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Intel SSD

boogieman

boogieman

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 10, 2004
187
7
Well bit the big one and purchased a intel gen2 160 ssd. Im gonna put it in the optical bay and my only questions is these. Right now I have a velociraptor 300 as my boot drive. My iphoto library is 61 gigs. My Itunes is 202 gigs which already sits on my 1tb internal. Should I put my photo's on the ssd or move them to the velociraptor? If I dont put the photo's on the ssd will iphoto load much slower or what. Please any tips or tricks would be greatly appreciated.
 
The thread title guy strikes again:

A more descriptive and precise thread title will help cater to the right audience and get you more responses.
To edit your thread title, just click on the
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Have you also taken a look at MRoogle?


Example: Will starting iPhoto Library from Intel SSD make iPhoto run faster?


My guess: It will.
 
Well then............ How about anyone that can actually help or have experience.
 
I'd keep the SSD as free as possible and leave iPhoto on the Velociraptor. It's starting big apps like Photoshop where you really notice the snappiness of the X25-M. On a Mac Pro the difference is noticeable but not breathtaking.
 
Depends on how much editing you'll do. If it will fit, I'd put it on the SSD, as latency is miniscule.

OTOH, if you get cramped on space, that raptor will do very nicely for iphoto.

Personally I have the G2 160 intel SSD on my mac pro and i only put apps and my home folder. All my photos are on a separate 2TB drive, but I've got quite a few more than you do and they wouldn't begin to fit on my SSD.

BTW agree the title of this thread is horrid.
 
Got everything installed and absolutely love it. I updated the firmware already and everything is rocking..... except for some painfully slow bootup times. With the raptor I was getting 58 seconds to login screen. With the intel I am lucky if its a minute to minute and a half. Is this normal or is something wrong. And yes I have removed all drives and usb and tried.
 
Something is amiss in your installation. I get boot times of less than 30 seconds to login from an 80GB G2 SSD.

BTW, I have not installed the firmware upgrade as I have had no need to do so.
 
tamvly said:
Something is amiss in your installation. I get boot times of less than 30 seconds to login from an 80GB G2 SSD.

BTW, I have not installed the firmware upgrade as I have had no need to do so.
Click to expand...

30 seconds??? The only reason I done the firmware update is to see if it would help. How did you install, clean and restore via time machine or how?
 
Yes, less than 30 seconds.

I used SuperDuper to create a clone of the boot drive on the SSD, repairing permissions in the process. Then rebooted. I would never use TimeMachine for something like this.
 
tamvly said:
Yes, less than 30 seconds.

I used SuperDuper to create a clone of the boot drive on the SSD, repairing permissions in the process. Then rebooted. I would never use TimeMachine for something like this.
Click to expand...

I used carbon cloner. Created a boot disk clone. DID not use time machine. Is there a major difference between the two?(Carbon Cloner and Superduper)
 
I echo several of the posters here, namely -

- I store my photos on a separate data drive
- Cloned the boot/OS drive that came with the MP to the SSD using SuperDuper
- Have boot times of 31 sec from power-on
- Am using a G1 80 GB Intel drive - not even G2, so I have to limit the amount of data on the OS drive.

I would recommend buying a drive adapter and getting that SSD into one of the drive bays. If you look at this schematic of the motherboard, you can see that the optical drives take a different path into the south bridge (http://att.macrumors.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=210818&d=1263465519), which might be the source of your poor performance. You could test the theory by plugging the SSD into a drive bay without fastening it into the sled - they do fit in there, but be gentle. It would get you at least through a test...

If that turns out to be the case you could pick up an Icy Doc adapter for less than 30 bucks and it works perfectly.
 
BillB50 said:
I echo several of the posters here, namely -

- I store my photos on a separate data drive
- Cloned the boot/OS drive that came with the MP to the SSD using SuperDuper
- Have boot times of 31 sec from power-on
- Am using a G1 80 GB Intel drive - not even G2, so I have to limit the amount of data on the OS drive.

