Early 2008 iMac, creating a fusion drive?

[Twimfy]

I currently have a 2TB Hard Drive in my iMac and I use quite a lot of storage space.

I do however want to switch to an SSD for the performance upgrade, but with the price of high volume SSD drives being out of my price range I've been thinking about a fusion.

The thing is I'd have to use the PATA connector and remove the optical drive.

So my question is, which is the best way to do it, do I put the physical disk onto the SATA connection and put the SSD onto the SATA or leave it as it is and put the SSD to PATA?

I understand that the PATA connection will have a performance hit but is it likely to be significant? Is it even possible to create a fusion drive this way and will I notice the benefit?

If it is worth doing, what size SSD should I go for, would 128 be enough or can I go smaller and still see OS speed gains?

Lastly, is this possible to do without using another Mac?

 

[jaredbcook]

I just bought a Crucial M500 240 GB SSD to speed up my early 2008 iMac and am still trying to decide how to configure it. I have the same questions. I've seen several posts/videos from people whose DIY Fusion drives have slowed to a crawl or failed entirely after a bit, though, so I'm reconsidering. I feel like it's safer to just load the OS and apps on the SSD and put user data on the HD.

However, I still want to get full performance out of the SSD, and I think this means putting it on the SATA port where the main HD was originally (in a 3.5" bay adapter). But then I can't put the 3.5" drive where the optical drive was, so I'd have to get another 2.5" HD and put it in an optical drive caddy. But if the performance difference w/ the SSD connected via SATA vs PATA really isn't that much, then I should just keep the original 3.5" HD where it is and stick the SSD in the optical drive caddy. Ugh!

 

[hfg]

Put your SSD in the fastest location ... the SATA port where your hard disk was ... that is the whole point of getting the expensive SSD.

You could put your existing hard disk in a small external FireWire enclosure since the data transfer speed isn't as important. Mount the external drive up under the stand and you probably won't even notice it is there. That also gets the heat out of the case. If you want a bus powered drive, get a small 2.5" drive/enclosure for even less heat and noise.

 

[Twimfy]

Put your SSD in the fastest location ... the SATA port where your hard disk was ... that is the whole point of getting the expensive SSD.

You could put your existing hard disk in a small external FireWire enclosure since the data transfer speed isn't as important. Mount the external drive up under the stand and you probably won't even notice it is there. That also gets the heat out of the case. If you want a bus powered drive, get a small 2.5" drive/enclosure for even less heat and noise.

That's not a bad idea but I'm guessing I can't Fusion over firewire? Fusion isn't THAT important but I don't like the idea of having to manually organise files in and out of use.