Mac pro hybrid drive

Question

Mac pro hybrid drive

Hi there guys,

My Mac pro 1.1 2007 boot times are relativly slow, and was considering a "seagate 1tb hybrid hard drive". My questions are:

1) Has anybody put in a hybrid hard drive into a mac pro 1.1 2007? What were the results?

2) Will it work correctly?

3) Does the mac contain a function to COMPLETELY COPY my main hard drive (With Mac OSX) to the hybrid drive if i get one, then if i replaced the old hard drive with the hybrid, would it work fine?

I want a SSHD because they are significantly cheaper than SSD, and have a large space which i want. I DONT have much money to spend, hence i am not buying a SSD. With this hybrid, my boot times should also rapidly increase correct? As the OS will go onto the solid state part ?

please if you HAVE EXPERIENCE or know someone who has done it or are CONFIDENT WITH THE RESULTS, please, please anyswer my questions!!

Thanks a lot guys!

Mac Pro, Windows 7, Memory

Posted on Dec 8, 2013 3:01 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Dec 8, 2013 5:45 PM in response to Apple user 16

By far the biggest payback (once you have enough RAM) for a Mac that supports multiple drives is to establish a Boot Drive, with only the System, Library, Applications, and the hidden unix files including Paging/Swap. User files are moved off to another drive.

This alleviates the "traffic jam" that is inherent with everything on the Boot drive.

If that drive (which can be surprisingly small) is a fast drive, it speeds up everything. If it is a low-latency SSD, that speeds things up even more. I have been running a Server-attached Mac Pro on an SSD as small as 30GB, but that is too small for most users. 128GB is plenty if user files are moved off.

The large space is on the drive in the next slot, and that is where your User files are located.

SSDs are still too expensive to be used to store everything.

Reply

Answer 2

Dec 8, 2013 5:51 PM in response to Apple user 16

The Seagate Hybrid drive is an OK drive. In my opinion, Seagate has not figured out how to really optimize tiered storage, so the SSD portion seems to get used mainly as a really big Cache.

Another alternative is to roll your own Fusion Drive, using Apple's software, a real SSD, and a large Hard drive. This seems to get most of the speed of an SSD, and the combined space of a large Hard drive plus the SSD. There are articles online that can show you how to combine the two devices into a Fusion Drive with only a few Terminal commands.

Reply

Answer 3

Dec 9, 2013 1:52 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Ok, thanks for the responses! As I don't have much to spend on the mac, and the hybrid drive is the cheapest alternative, will it make a system improvement? I have 2 hard drives, bay 1 has a 250gb hard drive with more or less only the OS, and maybe the applications, is it possible to move all the applications to the second hard drive which is a 1tb hard drive partitioned in half with 500gb for windows, the 250gb is preety empty really.

Will the hybrid make a difference?

Will it work in the mac?

Can you give me instructions on how to move applications to the bigger hard drive, while leaving the OS on the first hard drive?

Will having only the OS on the first drive improve the boot time?

Thanks again for your time,

Reply

Answer 4

The hatter

Level 9

61,031 points

Dec 9, 2013 6:37 AM in response to Apple user 16

$99 Samsung 840 EVO 128GB or $169 for 250GB would do for base system and apps.

http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Electronics-2-5-Inch-Internal-MZ-7TE250BW/dp/B00E3 W1726/

And leave all the apps with the boot drive. It doesn't help or work and some updates - those you download and dont' use an installer are fine but do you really save that much? not unless it is a large suite like X-Plane with world map.

An SSD will definitely. Otherwise maybe you should just save. Even a 10K WD VelociRaptor 250GB for almost the same is not in the same class.

Moving all your user home folder data, media and such to another drive makes sense.

Reply

Answer 5

Dec 9, 2013 8:05 AM in response to Apple user 16

Can you give me instructions on how to move applications to the bigger hard drive, while leaving the OS on the first hard drive?

Don't do that. Mac OS X uses the Applications files as if they were Paging files, and gets a big speedup that way. Leave all Applications of the Boot drive, unless you have one that is truly enormous.

Will having only the OS on the first drive improve the boot time?

Not by a noticable amount, unless it is an SSD, but it will provide better speed while you are running big jobs that require a lot of I/O. by eliminating competition for the Boot Drive for Reading and Writing Data files while the OS is busy running Applications, updating caches, and Paging on the Boot Drive.

Reply