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What would you do? HDD or SSD as secondary drive?

Cassady

Cassady

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 7, 2012
568
205
Sqornshellous
Hi all,

Mid-2012 MBP, removed the optibay - and now have the stock 500gb HDD as my media storage drive - and a 240gb Crucial M500 SSD as the OS drive.

The HDD is at about 50% capacity, but my SSD is filling up quickly as well, unfortunately.

I plan on upgrading to a 480GB SSD shortly.

My question:

1.) Swap out the SSD, and sell the 240GB to offset upgrade costs?
2.) OR -- replace the HDD, and look at either a hybrid drive between the 480&240 GB SSDs (assuming it's possible),
3.) or simply keep them separate, as at 1.) -- but with SSD/SSD as opposed to SSD/HDD?

Main difference (apart from speed, obviously, were I to keep the HDD) would be the possible storage size: 480+500 GB vs 480+240GB...

Ps - already maxed out at 16GB RAM, and have a sweet 24" external monitor, so no need to use the money elsewhere.

What would you do?
 
Cassady said:
Hi all,

Mid-2012 MBP, removed the optibay - and now have the stock 500gb HDD as my media storage drive - and a 240gb Crucial M500 SSD as the OS drive.

The HDD is at about 50% capacity, but my SSD is filling up quickly as well, unfortunately.

I plan on upgrading to a 480GB SSD shortly.

My question:

1.) Swap out the SSD, and sell the 240GB to offset upgrade costs?
2.) OR -- replace the HDD, and look at either a hybrid drive between the 480&240 GB SSDs (assuming it's possible),
3.) or simply keep them separate, as at 1.) -- but with SSD/SSD as opposed to SSD/HDD?

Main difference (apart from speed, obviously, were I to keep the HDD) would be the possible storage size: 480+500 GB vs 480+240GB...

Ps - already maxed out at 16GB RAM, and have a sweet 24" external monitor, so no need to use the money elsewhere.

What would you do?
Click to expand...

I would try building a fusion drive following tutorials from the web. I don't know the current status of DIY fusion drives compatibility, but I think they still work on Mavericks. Getting a 480GB SSD won't add any performance bump. You simply maxed out your Macbook... there's nothing you can do beyond selling and buying a faster and newer one.
 
I would consider the Samsung 840 Evo in the 1 TB size. That would allow you to keep everything on one drive. You obviously need at least 400 to 500 gb of storage. Why buy a 480 which will require using another drive or will be almost full from the start.
 
I run a 120GB SSD with OS and main Apps on it (approx 50% full but stable), and a 7200rpm 1TB HDD as a media drive with everything else on it (500GB iPhoto library, iTunes and secondary Apps in a folder symlinked to the Apps folder on the SSD.

Works great and gives a superb and predictable performance, no overhead from trying to understand what the fusion algorithm is doing etc etc. Also makes understanding my backups easy and the damage is limited to each drive in the event of drive failure.
 
My response would be 'do some bloody housekeeping' – do you really *need* to retain all that stuff on the SSD? My Macs have got 250GB SSDs with a pretty comprehensive collection of applications, plus four (highly disorganised) user accounts, but they're pretty stable at around 150-160GB usage.

Presumably you've got iTunes pointed to the HDD? Besides actual music, iPhone backups eat up storage pretty quickly.

I'd be surprised if there weren't tens of gigs of data currently on your SSD that you've not opened even once since installing that SSD.

And I'd avoid homebrew Fusion like the plague. Even if there's absolutely no instability caused by the 'fusing', you're still introducing the risk of losing *everything* in the event of a disk failure. I've also got a personal preference for manually handling what goes where, but that's just me.

EDIT: or pretty much what simonsi said.
 
glenthompson said:
I would consider the Samsung 840 Evo in the 1 TB size. That would allow you to keep everything on one drive. You obviously need at least 400 to 500 gb of storage. Why buy a 480 which will require using another drive or will be almost full from the start.
Click to expand...

Hard to argue against, but for the cost. Down my side the price between a 1TB SSD, and its 480GB sibling, is significant... Going with the smaller option, in conjunction with what I have currently, is what I can afford and justify for the foreseeable future! :cool:

----------
simonsi said:
I run a 120GB SSD with OS and main Apps on it (approx 50% full but stable), and a 7200rpm 1TB HDD as a media drive with everything else on it (500GB iPhoto library, iTunes and secondary Apps in a folder symlinked to the Apps folder on the SSD.

Works great and gives a superb and predictable performance, no overhead from trying to understand what the fusion algorithm is doing etc etc. Also makes understanding my backups easy and the damage is limited to each drive in the event of drive failure.
Click to expand...

mojolicious said:
My response would be 'do some bloody housekeeping' – do you really *need* to retain all that stuff on the SSD? My Macs have got 250GB SSDs with a pretty comprehensive collection of applications, plus four (highly disorganised) user accounts, but they're pretty stable at around 150-160GB usage.

Presumably you've got iTunes pointed to the HDD? Besides actual music, iPhone backups eat up storage pretty quickly.

I'd be surprised if there weren't tens of gigs of data currently on your SSD that you've not opened even once since installing that SSD.

And I'd avoid homebrew Fusion like the plague. Even if there's absolutely no instability caused by the 'fusing', you're still introducing the risk of losing *everything* in the event of a disk failure. I've also got a personal preference for manually handling what goes where, but that's just me.

EDIT: or pretty much what simonsi said.
Click to expand...

Appreciate the replies.

I do have iTunes, iPhoto and iMovie on the HDD - together with whatever miscellaneous data that is not work related, as can be moved over. The iOS backups no doubt are a significant contributor, as is my VM machine, and my ever-growing work database...

I did do some initial reading up on the iOS backups, and even my various mail account attachment folders -- regarding getting them onto the HDD, but for a variety of reasons, never figured it was worth trying to fashion the transfer... It's something I'll probably look at again.

Regarding housekeeping -- I'm pretty careful about what I do, and where I store everything. Have Hazel 3.0 set-up to do the standard housecleaning, and run DaisyDisk at least once a week, in keeping an eye on things. But it's starting to become tedious now. I don't want to have to worry about it as much - and I don't want to have to delete things I might not use regularly, just to save space...

Which is why I figured I would go bigger on the OS SSD.

Pretty much confirmed what I figured -- which is to stay away from a home-brew fusion. Always had me a bit nervous, and must agree that I would prefer to remain 'in control' about what goes where.
 
I'd get a 1TB HDD to store the files on and keep the apps on the SSD. You need space.

If money isn't an issue get a 1TB SSD. There may be some 4th of July sales, check New Egg, etc.
 
niteflyr said:
A drive failure is a drive failure, fusion or otherwise. You either have a good backup or you don't.
Click to expand...

In a similar way to RAID, a fusion drive will fail more often than a single drive due to the added complication of it having additional components.

The advantages of effectively having a fluid policy of what is stored on what fusion component (ie fusion logic decides), is outweighed for me by the simplicity of a fixed policy inherent in seperate SSD and HDD components (admin decides).

Recovery is also likely to be quicker as the most likely failure is of the HDD component, in a fusion drive you are left with having to restore everything, OS, data etc. with seperate drives you are likely left with a bootable machine just needing data restored.
 
Simonsi, I agree with with all you've stated. I could argue either way on whether to fusion or not to fusion. I just don't think that the minuscule failure rate of drives in general is reason enough alone to opt out. Always have a good backup plan!
 
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