My Dual Core, Dual 2.4 GHZ Macbook is a pretty powerful DJ laptop, but even that powerhouse has started taking a dump over the past 6 months. The problem is caused by 2 main culprits. First, more tracks every week means the 250 gig hard drive is always maxed out. Last, the system drive (that same drive) is dragging its sorry butt and taking forever to process data.
The good news is that a close friend offered a clever way to solve both of those problems with one simple upgrade that costs anywhere from $250-$600. We would replace my CD drive with a 250 Gig SSD hard drive (this would become my super fast system drive) and then swap out the old drive for a 750 gig standard drive (3 X the music space!) which would house all data. In today’s article, Dj TT called up a professional IT specialist to show everyone how to perform the same mod yourself and super power any laptop into the ultimate DJ data machine.
By Brandon Espinoza
The common answer to increasing the speed of your old laptop is to add more RAM. It is a common misconception that adding more RAM will make your computer drastically faster. Although increasing your RAM may help, it still has to receive data from your hard drive.
What is RAM?
RAM (Random Access Memory), simply put, is just a swap between your CPU and hard drive. In other words, the hard drive is sending programs and files to the RAM each time you do something on your computer. Things such as, starting your computer, opening programs or rendering music all heavily impact the RAM. One way of improving your computer memory performance is by installing a SSD hard drive.
What is an SSD?
SSD (Solid State Disk) is a storage drive that uses flash memory instead of disc platters. In the past, flash memory would lose its data once it had lost its power source, very similar to the function of RAM. Today, chip producers use NAND-based flash memory that is non-volatile, meaning that it can retain data even without power.
How do SSD’s differ from HDD’s?
Physically speaking, SSD’s have moved to flash memory as mentioned above. In the past, hard drives functioned much like a record player. There are platters that spin, and a head that reads the data. Solid State Drives use electrical signals to access data, thus very fast compared to Rotary Hard Drives.
What are the Pro’s of SSD?
- Energy Efficient. Solid State Drives use less power than traditional Hard Disks. This is a great thing for laptop users as it can slightly increase your battery life.
- Durability. Solid State Drives are made to operate in extreme environments. They can withstand degrees up to 70 Celsius and are more impervious to shock and vibration because of their lack of moving parts. With no moving parts, you can rest assured that your music won’t cut out at the club when the bass is shaking your laptop apart!
- Speed. The latest Solid State Drives for laptops can push up to 550MB/s read speeds and 500MB/s write speeds. Regular 7200 RPM Rotary Hard Drives push about 60MB/s read and write. As you can see, Solid State Drives offer almost 10x the performance!
What are the Con’s of SSD?
- Life Expectancy. Solid States Drives haven’t been around for very long. With that said, it is hard to estimate how long these drives will last. Many Solid State Drive producers say that on average, SSD’s will last around 1,000,000 to 2,000,000 hours. Obviously if there is any accuracy to this claim, you won’t need to swap out your drive for a long time!
- Price. As of now, Solid State Drives cost about $2 per GB, where normal Rotary Hard Drives cost about 10 cents per GB. This is the main reason Solid State Drives haven’t made it into the consumer computing market.
INSTALLATION
WHERE TO GET THE GEAR
To do the full upgrade, you are going to need a few items:
- Laptop with CD drive
- 1 Optibay (for the SSD to live where your CD drive once did)
- 1 SSD Drive
- 1 Large Standard Drive (or SSD if you like to go really big!)
Here are our recommended components followed by a less expensive option for those on a budget.
Recommended Route $620
Less Expensive Route $250
- Universal IBM OptiBay $20
- OCZ Vertex 2 SSD (60GB) $120
- Lite On CD/DVD Burner $37
- 750GB Toshiba 5400 RPM $70
[…] DJ TechTools; Energize seu laptop com uma troca dupla de SSDs; Ean Golden; Março de 2011 […]
but you can’t use both drives right? it’s the one or the other?
I was able to do this upgrade to my 2012 MBP for the same price as this postings recommended route yet with 512 GB of Solid State. Gotta love Moore’s Law!
The MCE OptiBay is now $49.99, awesome, rather do that than roll the dice on a knockoff and possibly f-up my baby…
The MCE OptiBay is now $49.99, awesome, rather do that than roll the dice on a knockoff and possibly f-up my baby…
My ocz vertex II died on me at a show.. Luckily I had my OS on my second optical bay hard drive
But I’ve seen a lot of cases reported of ssd dying.
I did this upgrade a couple of weeks back and the SSD is great my problem is with the second WD 7200 drive. It keeps freezing for like 15-30 seconds every once and a while sometimes more often. It always comes back but is very annoying. Any help would be appreciated 🙂
About a year ago, I upgraded my HDD to a 1TB drive (I forget the brand/model). This past week, I ordered an MCE Optibay and a Crucial M4 256 GB SSD. As of right now, about 650GB of storage space is taken up on my 1TB HDD. All I want to use the SSD for is primarily just DJing, ie. Traktor, my Dj Sets/Playlists/Music, and all of the associated drivers for both Traktor and my Midi-fighter. After reading this article, I’m unclear as to how to go about accomplishing what I want to. It seems that most people who do this SSD Double Swap are upgrading both their HDD and SSD at the same time, whereas I already upgraded my HDD a year ago, and have since used up 650GB of its space. Can anyone please help me with some instructions on how to achieve what I want to do? Thanks so much!
