SSD Help

[ollywood88]

Hi All

Two questions really

1) Can someone recommend an SSD External Hard drive probs around 500gb?

2) I have an IMAC Quad Core 3.5ghz I7 32GB it is feeling slow at the moment but I have an internal HDD instead of an SSD. I am hopefully getting one fitted soon. Can I still keep the 3tb drive and be like the fusion drive and just use SSD for apps and renders/exports?

Thanks all

 

[doubledark]

You can put an internal SSD to replace the HDD and this alone will make the machine far more responsive. On this drive , just have your applications and OS X.

Then, if you have a DVD slot, you can remove the DVD mechanism and instal a HDD.

I'm not a fan of "Fusion" drives so I've set my system up as to seperate drives; you just need to go into Sys Prefs and point to the USER files location.

To get max render speeds, you are better off using a separate SSD just for that purpose.

As to what brand, the Samsung brand seems to be the rage at the moment.

Just remember; three back ups. Two local and one off-site.

 

[Agafilm]

Hybrid drives are very different from what you're describing. But otherwise, yes.

How you use the SSD is a point of debate, and depends on what you want to get out of it. Personally, I like having it as the main drive for OS and programs. It's snappy that way, and the last thing I want is the processor pipeline getting clocked by routine processes. And yes, I understand that what feels nice to me on startup isn't a proper metric.

Rendering to a hard drive that isn't being used for anything else will always get you better performance. Drives only have so much R/W speed to spare. It doesn't matter if it's SSD or not, it will always get you an improvement. Sometimes even externals will, although generally I never recommend using external drives for anything other than sourcing files. But as an Apple user, you might not have much choice.

As far as finding an SSD with an external enclosure... just go on Newegg and look in that category. Samsung is pretty reliable. Realistically, they're all the same basic hard drives in a branded enclosure. They're identical to internals, and almost all adapters are the same hardware. Except for cheap stuff. Look for things with at least five reviews, a score of 4 or 5 and features that match your needs. If render speed is your concern, read both what the manufacturer rates read and write speeds and what third party sites have tested.