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petermaz

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 28, 2013
1
0
I just purchased a used mid 2011 iMac with only the factory installed 256Gb SSD. I have a 1 TB external in a nice firewire 800 enclosure. I can barely get all my files on the 256Gb SSD, but would like to put Maybe music and photos on the external HD to make more headspace on the SSD and plan for the future.

I will be running Mavericks. Will putting photos and music on the external really slow down iPhoto or iTunes? What is the best way to organize the drive and files? Do I have to have the external up and running all the time or just when running iPhoto or iTunes?

Thanks in advance.
 
Last edited:

toddzrx

macrumors 6502a
Nov 20, 2012
725
263
No, not much really.

The setup you're considering is exactly what I run now on a 2010 iMac: external HD with all pics and music, and an internal SSD with the OS, apps, and all other data on it. Runs great. Because iTunes and iPhoto are on the SSD, they open quickly, so I don't notice much of a performance hit when playing a song or viewing a photo. It's really a nice setup, IMO.

My old external was a Firewire drive; I kept it turned on and connected all the time. It finally died a few months ago and I bought a new Seagate portable HD that is just plugged in on USB 2; it's actually much faster than the old FireWire drive. That said, you don't have to keep the drive on and connected all the time; just do that when you fire up iTunes or iPhoto (that's what I do with my other external, which is for Time Machine; I just turn it on once or twice a week to do a backup, but disconnect it and turn it right off again).
 
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