About a year ago, I upgraded my HDD to a 1TB drive (I forget the brand/model). This past week, I ordered an MCE Optibay and a Crucial M4 256 GB SSD. As of right now, about 650GB of storage space is taken up on my 1TB HDD. All I want to use the SSD for is primarily just DJing, ie. Traktor, my Dj Sets/Playlists/Music, and all of the associated drivers for both Traktor and my Midi-fighter. After reading this article, I’m unclear as to how to go about accomplishing what I want to. It seems that most people who do this SSD Double Swap are upgrading both their HDD and SSD at the same time, whereas I already upgraded my HDD a year ago, and have since used up 650GB of its space. Can anyone please help me with some instructions on how to achieve what I want to do? Thanks so much!
sorry if my question is silly but, can I have this done by the apple store service or something like that?
i did this. and i’m very happy, i’m not a bedroom dj, and playing with an external drive always worried me , either it getting stolen or it getting pulled out of my computer at a club, you never know, i purchased the vertex 2 240 gig ssd and i just love the speed, cool cpu, I put my 7400 rpm 500 gb hdd in the opti bay as a dedicated music drive. not only does everything work amazing together my computer runs cool as a cucumber through a whole night.
i’m real glad i saw this post…
I ONLY HAVE ONE QUESTION!! the VIDEO YOU GUYS PUT UP HAS A CHILLED VERSION OF TAKE OVER CONTROL AND I CAN”T SEEM TO FIND THAT VERSION CAN SOMEONE TELL ME WHERE I CAN FIND IT OR WHAT IT”S CALLED!!! thanks
djgmani.com
After i’ve read this article i bought me that Scorpio Black HDD as 500gb version. Compared to my old 160gb original mac HDD the new HDD is super fast. The Scorpio Black HDD isn’t really louder and more vibrating as stated by some given feedbacks on Amazon etc. Maybe the battery drains a bit faster but that’s a fair deal at all. So thanks for that tip.
Btw: If you do it my way replacing the original Macbook HDD buy an external HDD case and backup your music library on it. Bought me one for 12€ on Ebay – so i think it is like 20$ out in the US.
After i’ve read this article i bought me that Scorpio Black HDD as 500gb version. Compared to my old 160gb original mac HDD the new HDD is super fast. The Scorpio Black HDD isn’t really louder and more vibrating as stated by some given feedbacks on Amazon etc. Maybe the battery drains a bit faster but that’s a fair deal at all. So thanks for that tip.
Btw: If you do it my way replacing the original Macbook HDD buy an external HDD case and backup your music library on it. Bought me one for 12€ on Ebay – so i think it is like 20$ out in the US.
After i’ve read this article i bought me that Scorpio Black HDD as 500gb version. Compared to my old 160gb original mac HDD the new HDD is super fast. The Scorpio Black HDD isn’t really louder and more vibrating as stated by some given feedbacks on Amazon etc. Maybe the battery drains a bit faster but that’s a fair deal at all. So thanks for that tip.
Btw: If you do it my way replacing the original Macbook HDD buy an external HDD case and backup your music library on it. Bought me one for 12€ on Ebay – so i think it is like 20$ out in the US.
Will this also work with the non-unibody 17″ macbook pro??
Also, if thinking about going the dual hard drive.. how do we separate the system files to only run on the SSD and the data files to go on the other drive?
Also, if thinking about going the dual hard drive.. how do we separate the system files to only run on the SSD and the data files to go on the other drive?
Also, if thinking about going the dual hard drive.. how do we separate the system files to only run on the SSD and the data files to go on the other drive?
Also, if thinking about going the dual hard drive.. how do we separate the system files to only run on the SSD and the data files to go on the other drive?
Also, if thinking about going the dual hard drive.. how do we separate the system files to only run on the SSD and the data files to go on the other drive?
Yep, just installed my double drive set up. Everything went smoothly.. I’m doing the data transfer now.
Only differences I made was that I put the new Vertex 2 in the same place as the original hard drive and then I put a ‘Seagate’ 750 gig in the opti drive. I will report any issues…
Thanks again DJTT!!!!
Yep, just installed my double drive set up. Everything went smoothly.. I’m doing the data transfer now.
Only differences I made was that I put the new Vertex 2 in the same place as the original hard drive and then I put a ‘Seagate’ 750 gig in the opti drive. I will report any issues…
Thanks again DJTT!!!!
My only additional comment aside from this being a truly bad ass set up.. its that battery life running 2 hard drives is very very short. my $.02
i have a non unibody macbook pro is this possible with my system also. ???
i have a non unibody macbook pro is this possible with my system also. ???
****IMPORTANT
I noticed people discussing TRIM and Mac. Some had mentioned TRIM support is unavailable except on new macs with a factory SSD. This is incorrect. The link below will direct you to an easy application enabling TRIM thus solving some longevity issues with your Mac SSD.
======
http://www.groths.org/?p=308
======
****IMPORTANT
I noticed people discussing TRIM and Mac. Some had mentioned TRIM support is unavailable except on new macs with a factory SSD. This is incorrect. The link below will direct you to an easy application enabling TRIM thus solving some longevity issues with your Mac SSD.
======
http://www.groths.org/?p=308
======
does this also work on mac book pre 13 inch? i seriously need an upgrade
does this also work on mac book pre 13 inch? i seriously need an upgrade
does this also work on mac book pre 13 inch? i seriously need an upgrade
Did more internet searching and found a good article for speeding up things further and moving unneeded files off the main drive. Check around for “Setting up your Mac – High Performance Mac configuration” Got me thinking about swapping the portable to a raid setup but it might be overkill.