I would recommend buying a drive adapter and getting that SSD into one of the drive bays. If you look at this schematic of the motherboard, you can see that the optical drives take a different path into the south bridge (http://att.macrumors.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=210818&d=1263465519), which might be the source of your poor performance. You could test the theory by plugging the SSD into a drive bay without fastening it into the sled - they do fit in there, but be gentle. It would get you at least through a test...

If that turns out to be the case you could pick up an Icy Doc adapter for less than 30 bucks and it works perfectly.
Click to expand...

Intel has a 3.5 tray that came with it. I will try it tomorrow and post back. And I only have the os on the solid state disk. So I have eliminated that.
 
Is it just me that thinks 180 SSD for a MP owner is overkill?

80 GB SSD plus more RAM would have gone much much further for you as you've got options (unlike a laptop) to store non OS files on other internal drives, even if they're slow drives.

If you had just searched "Intel SSD" at MR you would have got your answer(s) :rolleyes:
 
I have a G2 160GB in my optical tray, MP 09. I get boot times of 30sec or less. I used OnyX to clean out caches and other trash and it didn't affect boot time or app loading and cache rebuilding. I've also run XSlimmer on my apps that can be slimmed - may or may not be necessary because the SSD is blazing fast.
 
boogieman said:
Intel has a 3.5 tray that came with it. I will try it tomorrow and post back. And I only have the os on the solid state disk. So I have eliminated that.
Click to expand...

i just got the 80gb and when you use the drive + 3.5 adapter + mp drive sled, the sata connectors on the drive and mobo don't line up so you have to use a cable or maybe a 3rd party drive sled specifically for using 2.5" ssds/hdds

so i ended up putting the 80gb in my optical tray (unsecured). can't wait to get me a proper adapter, but im surprised these things are not cheap (relatively, considering the very simple designs)
 
wedgehammer said:
but im surprised these things are not cheap (relatively, considering the very simple designs)
Click to expand...

If you'Re talking about mounting a SSD in an optical bay, I got this for 4.50$. Allows you to mount up to three 2.5 SSDs or HDs in a single 5.25 slot.

Worked great for my 09 MP.

http://www.memoryhouse.com/products/4547/Bay Rafter 2.5 to 5/Scythe/

(Website is canadian, but you can probably find this item just about anywhere.)

Loa

P.S. Just to be more specific: while you can physically mount 3 SSDs, you'll need extra SATA cables (and most likely a SATA card) if you want to actually plug them in. But if you're looking for a cheap way to secure one SSD in a second OB, then there you go.
 
Loa said:
If you'Re talking about mounting a SSD in an optical bay, I got this for 4.50$. Allows you to mount up to three 2.5 SSDs or HDs in a single 5.25 slot.

Worked great for my 09 MP.

http://www.memoryhouse.com/products/4547/Bay Rafter 2.5 to 5/Scythe/

(Website is canadian, but you can probably find this item just about anywhere.)

Loa

P.S. Just to be more specific: while you can physically mount 3 SSDs, you'll need extra SATA cables (and most likely a SATA card) if you want to actually plug them in. But if you're looking for a cheap way to secure one SSD in a second OB, then there you go.
Click to expand...

cool, that is indeed something i can use and cheap too. yeah, the addtl sata cables/card i won't be needing for now. thanks again!
 
BillB50 said:
I echo several of the posters here, namely -

- I store my photos on a separate data drive
- Cloned the boot/OS drive that came with the MP to the SSD using SuperDuper
- Have boot times of 31 sec from power-on
- Am using a G1 80 GB Intel drive - not even G2, so I have to limit the amount of data on the OS drive.


If that turns out to be the case you could pick up an Icy Doc adapter for less than 30 bucks and it works perfectly.
Click to expand...

I'm using an Icy Dock with a Corsair 256GB SSD as the boot drive on my MP. Typically boots to login prompt in under 20 secs from the startup chime. I have the OS, all the apps, and a couple of VMware "machines" loaded on this drive. All video, music and photos are on a separate, larger conventional drive. Really like SSD, and can't imagine going back to a mechanical primary device.
 
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