2 system drives, 1 for Logic, 1 for all else.

Question

2 system drives, 1 for Logic, 1 for all else.

Hi, my MBP spec is 2012, 2.3ghz i7 quad core, 16gig ram, 250gb ssd and 500gb ssd in the optical bay.

I have just replaced my optical drive with a 500gb SSD.

I am using this SSD for Logic pro professionally.

The main drive bay has a 250gb SSD which i use for everything else.

They are both system drives running 10.8.5 . I used Carbon copy cloner to do this.

My question is, if i surf the web with the 250gb SSD and some how get a virus, can the virus live in the motherboard, or ram, or graphics card?

If this is the case then when i use the 500gb SSD for running Logic pro then my music production could be in danger.

I will get a second Mac or Hackintosh some time later this year for just Logic pro.

But for now this set-up is the best i think i can do.

By sharing the same hardware with 2 drives, there is more chance of waring out the mother board,

than if i had a separate computer just for Logic pro logically right?

Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks Tom.

MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2), 2012 2.3 i7 250 & 500 SSD's 16g ram

Posted on Mar 5, 2015 4:39 AM

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Answer 1

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thomas_r.

Level 7

31,989 points

Mar 5, 2015 5:49 AM in response to tom simenauer

tom simenauer wrote:

if i surf the web with the 250gb SSD and some how get a virus, can the virus live in the motherboard, or ram, or graphics card?

No.

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Answer 2

Mar 5, 2015 6:59 AM in response to thomas_r.

So does that mean a virus can only inhabit the system drive?

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Answer 3

thomas_r.

Level 7

31,989 points

Mar 5, 2015 7:06 AM in response to tom simenauer

tom simenauer wrote:

So does that mean a virus can only inhabit the system drive?

Well, first, there are no true viruses for the Mac. There is malware, but you have to assist it in getting installed, so it cannot properly be called by the term "virus."

Second, if you did get infected with some kind of malware, yes, it would only infect the currently-running system. Of course, there's nothing stopping malware from looking at other mounted drives. It could theoretically even install itself into systems on those drives once the current system is infected.... but that's never been observed to happen on the Mac before.

Third, there's no currently known way for malware to compromise the firmware. There was an exploit recently that could have allowed this, but Apple plugged that hole, and it required physical access (the hacker would have to connect a malicious device to the Mac's Thunderbolt port).

For more information on protecting yourself, see my Mac Malware Guide.

(Fair disclosure: I may receive compensation from links to my sites, TheSafeMac.com and AdwareMedic.com.)

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Answer 4

Mar 5, 2015 7:24 AM in response to thomas_r.

Thanks thomas-r thats reassuring.

So, if i go online with the system drive with logic pro on it to upload music production work, download software updates from the plug-in manufacturers that i use, download updates from Apple etc there is literally 0% of malware corrupting it?

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Answer 5

thomas_r.

Level 7

31,989 points

Mar 5, 2015 7:29 AM in response to tom simenauer

As long as you don't download and install something you shouldn't, then yes, that's correct. There would be no need to reboot from a different drive to go online.

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