Did more internet searching and found a good article for speeding up things further and moving unneeded files off the main drive. Check around for “Setting up your Mac – High Performance Mac configuration” Got me thinking about swapping the portable to a raid setup but it might be overkill.
Did more internet searching and found a good article for speeding up things further and moving unneeded files off the main drive. Check around for “Setting up your Mac – High Performance Mac configuration” Got me thinking about swapping the portable to a raid setup but it might be overkill.
Did more internet searching and found a good article for speeding up things further and moving unneeded files off the main drive. Check around for “Setting up your Mac – High Performance Mac configuration” Got me thinking about swapping the portable to a raid setup but it might be overkill.
This is the wrong approach. Hardware doesn’t slow down. That means that something else is the reason for slowness and that upgrading the hardware will only give you a temporary reprieve.
The correct thing to do is uninstall all that stuff that’s running that you don’t really need and learn to use performance counters. In the case of windows people should learn to use xperf, a development tool provided by Microsoft.
This is the wrong approach. Hardware doesn’t slow down. That means that something else is the reason for slowness and that upgrading the hardware will only give you a temporary reprieve.
The correct thing to do is uninstall all that stuff that’s running that you don’t really need and learn to use performance counters. In the case of windows people should learn to use xperf, a development tool provided by Microsoft.
This is the wrong approach. Hardware doesn’t slow down. That means that something else is the reason for slowness and that upgrading the hardware will only give you a temporary reprieve.
The correct thing to do is uninstall all that stuff that’s running that you don’t really need and learn to use performance counters. In the case of windows people should learn to use xperf, a development tool provided by Microsoft.
This is the wrong approach. Hardware doesn’t slow down. That means that something else is the reason for slowness and that upgrading the hardware will only give you a temporary reprieve.
The correct thing to do is uninstall all that stuff that’s running that you don’t really need and learn to use performance counters. In the case of windows people should learn to use xperf, a development tool provided by Microsoft.
Hey All,
I have the previous Macbook Pro 2.4GHz (MacBookPro4,1), I think it’s called the Penryn? Has anyone upgraded on this model? If so, any thoughts?
Hey All,
I have the previous Macbook Pro 2.4GHz (MacBookPro4,1), I think it’s called the Penryn? Has anyone upgraded on this model? If so, any thoughts?
Hey All,
I have the previous Macbook Pro 2.4GHz (MacBookPro4,1), I think it’s called the Penryn? Has anyone upgraded on this model? If so, any thoughts?
Hey All,
I have the previous Macbook Pro 2.4GHz (MacBookPro4,1), I think it’s called the Penryn? Has anyone upgraded on this model? If so, any thoughts?
EAN! sup man, its bryan boogie. we went to Ex college in the audio program together for a few…. this how i have my 2009 mbp configured. You actually might want to put the SSD (I 500gb have a hybrid SDD/HDD) drive to be your main drive and your secondary drive in place of the dvd/superdrive. What happens is when your system starts acting funny and need to reset pram, it defaults and tries to boot from the original drives SATA connection. Also, for older macbooks with the expresscard 32 slot, you can purchase SSD drives that utilize that high speed connection as well. I’ve installed os x on both and am currently testing my favorite configuration. but those are just a few ideas ive had over the past few months
EAN! sup man, its bryan boogie. we went to Ex college in the audio program together for a few…. this how i have my 2009 mbp configured. You actually might want to put the SSD (I 500gb have a hybrid SDD/HDD) drive to be your main drive and your secondary drive in place of the dvd/superdrive. What happens is when your system starts acting funny and need to reset pram, it defaults and tries to boot from the original drives SATA connection. Also, for older macbooks with the expresscard 32 slot, you can purchase SSD drives that utilize that high speed connection as well. I’ve installed os x on both and am currently testing my favorite configuration. but those are just a few ideas ive had over the past few months
EAN! sup man, its bryan boogie. we went to Ex college in the audio program together for a few…. this how i have my 2009 mbp configured. You actually might want to put the SSD (I 500gb have a hybrid SDD/HDD) drive to be your main drive and your secondary drive in place of the dvd/superdrive. What happens is when your system starts acting funny and need to reset pram, it defaults and tries to boot from the original drives SATA connection. Also, for older macbooks with the expresscard 32 slot, you can purchase SSD drives that utilize that high speed connection as well. I’ve installed os x on both and am currently testing my favorite configuration. but those are just a few ideas ive had over the past few months
EAN! sup man, its bryan boogie. we went to Ex college in the audio program together for a few…. this how i have my 2009 mbp configured. You actually might want to put the SSD (I 500gb have a hybrid SDD/HDD) drive to be your main drive and your secondary drive in place of the dvd/superdrive. What happens is when your system starts acting funny and need to reset pram, it defaults and tries to boot from the original drives SATA connection. Also, for older macbooks with the expresscard 32 slot, you can purchase SSD drives that utilize that high speed connection as well. I’ve installed os x on both and am currently testing my favorite configuration. but those are just a few ideas ive had over the past few months
If you want to have more disk space and speed up your system, then just put out 600 bucks more and get this puppy Ean.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820139400
Install it as your main drive, partition 150 Gig for System and 350 for data (it won’t be that much in the end) to reduce fragmentation issues. You gain 100+ Gig over your old drive and have no issues what so ever, definitely more speed and definitely more durability. This would be the real professional solution. Obviously, if you have a tight pocket book for some reason, you couldn’t have this sort luxury.
