Working on Storage Solution (SSD & HDD)

[mstier09]

Hello everyone out there in MacRumors land!
I have a couple questions about a dual drive setup in a new i7. I plan on having the HDD in the stock position and an SSD in the optical drive bay. After reading here on the forums this solutions seems to offer the best performance and capacity.

My questions are...

1) Regarding the positions of the SSD and HDD. My thinking is that keeping the HDD in the stock position will preserve the computer's ability to kill the drive motors, unless I misunderstand the tech, this feature won't function without being in the stock position... so if someone can confirm this suspicion that would be great! (This fact would necessitate the placement of these drives, would it not?)

2) Another question is about the SSD itself. Without OS X supporting TRIM (or any alternative technology for SSD management) is there anyway to replicate its effects, with say, routine reformatting? I plan on partitioning the SSD into a boot/application section and a scratch section for working media files, etc. So would formatting the scratch partition from time to time preserve or degrade the longevity of the SSD?

Well those are my main concerns, I know some of you have a similar dual drive setup and might be able to comment on or hopefully even answer my questions. Thanks!

 

[Baral]

1. By "kill the drive motors" I'm assuming you mean spinning it down when not in use and/or unmounting the drive manually. Both of these things can be accomplished with the HDD in the optibay. The ONLY advantage of having the HDD in the stock position is to be able to use the sudden motion sensor (to potentially prevent drive failure after a fall). However, you lose the functionality of hibernating, as the machine does not like hibernating well when the boot drive is in the optibay.

2. Unfortunately, OSX does not have TRIM enabled. This is a real shame because there is nothing to replicate its effects. Simply reformatting will not work, and writing 0s or 1s will actually make the drive worse. There are a couple "workarounds" to restore your SSD back to factory performance, but even the best ones are long and cumbersome. It's not exactly something you'd do "time to time." Your best bet is to just keep OSX and apps on the SSD, everything else on the HDD.

FYI, I have an SSD in the stock position and an HDD in the optibay, and everything works smoothly.

 

[thewanted]

I haven't seen this mentioned in any SSD threads of late, but Anandtech recommend the Sandforce based SSDs for OSX as they have superior garbage collecting firmware and the performance won't degrade over time.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3812/the-ssd-diaries-crucials-realssd-c300/9

I often get questions from Mac users asking what the best SSD is for OS X. Since Apple still won’t support TRIM you need a very resilient drive under OS X. That path leads you to SandForce. Pick up a Corsair Force, OCZ Vertex 2, G.Skill Phoenix or whatever SF drive tickles your fancy if you want the best of the best in your Mac.