Macbook Pro Help SSD

[Catbug has fleas]

Hi I'm fairly new too this but I have a 15-inch early 2011 Macbook Pro.
It has a 2GHz Intel Core i7, 16GB 1333 MHz DDR3, Intel HD Graphics 3000 512 MB, and a 500GB Macintosh HD. I'm trying to upgrade it with an SSD. The SSD I've ordered is Samsung 850 EVO 500GB 2.5-Inch SATA III Internal SSD. I plan to remove the Optical drive and put my old Hard drive in the optical bay with a caddy/adapter, and put the SSD where the Hard drive would be. The main use for the computer is for music editing, recording, and film scoring on Logic Pro X (and maybe play some Starcraft 2). I'm not sure what's the best way to optimize the drives; whether or not to a do RAID 0 or do RAID 1. Mayde use the two drives separately or any other options that would work please let me know. I'm not doing any intense video or photo editing just music. I plan in the future to get more samples of instruments and those take up a decent amount of space. I want to optimize it so Logic runs smoothly and fast without crashing or overloading. I'm also going to use a WD My Passport 4TB Portable External USB 3.0 Hard Drive for Mac to use as my backup drive/time machine. I know that I need to enable TRIM on the SSD but is there anything else I need to know, please let me know. It would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Glmnet1]

I would recommend using them separately, keep the OS and everything you use frequently on the SSD and if you run out of space you can move big files to the HDD.

RAID with both SSD and HDD would be terrible for the performance.

The upgrade will do wonders to your MBP, it's truly amazing!

 

[Catbug has fleas]

I would recommend using them separately, keep the OS and everything you use frequently on the SSD and if you run out of space you can move big files to the HDD.

RAID with both SSD and HDD would be terrible for the performance.

The upgrade will do wonders to your MBP, it's truly amazing!

how would I set that up?

 

[Glmnet1]

Backup your files!

Do the physical installation of both drives. Then boot from your MacOS recovery partition and use Disk Utility to "Restore" your HDD to your SSD. This will make a bootable copy of your drive. Test by booting on your SSD (Hold option when booting to select the drive). Take a few minutes to enjoy the performance of your new drive

Then back to Disk Utility (no need to go in the recovery partition now) to format your HDD.

 

[Catbug has fleas]

Backup your files!

Do the physical installation of both drives. Then boot from your MacOS recovery partition and use Disk Utility to "Restore" your HDD to your SSD. This will make a bootable copy of your drive. Test by booting on your SSD (Hold option when booting to select the drive). Take a few minutes to enjoy the performance of your new drive

Then back to Disk Utility (no need to go in the recovery partition now) to format your HDD.

okay thanks
[doublepost=1511673880][/doublepost]

Backup your files!

Do the physical installation of both drives. Then boot from your MacOS recovery partition and use Disk Utility to "Restore" your HDD to your SSD. This will make a bootable copy of your drive. Test by booting on your SSD (Hold option when booting to select the drive). Take a few minutes to enjoy the performance of your new drive

Then back to Disk Utility (no need to go in the recovery partition now) to format your HDD.

do I wipe the HDD after I set up the SSD

 

[Glmnet1]

do I wipe the HDD after I set up the SSD

Yes, you can do so from disk utility once you're booted from the SSD.

 

[wcroadie]

I keep putting this upgrade off, I don't know why but I do. Maybe after Christmas I will do this. I also need a battery for my MBP, I am torn between upgrading the current or buying a new MBP...

 

[Glmnet1]

I keep putting this upgrade off, I don't know why but I do. Maybe after Christmas I will do this. I also need a battery for my MBP, I am torn between upgrading the current or buying a new MBP...

Do you need the lighter and thinner builds from recent MBP? The retina display? The better GPU? If you don't really need those features then I think it'll be well worth it to upgrade to an SSD and wait for a release you really want or for your MBP to break down in, hopefully, a few years.

 

[Fishrrman]

I would recommend you proceed this way:

"Prep and test" the new SSD BEFORE you open the MacBook.
Use either a USB3 enclosure, a USB3/SATA dock, or perhaps a USB3/SATA "adapter dongle".
This way, you can be sure it is up and running to your satisfaction BEFORE you do computer surgery. If there are problems, they are MUCH easier to diagnose and fix while the Macbook is still running.

When you do open the MacBook, RELOCATE the platter-based SSD to the connection for the DVD.
Put the SSD into the spot where the HDD originally was.

 

[Catbug has fleas]

Yes, you can do so from disk utility once you're booted from the SSD.

how do I know that the computer will boot from the SSD and not the HDD?

 

[Glmnet1]

The devices name will be different, they'll look like disk1s1 and disk2s1.

You can also rename the volume from Disk Utility so you'll see different names when holding Option while you boot.

Finally you'll notice a huge performance improvement when booted from the SSD, particularly when booting and starting heavy apps.

 

[Catbug has fleas]

The devices name will be different, they'll look like disk1s1 and disk2s1.

You can also rename the volume from Disk Utility so you'll see different names when holding Option while you boot.

Finally you'll notice a huge performance improvement when booted from the SSD, particularly when booting and starting heavy apps.

okay

 

[Fishrrman]

OP asked:
"how do I know that the computer will boot from the SSD and not the HDD?"

The Mac doesn't care at all "from where it boots", so long as the drive it's booting from has a good copy of the OS on it. Quite different than Windows, from what I gather.

To verify from which drive you're booted, go to "about this Mac" (Apple menu). It will tell you.

 

[elf69]

My 2010 MacBook I fitted ssd and put old hdd in optical bay.

I then set it up so my home folder was on the hdd not the ssd.

this freed up lots of space as 35GB music and 48GB photos without other random files.

To do this you need set up another admin account to move home folder, after which I deleted the temp admin account.

Ran great until suspected GPU failed.

Looking for a 2012 pro to do same thing with.