I’d also like to demyth your article a bit too. Hard drives are quite durable. They can take short shocks (2ms) of up to 350Gs without any damage or loss of data. I’d say with that kind of force the screen or some other part of the laptop would break first, before the hard drive is damaged. Saying the beat of the bass could do damage to the hard drive is way off.
Also, you still have a hard drive with the solution mentioned in your article, killing any durability advantages SSD might give you. That doesn’t make much sense to me. Why spend the money? The speed advantages will be minimum in a Digital DJ scenario. The only thing you might gain is if the power goes off and comes back on again. With SSD you will boot up in half the time.;)
If anything from your solution, I’d have the SSD installed as your normal internal system drive and put the 750Gb hard drive in the optibay. Although it shouldn’t make any difference, it just makes more sense to me.
scamo
If you want to have more disk space and speed up your system, then just put out 600 bucks more and get this puppy Ean.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820139400
Install it as your main drive, partition 150 Gig for System and 350 for data (it won’t be that much in the end) to reduce fragmentation issues. You gain 100+ Gig over your old drive and have no issues what so ever, definitely more speed and definitely more durability. This would be the real professional solution. Obviously, if you have a tight pocket book for some reason, you couldn’t have this sort luxury.
I’d also like to demyth your article a bit too. Hard drives are quite durable. They can take short shocks (2ms) of up to 350Gs without any damage or loss of data. I’d say with that kind of force the screen or some other part of the laptop would break first, before the hard drive is damaged. Saying the beat of the bass could do damage to the hard drive is way off.
Also, you still have a hard drive with the solution mentioned in your article, killing any durability advantages SSD might give you. That doesn’t make much sense to me. Why spend the money? The speed advantages will be minimum in a Digital DJ scenario. The only thing you might gain is if the power goes off and comes back on again. With SSD you will boot up in half the time.;)
If anything from your solution, I’d have the SSD installed as your normal internal system drive and put the 750Gb hard drive in the optibay. Although it shouldn’t make any difference, it just makes more sense to me.
scamo
If you want to have more disk space and speed up your system, then just put out 600 bucks more and get this puppy Ean.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820139400
Install it as your main drive, partition 150 Gig for System and 350 for data (it won’t be that much in the end) to reduce fragmentation issues. You gain 100+ Gig over your old drive and have no issues what so ever, definitely more speed and definitely more durability. This would be the real professional solution. Obviously, if you have a tight pocket book for some reason, you couldn’t have this sort luxury.
I’d also like to demyth your article a bit too. Hard drives are quite durable. They can take short shocks (2ms) of up to 350Gs without any damage or loss of data. I’d say with that kind of force the screen or some other part of the laptop would break first, before the hard drive is damaged. Saying the beat of the bass could do damage to the hard drive is way off.
Also, you still have a hard drive with the solution mentioned in your article, killing any durability advantages SSD might give you. That doesn’t make much sense to me. Why spend the money? The speed advantages will be minimum in a Digital DJ scenario. The only thing you might gain is if the power goes off and comes back on again. With SSD you will boot up in half the time.;)
If anything from your solution, I’d have the SSD installed as your normal internal system drive and put the 750Gb hard drive in the optibay. Although it shouldn’t make any difference, it just makes more sense to me.
scamo
If you want to have more disk space and speed up your system, then just put out 600 bucks more and get this puppy Ean.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820139400
Install it as your main drive, partition 150 Gig for System and 350 for data (it won’t be that much in the end) to reduce fragmentation issues. You gain 100+ Gig over your old drive and have no issues what so ever, definitely more speed and definitely more durability. This would be the real professional solution. Obviously, if you have a tight pocket book for some reason, you couldn’t have this sort luxury.
I’d also like to demyth your article a bit too. Hard drives are quite durable. They can take short shocks (2ms) of up to 350Gs without any damage or loss of data. I’d say with that kind of force the screen or some other part of the laptop would break first, before the hard drive is damaged. Saying the beat of the bass could do damage to the hard drive is way off.
Also, you still have a hard drive with the solution mentioned in your article, killing any durability advantages SSD might give you. That doesn’t make much sense to me. Why spend the money? The speed advantages will be minimum in a Digital DJ scenario. The only thing you might gain is if the power goes off and comes back on again. With SSD you will boot up in half the time.;)
If anything from your solution, I’d have the SSD installed as your normal internal system drive and put the 750Gb hard drive in the optibay. Although it shouldn’t make any difference, it just makes more sense to me.
scamo
If you want to have more disk space and speed up your system, then just put out 600 bucks more and get this puppy Ean.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820139400
Install it as your main drive, partition 150 Gig for System and 350 for data (it won’t be that much in the end) to reduce fragmentation issues. You gain 100+ Gig over your old drive and have no issues what so ever, definitely more speed and definitely more durability. This would be the real professional solution. Obviously, if you have a tight pocket book for some reason, you couldn’t have this sort luxury.
I’d also like to demyth your article a bit too. Hard drives are quite durable. They can take short shocks (2ms) of up to 350Gs without any damage or loss of data. I’d say with that kind of force the screen or some other part of the laptop would break first, before the hard drive is damaged. Saying the beat of the bass could do damage to the hard drive is way off.
