Using External SSD as Primary Disk on iMac

[Fishrrman]

"even your FireWire connection is too slow to use as a connection to an external primary drive."

That's nonsense.

You can use a firewire drive and get decent (not as fast as internally-mounted, but still acceptable) boot speeds, and once up-and-running, the "real world" run speeds will be all-but indistinguishable from an internal drive for most day-to-day tasks.

I regularly boot and run my 2007 iMac from a USB2/SATA docking station. Boot times are a little slow this way, but once running, I use it to record music without problems. Runs just fine.

 

[Nuke61]

"even your FireWire connection is too slow to use as a connection to an external primary drive."

That's nonsense.

You can use a firewire drive and get decent (not as fast as internally-mounted, but still acceptable) boot speeds, and once up-and-running, the "real world" run speeds will be all-but indistinguishable from an internal drive for most day-to-day tasks.

I second this... I had a 2010(?) iMac that I booted from a Firewire800 SSD and in regular dat to day use it was essentially indistinguishable from my 2012 iMac using either the internal Fusion drive or external Thunderbolt 840 Pro SSD. The reason is because while SSD has a raw throughput advantage over spinning drives, its biggest advantage, by FAR, is random seek speeds.

 

[lugesm]

"even your FireWire connection is too slow to use as a connection to an external primary drive."

That's nonsense.

You can use a firewire drive and get decent (not as fast as internally-mounted, but still acceptable) boot speeds, and once up-and-running, the "real world" run speeds will be all-but indistinguishable from an internal drive for most day-to-day tasks.

I regularly boot and run my 2007 iMac from a USB2/SATA docking station. Boot times are a little slow this way, but once running, I use it to record music without problems. Runs just fine.

Of course FireWire works. The point is: The FireWire speed severely limits the advantage of using an external SSD as the primary drive.

I have a very fast iMac; 3.4Ghz 16GB RAM and it will run on my external FireWire disk, but it is painfully slow compared to the Thunderbolt/SSD link.

 

[Nuke61]

Of course FireWire works. The point is: The FireWire speed severely limits the advantage of using an external SSD as the primary drive.

My experience is quite different from yours. While *benchmarks* that test for peak transfer speeds show a Firewire 800 SSD to be significantly slower than a Thunderbolt connected SSD, I found that in normal day to day use the difference was pretty tiny. The reason is normal computer use requires loading lots of small files, which means that random access speed is a more significant factor than peak transfer speed.

 

[lugesm]

My experience is quite different from yours. While *benchmarks* that test for peak transfer speeds show a Firewire 800 SSD to be significantly slower than a Thunderbolt connected SSD, I found that in normal day to day use the difference was pretty tiny. The reason is normal computer use requires loading lots of small files, which means that random access speed is a more significant factor than peak transfer speed.

Different strokes . . . . .

 

[lugesm]

Sad, sad conclusion

After all that, the 512GB Samsung 840 Pro connected to my iMac as primary drive via Thunderbolt/Seagate Interface . . . . MALFUNCTIONED.

The two problems that I noted were:

1. My accounting program that I had been using for 2 years on this iMac with the original internal HDD . . . CRASHED.

2. My iTunes files were completely scrambled. I lost about 80% of the tunes and another 10% were somehow duplicated. Could find no reason for this. Fortunately, I had subscribed to iTunes MATCH, and Apple restored my music library.

There could have been other problems; I just quit and went back to my original HDD at that point.

Needless to say, this is unacceptable. I reformatted the Samsung SSD, and it tests good in Disk Utility. Have no idea what happened, but once burned . . twice shy.

I returned the Samsung SSD to Amazon.

 

[Nuke61]

After all that, the 512GB Samsung 840 Pro connected to my iMac as primary drive via Thunderbolt/Seagate Interface . . . . MALFUNCTIONED.

Sorry to hear about that. It just seems that external SSDs larger than 256GB are problematic. I've had zero problems with my external booted iMac with 256GB 840 Pro in many months of use.

 

[lugesm]

Sorry to hear about that. It just seems that external SSDs larger than 256GB are problematic. I've had zero problems with my external booted iMac with 256GB 840 Pro in many months of use.

Thanks for that information. I might try again with a 256GB Samsung 840 Pro. My current, internal HDD only has about 190GB on it, so I would still have reasonable expansion room.

By the way, when the 512GB 840 Pro worked it was really, really fast in all operations.

 

[CoinOP]

Thanks for that information. I might try again with a 256GB Samsung 840 Pro. My current, internal HDD only has about 190GB on it, so I would still have reasonable expansion room.

By the way, when the 512GB 840 Pro worked it was really, really fast in all operations.

Not sure that's enough to migrate....

 

[lugesm]

Not sure that's enough to migrate....

You have a point, CoinOP. If this computer were just a tool, I would not even consider switching to the SSD. However, I enjoy trying modifications and improvements, so it is enough for me.

 

[Che Castro]

Here is another possible option, this one is bus powered and while USB 3.0 might be a good option, it is much cheaper and has the correct chips to run a SSD.

http://www.amazon.com/Uspeed-Extern...UTF8&colid=128939SPM3H7H&coliid=IAWJLH1O264BW

Will I have any problems with this & having the Apple TV wake the mini from sleep ?

 

[CoinOP]

You have a point, CoinOP. If this computer were just a tool, I would not even consider switching to the SSD. However, I enjoy trying modifications and improvements, so it is enough for me.

I ment carbon copy your drive o ssd if that's what you are planning. It needs a certain amount of free space.