Hello.
I use an iMac 27" 2012 as the display for my MBP Retina 2014 in target disk mode when I use Logic. Is target disk mode a bad option?
Is there any budget solutions that is great via Thunderbolt if I want another ssd drive to be the startup disk for my iMac?
iMac 27″, macOS 11.7
I personally use a Samsung T7 SSD as a Catalina boot drive on my 2019 iMac. I find that they give very good performance at a good price point. I get these real world speeds.
to implement that, you can use the steps in Use an external SSD as your startup disk with your iMac or Mac mini - User Tip.
I just purchased a 2tb Samsung T7 to put new life to my 2019 intel fusion iMac which was running painfully slow. Voila using it as the Sonoma startup has sped up most processes significantly. Boot is less than 1 minute and program load has improved. BTW 2tb Samsung T7 on sale at Costco for less than $100
I personally use an even faster OWC external SSD drive to boot my 2019 iMac from as a Mojave & later OSes...
https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/TB3ENVPFX04/
wow, that's almost twice as fast! but it's also almost twice the cost. for the limited light use of Catalina that I do, it wouldn't justify the price. but if someone wanted to use it as their dedicated boot drive, then, yes, that price is worth it. :)
BDAqua wrote:
Yes, expensive, but far better than my 2019 iMac's Fusion drive...
Interesting. My 2015 27" iMac's Fusion drive…
Write speed: 391 MB/s
Read speed: 1742 MB/s
…and the SSD is almost dead. 😛
Good move most of the time.:)
I was taxed out with 32GB of RAM in a 21.5"er, a 6 core i7, & upgraded Video... heard that if if SSD only 2019 iMac goes out you won't be able to boot off an external drive... wasn't gong to chance it.
hopefully, my 27 inch iMac is long retired and replaced by an M series iMac before the SSD craps out. ;). and even then, I am likely to risk tearing it open and replace the SSD with an OWC Aura Pro X2.
BDAqua wrote:
Yes, expensive, but far better than my 2019 iMac's Fusion drive...
https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/5817aea9-bb67-4c0f-a6b2-6dfd8a4bb46a
Those numbers look like a split Fusion drive running only off the roto-drive.
Yes, expensive, but far better than my 2019 iMac's Fusion drive...
fortunately for me, I specced my 2019 iMac with 100% flash storage.
What size is the SSD part?
BDAqua wrote:
What size is the SSD part?
A couple inches by a couple inches. 🤣
128 give or take. according to DriveDX, it is due to fail any time now. It has said that for over a year. 😎
It starts out faster loading things to the SSD part, but once the SSD has ben filled it has to get new blocks from the spinner part. :)
Dup...
👍
External SSD as Startup..?