Also, you still have a hard drive with the solution mentioned in your article, killing any durability advantages SSD might give you. That doesn’t make much sense to me. Why spend the money? The speed advantages will be minimum in a Digital DJ scenario. The only thing you might gain is if the power goes off and comes back on again. With SSD you will boot up in half the time.;)
If anything from your solution, I’d have the SSD installed as your normal internal system drive and put the 750Gb hard drive in the optibay. Although it shouldn’t make any difference, it just makes more sense to me.
scamo
If you want to have more disk space and speed up your system, then just put out 600 bucks more and get this puppy Ean.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820139400
Install it as your main drive, partition 150 Gig for System and 350 for data (it won’t be that much in the end) to reduce fragmentation issues. You gain 100+ Gig over your old drive and have no issues what so ever, definitely more speed and definitely more durability. This would be the real professional solution. Obviously, if you have a tight pocket book for some reason, you couldn’t have this sort luxury.
I’d also like to demyth your article a bit too. Hard drives are quite durable. They can take short shocks (2ms) of up to 350Gs without any damage or loss of data. I’d say with that kind of force the screen or some other part of the laptop would break first, before the hard drive is damaged. Saying the beat of the bass could do damage to the hard drive is way off.
Also, you still have a hard drive with the solution mentioned in your article, killing any durability advantages SSD might give you. That doesn’t make much sense to me. Why spend the money? The speed advantages will be minimum in a Digital DJ scenario. The only thing you might gain is if the power goes off and comes back on again. With SSD you will boot up in half the time.;)
If anything from your solution, I’d have the SSD installed as your normal internal system drive and put the 750Gb hard drive in the optibay. Although it shouldn’t make any difference, it just makes more sense to me.
scamo
I don’t entirely agree with this article. I don’t find it cost effective for most of the bedroom DJs on the site nor very practical. Here’s what I did for a cheaper option with similar performance results:
Since most of you still have the standard 250GB HDD that came with your Mac (or smaller) you can at least double your capacity and more than quadruple your speed for less than $150!
Even if you aren’t using the optical drive that often, its still impractical for the modern DJ to be without. Personally I use mine all the time to burn promo CDs, burn my control discs for serato, and to make transition CDs with actual music on it (Radical idea, I know) to make switching between DJs smoother and easier.
You are much better off going to Best Buy (or New Egg if you are patient enough to wait 24 hours… I wasn’t) and buying a 500GB “hybrid drive”. Its at the price point of a normal HDD with the speed of a SSD. I got mine for about $120 and found free disc cloning software online (SuperDuper!). Here is how it works; the drive has about 4GB of solid state memory to hold the OS and other commonly used files and applications (yes, it learns what you use most) and will keep that at solid speed while keeping the rest of the lesser used data on the HDD. I did this upgrade about 4 months ago and my boot up/down speed was cut down exponentially and opening and closing my music software is almost instantaneous. If you have any other questions about it, feel free to shoot me an email djkylerayner@gmail.com
I don’t entirely agree with this article. I don’t find it cost effective for most of the bedroom DJs on the site nor very practical. Here’s what I did for a cheaper option with similar performance results:
Since most of you still have the standard 250GB HDD that came with your Mac (or smaller) you can at least double your capacity and more than quadruple your speed for less than $150!
Even if you aren’t using the optical drive that often, its still impractical for the modern DJ to be without. Personally I use mine all the time to burn promo CDs, burn my control discs for serato, and to make transition CDs with actual music on it (Radical idea, I know) to make switching between DJs smoother and easier.
You are much better off going to Best Buy (or New Egg if you are patient enough to wait 24 hours… I wasn’t) and buying a 500GB “hybrid drive”. Its at the price point of a normal HDD with the speed of a SSD. I got mine for about $120 and found free disc cloning software online (SuperDuper!). Here is how it works; the drive has about 4GB of solid state memory to hold the OS and other commonly used files and applications (yes, it learns what you use most) and will keep that at solid speed while keeping the rest of the lesser used data on the HDD. I did this upgrade about 4 months ago and my boot up/down speed was cut down exponentially and opening and closing my music software is almost instantaneous. If you have any other questions about it, feel free to shoot me an email djkylerayner@gmail.com
I don’t entirely agree with this article. I don’t find it cost effective for most of the bedroom DJs on the site nor very practical. Here’s what I did for a cheaper option with similar performance results:
Since most of you still have the standard 250GB HDD that came with your Mac (or smaller) you can at least double your capacity and more than quadruple your speed for less than $150!
Even if you aren’t using the optical drive that often, its still impractical for the modern DJ to be without. Personally I use mine all the time to burn promo CDs, burn my control discs for serato, and to make transition CDs with actual music on it (Radical idea, I know) to make switching between DJs smoother and easier.
You are much better off going to Best Buy (or New Egg if you are patient enough to wait 24 hours… I wasn’t) and buying a 500GB “hybrid drive”. Its at the price point of a normal HDD with the speed of a SSD. I got mine for about $120 and found free disc cloning software online (SuperDuper!). Here is how it works; the drive has about 4GB of solid state memory to hold the OS and other commonly used files and applications (yes, it learns what you use most) and will keep that at solid speed while keeping the rest of the lesser used data on the HDD. I did this upgrade about 4 months ago and my boot up/down speed was cut down exponentially and opening and closing my music software is almost instantaneous. If you have any other questions about it, feel free to shoot me an email djkylerayner@gmail.com
I don’t entirely agree with this article. I don’t find it cost effective for most of the bedroom DJs on the site nor very practical. Here’s what I did for a cheaper option with similar performance results:
Since most of you still have the standard 250GB HDD that came with your Mac (or smaller) you can at least double your capacity and more than quadruple your speed for less than $150!
