Some questions about the SSD/optibay Mod
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  1. #1
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    Default Some questions about the SSD/optibay Mod

    I was looking into the SSD upgrade, seems like a great the best upgrade i've seen in a long time. I have a few questions

    1) I have an early 2011 MacBook Pro, would I want an SSD with Sata 2 or 3 connection?

    2) What exactly would be on the SSD? Obviously the OS but is that where you'd install programs, and then just point file directories to the HDD

    3) Whats the optimal size required? Also if I already have a nearly full 500 GB and I were to go with an 120Gb SSD as my main boot drive, how would I just move my apps and os system files?

    Any one who has done the mod themselves I'd love to hear your experience with the mod? I was thinking of upping the ram to 8GB but after seeing the SSD performance video this really seems to be the way to go for an upgrade.

  2. #2
    Schreiberie Meister Afterhour Ali's Avatar
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    I've got a SSD in my DJing notebook and a normal HDD in its ultrabay slot (similar to that optibay-thing).

    1) I've got an early 2011 MacBook too but never put my SSD in it so far. Judging from Apple's tendency to deliver outdated hardware for a crazy price I guess its a SATA-2 connection. Its still a good idea to buy a SATA-3 one because they are just a little bit more expensive but they provide better performance in your future MacBooks/PCs.

    2) All programs should be on the SSD. Data like music on the HDD. This however may slow down the experience (since it needs to load data from the slow drive). Still you get impressive boot and startup-times.

    3) You can go all SSD if you use a new one by Intel with 600 GB. These are cheaper than the previous generation ones but that 600 GB one should still cost you a fortune.
    If you go with 250 GB that's affordable and you can put your important data on it (which I recommend since SSD's are shock-resistant).

    Here are some more important things:
    • Don't buy a cheap SSD! OCZ, Corsair and Intel are the way to go. The buck you save you will pay double if you aren't satisfied with the performance or the SSD fails.
    • Backup all important data of the SSD. I've heard a lot about faulty ones failing pretty fast. Mine has been doing a good job for 1 year.
    • Important:OSX as shitty as it is supports the TRIM-command of these devices only starting with OSX 10.7 Lion. BUT At its launch in July only SSD's from Apple are supported (yay, Cupertino). TRIM is very important because it prevents the drive from slowing down significantly and also failing early. Just read up [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIM"]TRIM - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]what it does here.


    A lot of DJs now use SSDs because they've got advantages which are pretty handy for DJs (like speed and shock-resistance). Welcome to the club.
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  3. #3
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    I've done my SSD install this morning. So i've now got a 120 Gb OCZ Agility 3 as my main boot drive, & a Western Digital 750 Gb / 7200 rpm in place of the DVD.

    It's too early to give a proper opinion on improvements, but lets just say programmes open almost instantaneously now!

    couple of questions....

    1. somebody mentioned turning off Spotlight on the SSD. How important is that?

    2. Will I see any improvements if I up the memory from 4 to 8 Gbs. ....or will i just be wasting money.

    This is all in a late 2009 13" MacBook Pro (2.53 GHz, Core 2 Duo)
    Cheers

    IAN WILLIAMS

  4. #4
    Schreiberie Meister Afterhour Ali's Avatar
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    1.) Spotlight writes all the time on the SSD. Without support for TRIM this may wear down the SSD faster, so turn it off if you can live without it.

    You should deactivate the sudden motion sensor as well which protects the HDD against lost data due to shocks. Use:
    sudo pmset -a sms 0

    Some turn off hibernation as well but I don't see the point of doing it.

    2.) More working memory is always a good choice but it also depends on how you want to use the MacBook. Even if you run Ableton and Traktor it once it might hardly eat more than 2 Gigs. So you're well set with 4 gigs.
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  5. #5
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    using Terminal scares me, & is well beyond the limits of my computer knowledge.

    So I just open terminal & type;

    sudo pmset -a sms 0


    Will this still leave the sudden motion sensor on my standard drive working?
    Cheers

    IAN WILLIAMS

  6. #6
    Schreiberie Meister Afterhour Ali's Avatar
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    nope, I think it turns it off for all drives attached.

    Let me explain the command to you:

    pmset changes and reads power management settings

    the option -a that it applies to wall power, battery and UPS.


    sms - use Sudden Motion Sensor to park disk heads on sudden changes in G
    force (value = 0/1)

    and 0 to turn it off.
    Last edited by Afterhour Ali; 06-29-2011 at 08:51 AM.
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  7. #7
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    So i should leave it on then?

    ....presumably having the sudden motion sensor "on" on the SSD won't be a problem? It's just something enabled that doesn't need to be.
    Cheers

    IAN WILLIAMS

  8. #8
    Schreiberie Meister Afterhour Ali's Avatar
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    For DJing I turned it completely off because I don't want my songs to stop suddenly on an impact.

    The risk is that the traditional harddisk gets damaged but its rather small.

    I also explained the command a bit more in detail in my last post so you know what you're doing.
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  9. #9
    DJTT Tankard fullenglishpint's Avatar
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    Your songs are loaded into the ram while playing though, so they won't stop suddenly.
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  10. #10
    Schreiberie Meister Afterhour Ali's Avatar
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    That is correct, fullenglishprint. I didn't think about it.

    I only know of my experiences with Windows. My company had a strange tool installed which also stopped the harddrive. When it happened the whole song playback in Traktor stopped for a second. It was a mess.
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