Possible SSD and 16GB RAM to my iMac 27" - Help required

[mullock87]

Hi there

I have a late 2009 iMac 27" with the following specs:

- i5 2.66ghz
- 8 GB ram
- 1TB Internal HDD
- 1TB External HDD (Time Machine copy of the internal drive)

My computer is still running fine since I've had it but I would really like to keep the 1TB inside it and use a Samsung SSD for the the boot drive and keep the SSD external.

I've used up most of the space on the internal 1TB drive and I use Time Machine to back this up on a 1TB external HDD.

Is it possible for me to buy an external SSD and use this as the main boot drive without affecting or losing my internal HDD files?

Also, I can buy an extra 8GB to double the ram to 16GB for an extra £60. Would this make a noticeable difference my use of the computer? I use my comp for mainly music production and general browsing etc.

Thanks

 

[SpeedFleX]

I did this:

I upgraded to 12 GB RAM (Had left over)

I got a USB 3.0 case and put a SSD in there as a main boot drive, I did a backup of the 1 TB which you already did, so if it truly is the newest backup you could just format it.

Then I named the 1 TB Data and SSD Boot.

Next step I did was made symbolic link to the Data drive, so OS X sees it on the SSD but in reality it is not touching the SSD and is being put straight onto the Data Drive.

If you have the cash I would go with a thunderbolt case with passthrough just so you can still hook up monitors and not waste too many USB ports^^

Have fun..

 

[Bear]

Since you said you had a late 2009, an external drive is going to be slower than any internal drive as you don't have USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt. A firewire 2 drive will be faster than a USB 2.0 drive, but still slower than your internal drive.

Going from 8 GB to 16GB is a maybe - it depends on how resource hungry the music production software is.