Even if you aren’t using the optical drive that often, its still impractical for the modern DJ to be without. Personally I use mine all the time to burn promo CDs, burn my control discs for serato, and to make transition CDs with actual music on it (Radical idea, I know) to make switching between DJs smoother and easier.
You are much better off going to Best Buy (or New Egg if you are patient enough to wait 24 hours… I wasn’t) and buying a 500GB “hybrid drive”. Its at the price point of a normal HDD with the speed of a SSD. I got mine for about $120 and found free disc cloning software online (SuperDuper!). Here is how it works; the drive has about 4GB of solid state memory to hold the OS and other commonly used files and applications (yes, it learns what you use most) and will keep that at solid speed while keeping the rest of the lesser used data on the HDD. I did this upgrade about 4 months ago and my boot up/down speed was cut down exponentially and opening and closing my music software is almost instantaneous. If you have any other questions about it, feel free to shoot me an email djkylerayner@gmail.com
I don’t entirely agree with this article. I don’t find it cost effective for most of the bedroom DJs on the site nor very practical. Here’s what I did for a cheaper option with similar performance results:
Since most of you still have the standard 250GB HDD that came with your Mac (or smaller) you can at least double your capacity and more than quadruple your speed for less than $150!
Even if you aren’t using the optical drive that often, its still impractical for the modern DJ to be without. Personally I use mine all the time to burn promo CDs, burn my control discs for serato, and to make transition CDs with actual music on it (Radical idea, I know) to make switching between DJs smoother and easier.
You are much better off going to Best Buy (or New Egg if you are patient enough to wait 24 hours… I wasn’t) and buying a 500GB “hybrid drive”. Its at the price point of a normal HDD with the speed of a SSD. I got mine for about $120 and found free disc cloning software online (SuperDuper!). Here is how it works; the drive has about 4GB of solid state memory to hold the OS and other commonly used files and applications (yes, it learns what you use most) and will keep that at solid speed while keeping the rest of the lesser used data on the HDD. I did this upgrade about 4 months ago and my boot up/down speed was cut down exponentially and opening and closing my music software is almost instantaneous. If you have any other questions about it, feel free to shoot me an email djkylerayner@gmail.com
I don’t entirely agree with this article. I don’t find it cost effective for most of the bedroom DJs on the site nor very practical. Here’s what I did for a cheaper option with similar performance results:
Since most of you still have the standard 250GB HDD that came with your Mac (or smaller) you can at least double your capacity and more than quadruple your speed for less than $150!
Even if you aren’t using the optical drive that often, its still impractical for the modern DJ to be without. Personally I use mine all the time to burn promo CDs, burn my control discs for serato, and to make transition CDs with actual music on it (Radical idea, I know) to make switching between DJs smoother and easier.
You are much better off going to Best Buy (or New Egg if you are patient enough to wait 24 hours… I wasn’t) and buying a 500GB “hybrid drive”. Its at the price point of a normal HDD with the speed of a SSD. I got mine for about $120 and found free disc cloning software online (SuperDuper!). Here is how it works; the drive has about 4GB of solid state memory to hold the OS and other commonly used files and applications (yes, it learns what you use most) and will keep that at solid speed while keeping the rest of the lesser used data on the HDD. I did this upgrade about 4 months ago and my boot up/down speed was cut down exponentially and opening and closing my music software is almost instantaneous. If you have any other questions about it, feel free to shoot me an email djkylerayner@gmail.com
Very nice!! Thanks for the tip.
Very nice!! Thanks for the tip.
I have been using SSD drives on my MacBook pro for over a year and it rocks. It is really fast all the time.
I do ride the laptop hard with Traktor and Ableton simultaneously and it performs.
I was also thinking of checking the new seagate the momentus one which is hybride!
I have been using SSD drives on my MacBook pro for over a year and it rocks. It is really fast all the time.
I do ride the laptop hard with Traktor and Ableton simultaneously and it performs.
I was also thinking of checking the new seagate the momentus one which is hybride!
I have been using SSD drives on my MacBook pro for over a year and it rocks. It is really fast all the time.
I do ride the laptop hard with Traktor and Ableton simultaneously and it performs.
I was also thinking of checking the new seagate the momentus one which is hybride!
Just bought Tech Tools Pro ($30 upgrade) the other day to defragment my 500 GB HDD.
Highly recommend it as a Disk Defragmentation/Optimization tool!
Mac OS X does not supply an internal defrag app (unlike Windows) so you would have to purchase third-party software. It is $30 to upgrade from the Tech Tool Deluxe program included in the AppleCare Protection Plan.
I noticed an improvement immediately with loading times in various programs such as Serato, Ableton Live, and even iTunes. Overall faster computer! A must for all artists working in any media creation aspect.
Their website is micromat.com .
soundcloud.com/djinstinkt
Just bought Tech Tools Pro ($30 upgrade) the other day to defragment my 500 GB HDD.
Highly recommend it as a Disk Defragmentation/Optimization tool!
