Has anyone upgraded to a ssd hard drive smaller than factory hard drive?
MacBook, Mac OS X (10.7)
Most do because large SSDs are very expensive. All my machines are using 120 GB SSDs. The HDD is then used to store the entire user account to save space on the SSD.
Have you had any problems accessing your files on the HDD?
Is the HDD in an enclouse and used as an external hard drive?
No.
Sometimes. Some of my systems have multiple internal drives. My laptops have one SSD and one HDD internally. The optical drives have been removed.
I have a 2007 Macbook which does not allow for installing an SSD in the optical drive. I checked with OWC and they don't offer anything for my Macbook. This is the reason I plan to use the old HDD as an external for my files. I ordered a 240GB SSD from OWC.
How to use an SSD with your HDD If you are going to use an SSD as a boot drive together with your existing HDD as the "data" drive, here's what you can do. After installing the SSD you will need to partition and format the SSD using Disk Utility. Then, install OS X on the SSD. After OS X has been installed boot from the SSD. Use Startup Disk preferences to set the SSD as the startup volume. Open Users & Groups preferences. Click on the lock icon and authenticate. CTRL- or RIGHT-click on your user account listing in the sidebar and select Advanced Options from the context menu. You will see a field labeled "Home dir:" At the right end you will see a Change button. Click on it. In the file dialog locate the Home folder now located on the HDD (HDD/Users/account_name/.) Select the folder, click on Open button. Restart the computer as directed. When the computer boots up it will now be using the Home folder located on the HDD. Another more technical method involving the Terminal and aliases is discussed in depth here: Using OS X with an SSD plus HDD setup - Matt Gemmell. This is my preferred approach because I can select which of the Home's folders I want on the HDD and which I don't want. For example, I like to keep the Documents and Library folders on the SSD because I access their content frequently. Be sure you retain the fully bootable system on your HDD in case you ever need it. |
Upgrade to a ssd hard drive smaller than factory hard drive?
