Reverting to HDD

[ShaneBunting]

You can't? I'm pretty sure you can...

How? I'm not risking my Mac by flashing the BIOS to an unofficial one either..

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Guys, Here's my reply to (what I can remember) from the thread..

- If sold, the SDD would be replaced with a 1TB HDD and the optibay fitted with another 1TB HDD (possibly with a RAID configuration).

- Another idea I have is that I'd like to store massive amounts of high-res RIPs of DVDs from Handbrake.

- The SSD is for sale on eBay, if it sells, it sells. If it doesn't, I'll stick with it.

- Buying another SSD with a higher capacity, sadly, isn't an option. I don't want to put more money into this machine.

- I'm trying to save to buy a car right now, another part of my life minus the expensive hobby which is Apple tech! lol So that's why I'd like to sell the SSD and gain about £40-£50 maybe in the process.

- The hard drive is more reliable for moving mass amounts of into through from what I have seen online. I got put off the SSD in the first month when I read about how they manage their blocks etc. Plus, it failed and was replaced by SanDisk in that time. I can only put this down to how I was partitioning too much on it.. I basically struggle to be comfortable with getting the fullest out of the SSD, and using Windows etc. So an HDD will have to do.

--But as I said, if it goes, that's fine. If it doesn't, that's fine.

Interesting discussion. Hope it continues as I like gathering your different thoughts on this!

 

[VTECaddict]

What is the issue here? You can't install Windows without the DVD drive? The MacBook should have no problems booting off the HDD in the optibay once Windows is properly installed.

There are ways around it if you want to put in the work.

Parallels can install to a physical drive instead of a virtual one.

You can clone your existing Windows partition to a partition on the HDD.

If you have a way to connect an sata drive externally, you can leave the DVD drive installed, take out the SSD and hook it up externally, install the HDD in the macbook, boot to your OS X install on the external SSD, then format/partition/install Windows on the HDD. Once that is done, take out the DVD drive, put HDD in optibay, and reinstall SSD.

 

[throAU]

I've run SSD at work and run hybrid at home. Yes, its a tad slower, but hybrid isn't as slow as plain hard drive and 750GB for $130 is nothing to sneeze at.

I'm happy.

 

[cube]

I think one of the few things justifying SSD instead of hybrid is virtualization.

Or if the hybrid is 5400RPM.

 

[Yahooligan]

I've run SSD at work and run hybrid at home. Yes, its a tad slower, but hybrid isn't as slow as plain hard drive and 750GB for $130 is nothing to sneeze at.

I'm happy.

Well, I had a 500GB Momentus XT (7200RPM) SSHD before I switched my cMBP to SSD. Unless you're using the same apps all the time then yes, actually, the SSHD is just as slow as a plain hard drive since the data hasn't been put in the SSD area yet and it has to read from the platters.

If all you do is boot, load your browser and surf the internet all day then an SSHD will be great. If your workload varies throughout the day then the chances of hitting data in the SSD area are pretty slim and then you're back to HDD speed.

SSD and SSHD are nowhere near comparable. The SSHD can help given the right conditions, though.

 

[willcapellaro]

I have the same basic config as you - Apple 256 SSD + 750 Hybrid in my second bay. I don't like having two disks (moving/copying files between volumes requires deleting the original files that I am intending to move instead of copy), and having two drives really reduces flexibility. But I love having the space overall and speed.

Meanwhile, I can't wait to go retina or otherwise get PCI-based flash storage. SSD has been great but I need full speed ahead!
However, If there was a blade-profile fusion drive for cheap, I would be okay with that if I could save some money and get back to a single volume.

As to replacing your system disk: You think you'll be okay going to a slower drive, but that's simply not the case. You really want to wait minutes instead of seconds to start up? That will bug the **** out of you.

I recommend saving your dough until larger SSDs are cheaper/larger, or you have enough to buy one that works for you. If you need the space now, upgrade your HDD.

 

[scbond]

I'm trying to save to buy a car right now, another part of my life minus the expensive hobby which is Apple tech! lol So that's why I'd like to sell the SSD and gain about £40-£50 maybe in the process.

To be honest mate that'll get you nowhere with a car lol. I hope it works out for you hough...just don't get bored of the car and sell it in favour of a knackered rusty old bike you found in a canal!

 

[Cubytus]

What exactly are the "right" conditions for a SSHD to be useful and truly faster than plain HDD?

 

[Yahooligan]

What exactly are the "right" conditions for a SSHD to be useful and truly faster than plain HDD?

I mentioned that in my post. If you're constantly doing the same few tasks whose disk data is small enough to fit inside the SSD portion of the drive then that data will eventually become the priority data and will be copied to the SSD area.

If you're constantly switching apps, etc then the disk I/O becomes too random for any common data to "float to the top" and make its way to the SSD area.

So like I said, if all you do is boot up, load your browser, and surf the web all day...and do those steps repeatedly...then the SSHD will be faster than an HDD. If what you do varies then your disk I/O is too random and the hit rate on the SSD area will be low to none and when that's the case the SSHD functions, and performs, just like an HDD.

 

[Cubytus]

Well I guess it would depend on what your "browsing" implies. On my computer, browsing tend to be its main application at the moment, and surely keeping a browser and many tabs open takes a great toll on memory resources. However, that doesn't imply going on the same sites over and over, or am I understanding bad?

 

[Yahooligan]

Well I guess it would depend on what your "browsing" implies. On my computer, browsing tend to be its main application at the moment, and surely keeping a browser and many tabs open takes a great toll on memory resources. However, that doesn't imply going on the same sites over and over, or am I understanding bad?

What you do with your browsing is of no real consequence since the sites don't live on your drive (The cache can/does, but that's beside the point). My reference was purely to do with the actual apps themselves.

If you...

Boot
Login
Launch Safari/Chrome/Firefox/whatever and browse
Shutdown

Then these same repeated actions cause the SSHD to "learn" what data is being used the most and it will then put that data in the SSD area. provided it fits.

SSHDs help with the performance of accessing the same drive data repeatedly. If your activity is random then the data access on the drive will be random and the hit rate for the SSD area will be low, meaning you'll be accessing the spinning HDD portion more than the SSD and you won't notice much, if any, performance increase with an SSHD.

 

[magbarn]

Can't you just sell the 500gb HDD and get a 1TB HDD and put that in the optibay and keep your SSD?