Mac OS X does not supply an internal defrag app (unlike Windows) so you would have to purchase third-party software. It is $30 to upgrade from the Tech Tool Deluxe program included in the AppleCare Protection Plan.
I noticed an improvement immediately with loading times in various programs such as Serato, Ableton Live, and even iTunes. Overall faster computer! A must for all artists working in any media creation aspect.
Their website is micromat.com .
soundcloud.com/djinstinkt
Just bought Tech Tools Pro ($30 upgrade) the other day to defragment my 500 GB HDD.
Highly recommend it as a Disk Defragmentation/Optimization tool!
Mac OS X does not supply an internal defrag app (unlike Windows) so you would have to purchase third-party software. It is $30 to upgrade from the Tech Tool Deluxe program included in the AppleCare Protection Plan.
I noticed an improvement immediately with loading times in various programs such as Serato, Ableton Live, and even iTunes. Overall faster computer! A must for all artists working in any media creation aspect.
Their website is micromat.com .
soundcloud.com/djinstinkt
Just bought Tech Tools Pro ($30 upgrade) the other day to defragment my 500 GB HDD.
Highly recommend it as a Disk Defragmentation/Optimization tool!
Mac OS X does not supply an internal defrag app (unlike Windows) so you would have to purchase third-party software. It is $30 to upgrade from the Tech Tool Deluxe program included in the AppleCare Protection Plan.
I noticed an improvement immediately with loading times in various programs such as Serato, Ableton Live, and even iTunes. Overall faster computer! A must for all artists working in any media creation aspect.
Their website is micromat.com .
soundcloud.com/djinstinkt
Just bought Tech Tools Pro ($30 upgrade) the other day to defragment my 500 GB HDD.
Highly recommend it as a Disk Defragmentation/Optimization tool!
Mac OS X does not supply an internal defrag app (unlike Windows) so you would have to purchase third-party software. It is $30 to upgrade from the Tech Tool Deluxe program included in the AppleCare Protection Plan.
I noticed an improvement immediately with loading times in various programs such as Serato, Ableton Live, and even iTunes. Overall faster computer! A must for all artists working in any media creation aspect.
Their website is micromat.com .
soundcloud.com/djinstinkt
Hi! thanks for the article, very appreciated. I would like to know if that Universal IBM OptiBay fits even as a replacement for slide-in DVD players. I have a dell 1530 xps and wanted to do such upgrade.
Thanks for the feedback
Hi! thanks for the article, very appreciated. I would like to know if that Universal IBM OptiBay fits even as a replacement for slide-in DVD players. I have a dell 1530 xps and wanted to do such upgrade.
Thanks for the feedback
Hi! thanks for the article, very appreciated. I would like to know if that Universal IBM OptiBay fits even as a replacement for slide-in DVD players. I have a dell 1530 xps and wanted to do such upgrade.
Thanks for the feedback
Hi! thanks for the article, very appreciated. I would like to know if that Universal IBM OptiBay fits even as a replacement for slide-in DVD players. I have a dell 1530 xps and wanted to do such upgrade.
Thanks for the feedback
You can go as high as 1TB internal drive. There are a few on this page. I forget what one I got, but it works great. Had it in there for over 4 months now without a glitch: http://compare.ebay.com/like/380315100859?var=lv<yp=AllFixedPriceItemTypes&var=sbar&rvr_id=221972811063&crlp=1_263602_309572&UA=M*S%3F&GUID=6e175f931280a0aad3358675ffe6f6f2&itemid=380315100859&ff4=263602_309572
You can go as high as 1TB internal drive. There are a few on this page. I forget what one I got, but it works great. Had it in there for over 4 months now without a glitch: http://compare.ebay.com/like/380315100859?var=lv<yp=AllFixedPriceItemTypes&var=sbar&rvr_id=221972811063&crlp=1_263602_309572&UA=M*S%3F&GUID=6e175f931280a0aad3358675ffe6f6f2&itemid=380315100859&ff4=263602_309572
You can go as high as 1TB internal drive. There are a few on this page. I forget what one I got, but it works great. Had it in there for over 4 months now without a glitch: http://compare.ebay.com/like/380315100859?var=lv<yp=AllFixedPriceItemTypes&var=sbar&rvr_id=221972811063&crlp=1_263602_309572&UA=M*S%3F&GUID=6e175f931280a0aad3358675ffe6f6f2&itemid=380315100859&ff4=263602_309572
You can go as high as 1TB internal drive. There are a few on this page. I forget what one I got, but it works great. Had it in there for over 4 months now without a glitch: http://compare.ebay.com/like/380315100859?var=lv<yp=AllFixedPriceItemTypes&var=sbar&rvr_id=221972811063&crlp=1_263602_309572&UA=M*S%3F&GUID=6e175f931280a0aad3358675ffe6f6f2&itemid=380315100859&ff4=263602_309572
You can go as high as 1TB internal drive. There are a few on this page. I forget what one I got, but it works great. Had it in there for over 4 months now without a glitch: http://compare.ebay.com/like/380315100859?var=lv<yp=AllFixedPriceItemTypes&var=sbar&rvr_id=221972811063&crlp=1_263602_309572&UA=M*S%3F&GUID=6e175f931280a0aad3358675ffe6f6f2&itemid=380315100859&ff4=263602_309572
You can go as high as 1TB internal drive. There are a few on this page. I forget what one I got, but it works great. Had it in there for over 4 months now without a glitch: http://compare.ebay.com/like/380315100859?var=lv<yp=AllFixedPriceItemTypes&var=sbar&rvr_id=221972811063&crlp=1_263602_309572&UA=M*S%3F&GUID=6e175f931280a0aad3358675ffe6f6f2&itemid=380315100859&ff4=263602_309572
you say “With no moving parts, you can rest assured that your music won’t cut out at the club when the bass is shaking your laptop apart”,
but you recommend putting your system files on the ssd and music on the other 750gb hdd but your music is still on a hdd that could cut out.
