Total Noob installing an SSD drive

godtabh

Was going to add to the thread already on this page about SSDS but didnt want to confuse things.

I bought this on the amazon lightening deals.

What else do I need to get to instal it?

I'm thinking of doing a complete and totally new instal (but I do have back ups to a time machine server).

Any one got any good links to youtube to do all this? I would be grateful for any tips

ZENER

Might help if you mentioned what you want to install the SSD into ?!

Ken

godtabh

Whoops!

early 2011 MBP

ZENER

The type of drive isn't really relevant as most SSDs are direct replacements for standard types. The speed difference is significant though and the extra warm feeling inside that your data is a bit safer is a bonus.

The guide here shows you all you need to know. Be careful with the screws you remove. Good practice would be to get a sheet of A4 paper and draw an outline of the computer on it in the same orientation that you you see. Then put each screw in its location on the paper and stick it down with some blutak or Sellotape to stop them from moving or falling onto the floor. Use a clean towel under the computer to ensure you don't scratch its case.

Installing the OS is the same regardless of the drive type but be informed that unless you buy an Apple branded SSD you won't have TRIM support though with modern SSDs it's not such a big deal.

If you need any more help let us know

Ken

godtabh

Thanks for the tips. Was dispatched yesterday so hopefully will have it Monday/Tuesday and I'll be up an running.

I think more than likely I'll do a clean install. I've a it backed up to time capsule and most of my stuff is either in the cloud or on a network drive.

I also got 16gb of ram to go with it so this time next week hopefully it should be super fast!

ZENER

I recently put a 120GB SSD into a 2006 MBP (Core Duo 1.83GHz) and it made a huge difference to both speed and battery life. Your setup coupled to 16GB of RAM should be impressive ! Let us know how it goes and your experience afterwards will you ?

Ken

godtabh

I'll post here as I go along

Colonel Panic

If you're going to do a clean install and don't mind redownloading your OS, you can put the drive in, boot the machine and let Internet Recovery do it's thing.

Restoring from a Time Machine backup to an initially blank drive I don't advice, as it doesn't create a Recovery Partition for you. I got around this when I got my SSD by installing Lion to get the Recovery Partition, then I used Disk Utility to image my original HDD connected externally to the OS partition on the SSD. This has been running without a hitch for ages, even after an upgrade to Mountain Lion.

Using CCC to clone your existing drive, as far as I know, copies the Recovery Partition but double check that.

If you want to do something interesting with your setup, you can put the HDD where the optical drive was (assuming non-Retina MBP) and create a DIY Fusion Drive setup. This way, both volumes appear as one and the SSD becomes a massive cache for frequently used files.

godtabh

Colonel Panic wrote: »

If you want to do something interesting with your setup, you can put the HDD where the optical drive was (assuming non-Retina MBP) and create a DIY Fusion Drive setup. This way, both volumes appear as one and the SSD becomes a massive cache for frequently used files.

what benefits does that have?

silvine

Colonel Panic wrote: »

If you want to do something interesting with your setup, you can put the HDD where the optical drive was (assuming non-Retina MBP) and create a DIY Fusion Drive setup. This way, both volumes appear as one and the SSD becomes a massive cache for frequently used files.

Hi ,

How do I do this? My iMac currently uses a 60GB as a boot drive and the original 1TB HDD as a media or storage drive.

Also how would this affect my Time Machine backups? Time machine currently backs up my boot drive to my HDD.

Thanks.

Colonel Panic

http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=1186323&start=0

Fusion drive is built on top of Core Storage, which was originally implemented in OSX to support the full disk encryption in FileVault 2.

Basically, you create a logical volume made up of the SDD and HDD and install OSX onto it. OSX knows it's made of two disks and writes to the faster one first, and tries to cache files on the faster one at all times.

If would effect your TM backups if you back up from one internal disk to another since OSX would just see it all as one volume.

stimpson

This makes me very happy indeed. I had no idea you could DIY a Fusion drive. I just got a Crucial M4 512gig on Amazons Black Friday sale and my 2.6Ghz quad i7 mini will arrive from the states in a couple of weeks. I was planning on just replacing the drive. Not anymore

godtabh

Installed the ram and the computer seems to be flying!

Need a T6 screw driver but couldnt find one. Will have to get one tomorrow and hopefully will have it sorted.

Going to due a fresh install of Mount Lion so I have a bootable usb drive ready to go

pedatron

Just got a MacBook Pro last week. Was looking to eventually install an SSD and create a fusion drive with the HDD. What size SSD should I be looking for? Take into consideration I'm broke as well!Thanks

godtabh

Biggest you can afford

pedatron

godtabh wrote: »

Biggest you can afford

Like would 128gb be enough? I was hoping to run the majority of apps on that and then use the HDD for storage of music video pictures etc.

godtabh

From what I've read about fusion it depends on many apps/documents you would use regularly

I'm up and running now. Mountain Lion with 240gb SSD and 16gm of ram! Running super sweet. Its flying

godtabh

Start up time is now about 2-5 seconds!

jenno86

godtabh wrote: »

From what I've read about fusion it depends on many apps/documents you would use regularly

I'm up and running now. Mountain Lion with 240gb SSD and 16gm of ram! Running super sweet. Its flying

Might treat myself to the same upgrade in the January sales!

stimpson

So I got my Mac Mini yesterday. Before even turning it on I took it to pieces and installed an SSD and 16 Gigs of RAM.

It took me ages to figure out how to get Fusion setup, as the recovery disk is a partition on the HD, so you can't partition it while running in Recovery Mode. The trick is to create a bootable SD/USB Install disk, boot from that and then complete the steps in the post above. As the machine ships without an optical drive (and no install CD), this is easier said than done. You can't just download it from the App Store, and the 2012 mini needs it's own custom build anyway.

This is the solution for grabbing the OSX Install.dmg from Apple - works like a charm:

http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20110831105634716

One other trick is to create a Time Machine backup before creating the Fusion Drive and then just restore that.

The new machine flies - really impressed, but I am coming from a 2007 Core 2 Duo.