just the same as if a single drive had failed, everything gets blown away and you start from a format and work from there.

The effect is the same, the install will need doing as and when either drive fails, which will happen more often than a single drive system....

What do you think the advantages of a Fusion vs discrete SSD and HDD are?