Hey guys, I have a quick question. I have a 256GB SSD on the way, along with an HD Caddy to replace my DVD drive. I use bootcamp to run Windows 7 along side OS X. I'll have a 750GB HDD in my DVD bay, and was wondering how I should set things up. Because 128GB isn't a ton of free space per partition / Operating system, I wanted to install Apps and keep profiles / user folders on the 750GB drive (for both windows and OS X). Will I have to give the 750GB drive an HFS+ and NTFS partition to do this? Or can I store Apps and the User folder on an NTFS partition (when booted into OS X?) I'd rather just have one big partition, since the drive is also going to be used to store my music etc... Anyways, sorry I couldn't describe the situation more clearly, but I think it should be understandable. I'm sure some of you out there have similar setups... what do you suggest? Thanks in advance!
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SDD + HDD Bootcamp setup
- Thread starter LelandT50
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Well ... what I would do is create a dual boot SSD Fusion drive (requires OS X 10.8.2).
I have a 256GB SSD divided into 2 partitions for Windows and OS X booting, plus the original 750GB hard disk. I then used the instructions widely discussed here to create a DIY Fusion drive with the OS X partition on the SSD joined to the full hard disk. You could substitute a larger 512GB SSD if desired for more workspace. It works great.
You can search and find my posts detailing how to do it complete with disk table contents so you can see how it is configured. I have done both a 2011 MacBook Pro and a 2011 Mac Mini in this fashion (I also have a Fusion setup in my 2008 Mac Pro but have a separate SSD for Windows in that machine).
You can then create Windows data partition on your hard disk (or use the BootCamp utility to do it for you) and format it NTFS from Windows for additional storage space for your Windows stuff.
Good luck...
-howard
I have a 256GB SSD divided into 2 partitions for Windows and OS X booting, plus the original 750GB hard disk. I then used the instructions widely discussed here to create a DIY Fusion drive with the OS X partition on the SSD joined to the full hard disk. You could substitute a larger 512GB SSD if desired for more workspace. It works great.
You can search and find my posts detailing how to do it complete with disk table contents so you can see how it is configured. I have done both a 2011 MacBook Pro and a 2011 Mac Mini in this fashion (I also have a Fusion setup in my 2008 Mac Pro but have a separate SSD for Windows in that machine).
You can then create Windows data partition on your hard disk (or use the BootCamp utility to do it for you) and format it NTFS from Windows for additional storage space for your Windows stuff.
Good luck...
-howard
Thanks Howard, I wasn't aware of fusion drives. They sound similar to the hybrid drives that are now available. Being that I'm a poor college student, 256GB (on sale) is all I could afford for the time being. But its good to know I have more options. Just to be clear, it sounds like you partitioned your SSD to have a Bootcamp portion, and then "merged" the OS X SSD partition with your HDD drive to form a Fusion drive... giving you a total of 2 logical volumes. I'm definitely interested in trying this at some point. But for the time being, since this is my first time playing with an SSD, I'd like to have the operating systems on only the SSD (SSD only volumes), just so I can get a feel for how fast it is. Anyways, as for the HDD, do you know if there is a format that will be both readable and writable by both OS X and Windows, (Natively)? I know special drivers can be installed on either OS to write to other filesystems, but in my experience those have been extremely unreliable. This would allow me far greater flexibility on this setup, and not force me to decide which side I need to devote more space to. Thanks again!
You can find more information on the Fusion technology being used by Apple in the latest iMac and Mac Mini on their website. They are using a 128GB SSD along with either a 1TB or a 3TB hard disk (purchase option) to achieve data-tiering near-SSD performance for the full 1.125 GB or 3.125 GB capacity. It is much more sophisticated than a hybrid drive as it keeps the most used blocks (not files) of data on the SSD, plus buffers all writes through a 4GB SSD buffer to the hard disk. It appears to the user as a single and fast large hard disk, and there is no "user" data management involved ... you just use it as any other OS X system.
Creating the fusion drive requires backup of your data, 2 commands in Terminal, then restore the newly created Fusion drive from the backup.
You will have fast SSD performance for both OS X and Windows, and still have the capacity of the hard disk for your lesser used music, photo, video libraries in both operating systems (if you partition it as mentioned previously).
So, the 256GB SSD you already have, split in half for OS X and Windows, is the same size SSD partition as Apple uses for their Fusion products.
-howard
Creating the fusion drive requires backup of your data, 2 commands in Terminal, then restore the newly created Fusion drive from the backup.
You will have fast SSD performance for both OS X and Windows, and still have the capacity of the hard disk for your lesser used music, photo, video libraries in both operating systems (if you partition it as mentioned previously).
So, the 256GB SSD you already have, split in half for OS X and Windows, is the same size SSD partition as Apple uses for their Fusion products.
-howard
I guess it depends on what you want to do with it, but I put OSX/Win7 on my 240gb SSD.
180 for OSX, which I find is pretty good.
60 for Win 7. Disable hibernation, paging etc, and that frees up quite a bit of space as well.
Of course, your needs may differ.
180 for OSX, which I find is pretty good.
60 for Win 7. Disable hibernation, paging etc, and that frees up quite a bit of space as well.
Of course, your needs may differ.
Ok Cool, thanks guys. Just wondering, if I want to partition my 750GB HDD as half NTFS, half HFS+, can I do that in Disk Utility? Or do I just leave a blank partition for when i boot into windows and format it then?