Can I boot from Expresscard/34 SSD drive?

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Level 1

5 points

Can I boot from Expresscard/34 SSD drive?

Hi everyone,

To increase performance and maximize battery life of my MacBookPro 15" MA610LL, I would like to purchase one of these:

Verbatim SSD ExpressCard/34 32GB drive
http://www.verbatim-europe.co.uk/en1/product_ssd-expresscard-32gb15803.html

..and then install Leopard onto it and use it as my boot drive. I would keep all my /Users files on the existing Seagate Momentus 7200.3 320gb internal HD.

Clearly, 32gb is not very big, but I only use XCode, iLife and iWorks (no Adobe suite) and a recent nuke-and-pave showed that this is enough room.

I have some questions:

1) Does anyone know if it is actually possible to boot from an SSD card in the ExpressCard/34 slot?

2) What config changes should I make to avoid wearing the SSD prematurely - e.g. move /tmp and swap to HD? (any ideas how?)

3) Are there any got-ya's I should antipate?

Thanks for any help!

Cheers,
James

Message was edited by: Fistboy

MacBook Pro 17", Mac OS X (10.5.7)

Posted on Jul 27, 2009 6:00 AM

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Answer 1

sig

Level 8

35,862 points

Jul 27, 2009 7:28 AM in response to Fistboy

As far as I know the express slot is not bootable. Your MBP can be booted from a firewire drive or usb drive. I don't see how purchasing the card will maximize your battery life or increase performance.

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Answer 2

Jul 28, 2009 6:04 AM in response to Fistboy

This is an impractical solution. In Energy Saver in System Preferences, select "Power Down Disks When Not In Use." (As in, make sure it's checked). You can put your most used files on an external SD card and use a USB card reader. But to power the SSD and the ExpressCard would for the most part use about the same amount of energy as the hard drive (it would have a minimal impact on battery life). And most SSDs are only reliable for a year or two, whereas HDDs last for decades. (Theoretically).

I don't think you can boot from it anyway. And plus, the Expresscard slot would be so much slower in data transfer than the HDD anyway. Your system would probably lag like ****.

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Answer 3

Fistboy Author

Level 1

5 points

Jul 30, 2009 4:19 AM in response to Fistboy

Here's some references from other threads on the net:

"Photoshop CS4 Extended seems to load in 3 or 3.5 seconds"
http://forums.macnn.com/69/mac-notebooks/394126/best-config-48gb-expresscard-ssd -320gb/

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/feedback/express34cardreports.html#storytop

So it seems that it is possible to boot from some types of SSD and performance rocks. I'll head over to those forums for more info.

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Answer 4

sig

Level 8

35,862 points

Jul 30, 2009 4:58 AM in response to Fistboy

I read some of the threads. Drop by with a post if you get it to work. Just found this:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/EXP34SATA2P1/

Message was edited by: sig

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