Sorry to be blunt, but this is flat out horrible advice. You obviously don't know the first thing about SSDs... which is the single best thing you can do is put the OS on the SSD.
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Mac Mini's poor value argument...
- Thread starter GBNova
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George Dawes
Suspended
I agree , SSD is superior to HD and Fusion Drive , I'd rather have a 256 ssd than a 2tb FD any day , the 2tb FD in the new mac mini is sooooooo slooooooowwwww.... it's really terrible. My old mini with a 256 ssd wipes the floor with it.
Well what are the benefits of having the OS on an SSD? Do I search for files all day long? SSD storage is still many times more expensive than HDD storage and putting the OS on there is just wasteful since those GB would benefit more to put programs on.
unless you start up your computer often and search for a lot of files, yeah you should get the SSD if you do that.
Have you ever owned a SSD ?
My experience here.
After getting the stock late 2012 Quad core i7 with only 4GB & 1TB HD from the refurb store, I was getting so many beachballs it drove me nuts.
By upgrading only the HD to SSD, starting up the Mini and launching programs become lightning fast, no more beach balls while working unless I run many programs & Wmware all along. But I will add more ram memory soon enough.
I guess I have been drinking the kool aid huh 🙄
maflynn
macrumors Broadwell
I spent about 600 bucks on a Mac Mini and its been running great for 6 years. I can't see how that represents a poor value.
The cheapest MBA comes with a tiny 11" screen, a meager 128GB storage. I upgraded my Mac Mini to 8GB of ram, 256GB SSD, this puppy flies. You cannot do that with an MBA.
The Mac Mini is one apple more popular lines because it represents great value.
There's a fundamental misunderstanding here. You want to put as much of the 'system' as possible on an SSD and the 'system' is much more than the System folder, which is only about 7GB. The system also includes the library, application and user folders, and you can easily get all this onto a small SSD if needs be.
All manner of processes and memory to disk operations benefit greatly from having the system on an SSD.
M.
Sometimes I wonder if people read what I post.
I own an SSD where I put most of the programs I use like logic and the data logic has to load (high bitrate audio files); some games and some cad software. The rest of the data like documents, music ripped from CDs and the OS goes on the HDD. The beach balls you were getting were probably made from the programs needing to load in data from the HDD. Mine loads data from the SSD.
What does the OS being on an SSD benefit from? It's just using up expensive SSD space for me.
Mr. Buzzcut
macrumors 65816
What is the OS if not a bunch of files on a disk? It doesn't load fully into RAM on boot. In addition, Apple's idiotic time machine generates a ton of disk activity every hour which slows the whole system down if running on a HDD.
lowendlinux
macrumors 603
Poeple tend to forget that best is subjective. On a desktop I don't mind platter drives I generally don't close things and let the computer sleep i don't care if it takes an extra second to wake up. On my portables I like the security, qietness, and extra battery life that comes with SSDs.
You're entitled to do whatever the heck you want to do, even if it doesn't make sense. But please don't give advice to people on a technical subject that you simply do not understand.
If you actually want to become more knowledgeable about the subject, I suggest doing some research and then maybe asking some follow-up questions if necessary (in an appropriate thread).
Would probably be worth a shot just moving
onto the SSD (which seems to contain swapfile(s) and the image of the memory from sleep).
I've moved a lot of stuff off to the former HD now sitting in a FW800 external chassis.
A Fusion drive would have done this automatically, but I didn't want the added complexity of this setup and didn't want to disassemble the Mini that much just to move the HD to the bottom slot...
Code:
/private/var/I've moved a lot of stuff off to the former HD now sitting in a FW800 external chassis.
A Fusion drive would have done this automatically, but I didn't want the added complexity of this setup and didn't want to disassemble the Mini that much just to move the HD to the bottom slot...
antonis
macrumors 68020
Some of the OS files are used all the time, by any application you may run, not just during boot time. Libraries, framerworks, executables, temporary files etc. are used constantly.
That's why on mixed storage solutions, OS is always the first thing to be moved on the SSD side.
Mr. Retrofire
macrumors 603
Mr. Buzzcut
macrumors 65816
So I have to install a third party utility to manipulate the native backup utility? If I'm going to do that, I'll just use another backup utility. I should have some flexibility in how backups are done without a workaround.
If that's too much to ask, at the very least, pause backups until the system is idle. I just want to use my computer without Apple's ego getting in the way.
fuchsdh
macrumors 68020
The OS benefits from a much speedier swap disk. Maybe if you've got gobs of memory you won't have to worry about virtual memory, but in most consumer cases you'll be greatly benefited from having the boot volume be an SSD. It makes the most sense to prioritize the most frequently-used files and applications on the fastest storage.
dogslobber
macrumors 601
This is an absurd analysis. The generally accepted practice is to use an SSD for OS + Applications and use a spinner for your data. If you move a lot of data then you need SSD there too.
talmy
macrumors 601
Since most people judge computer speed based on the time it takes to boot and the time it takes to load applications, you are right, the SSD should be used for those things. For users who boot up once a week or less and launch applications about as infrequently the decision is cloudy. I know that my reboots and program launching is infrequent. Where I really see the improvement is in programming -- my 2009 mini with an SSD is about 5x faster than a company-supplied Windows box with an Xeon processor, hard drives in RAID-1. But on the heavy processing extreme -- Handbrake or FCPX/Compressor, these are CPU limited so the drive doesn't matter again.
There are no simple, blanket answers to this question.
dogslobber
macrumors 601
An OS is more than booting up a computer and launching apps. Any OS operation that requires a spinner access will impact the responsiveness to the user. Think about all that logging that constantly occurs, think about accessed files, think about all the things an OS is doing with the spinner. Then there's VM.
So, yeah there is a simple answer. OS + Apps on an SSD and if you shift lots of data then make sure that goes from a spinner to SSD also.
Arguing otherwise is a fallacy.
There's been a simple, blanket answer to this question since the days of SCSI. OS goes on the faster drive!
dogslobber
macrumors 601
It is bizarre that anybody would make the claim to put the OS on the slowest drive. Obviously not that experienced with OS installations.
talmy
macrumors 601
I cited a potential use case in post #43 -- system booted and programs launched only once per week. Programming with lots of random access to source and object code (in other words, data). In this case if you couldn't put everything on an SSD best performance would come from data on the SSD and OS/applications on the HDD. This would also be the case for server systems with databases that would fit on the SSD.
But yes, for most people, booting and launching applications frequently and doing rare data access (except for media files that get streamed relatively slowly) having the OS and applications on the SSD first makes the most sense.
Mr. Buzzcut
macrumors 65816
Why are you even trying to make a case for this? It just doesn't make sense in any kind of "desktop" application. It's not even a "most people" kind of thing - it's a 99% kind of thing. Web/database servers are a different animal, but not applicable to this discussion.
Under any kind of reasonable usage and hardware scenario, the OS and apps will benefit most from the SSD, whether you start your computer and apps once a year or every day. Almost any type of "user data" that would greatly benefit from the SSD will by extension mean that the OS and app would benefit greatly from the SSD as well.
You can keep trying to come up with scenarios where you think it makes sense, but it doesn't.