you say “With no moving parts, you can rest assured that your music won’t cut out at the club when the bass is shaking your laptop apart”,
but you recommend putting your system files on the ssd and music on the other 750gb hdd but your music is still on a hdd that could cut out.
you say “With no moving parts, you can rest assured that your music won’t cut out at the club when the bass is shaking your laptop apart”,
but you recommend putting your system files on the ssd and music on the other 750gb hdd but your music is still on a hdd that could cut out.
you say “With no moving parts, you can rest assured that your music won’t cut out at the club when the bass is shaking your laptop apart”,
but you recommend putting your system files on the ssd and music on the other 750gb hdd but your music is still on a hdd that could cut out.
you say “With no moving parts, you can rest assured that your music won’t cut out at the club when the bass is shaking your laptop apart”,
but you recommend putting your system files on the ssd and music on the other 750gb hdd but your music is still on a hdd that could cut out.
you say “With no moving parts, you can rest assured that your music won’t cut out at the club when the bass is shaking your laptop apart”,
but you recommend putting your system files on the ssd and music on the other 750gb hdd but your music is still on a hdd that could cut out.
Use Intel SSDs only!
OptiBay is overpriced. U can buy tray at Ebay for $40.
And i will wait two months until MacOS 10.7 Lion for TRIM-support & for new Intel SSDs (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WhWwm2OL-E)
Use Intel SSDs only!
OptiBay is overpriced. U can buy tray at Ebay for $40.
And i will wait two months until MacOS 10.7 Lion for TRIM-support & for new Intel SSDs (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WhWwm2OL-E)
Why only Intel?
We also gave a $20 option for a similar optibay.
TRIM support —> http://www.groths.org/?p=308
Why only Intel?
We also gave a $20 option for a similar optibay.
TRIM support —> http://www.groths.org/?p=308
Why only Intel?
We also gave a $20 option for a similar optibay.
TRIM support —> http://www.groths.org/?p=308
Why only Intel?
We also gave a $20 option for a similar optibay.
TRIM support —> http://www.groths.org/?p=308
Why only Intel?
We also gave a $20 option for a similar optibay.
TRIM support —> http://www.groths.org/?p=308
Why only Intel?
We also gave a $20 option for a similar optibay.
TRIM support —> http://www.groths.org/?p=308
get more ram
get bigger hdd
use onyx
———-
ssd is bullshit^10
its quicker to start your system – how often do you start your system? once a week?
get more ram
get bigger hdd
use onyx
———-
ssd is bullshit^10
its quicker to start your system – how often do you start your system? once a week?
That’s all they do, start the system faster. No other benefits? Come back after you have seen the speed of a SSD first hand.
That’s all they do, start the system faster. No other benefits? Come back after you have seen the speed of a SSD first hand.
That’s all they do, start the system faster. No other benefits? Come back after you have seen the speed of a SSD first hand.
That’s all they do, start the system faster. No other benefits? Come back after you have seen the speed of a SSD first hand.
try waiting on a reboot at a gig
try waiting on a reboot at a gig
try waiting on a reboot at a gig
try waiting on a reboot at a gig
That’s all they do, start the system faster. No other benefits? Come back after you have seen the speed of a SSD first hand.
That’s all they do, start the system faster. No other benefits? Come back after you have seen the speed of a SSD first hand.
Every program will run faster…think 0 latency on everything it has to acsess the drive for. The fast reboot is nice too…I just swap out to the iPad for a song and I’m back up and running before the song is up, and VDJ takes *forever* to load on a normal drive.
Every program will run faster…think 0 latency on everything it has to acsess the drive for. The fast reboot is nice too…I just swap out to the iPad for a song and I’m back up and running before the song is up, and VDJ takes *forever* to load on a normal drive.
Every program will run faster…think 0 latency on everything it has to acsess the drive for. The fast reboot is nice too…I just swap out to the iPad for a song and I’m back up and running before the song is up, and VDJ takes *forever* to load on a normal drive.
Every program will run faster…think 0 latency on everything it has to acsess the drive for. The fast reboot is nice too…I just swap out to the iPad for a song and I’m back up and running before the song is up, and VDJ takes *forever* to load on a normal drive.
how do you do this to a sony vaio??? should i upgrade the ram to 8gigs first??
how do you do this to a sony vaio??? should i upgrade the ram to 8gigs first??
I picked up my 2010 base model 13″ MBP around Jan this year….1st thing I did was swap out the original HD for a 128gig PNY Optima SSD and got a 2.5inch 500gig 7200rpm WD Scorpio to go in an OWC external enclosure (to use FireWire 800 instead of USB) the combination is incredible. I bumped the RAM to 8gigs about a month ago.
In my opinion for performance an SSD is the best option. The investment is good too. Lifehacker had an article on that aspect; basically: buy your SSD and either a) keep the replaced drive for an external b) sell it and make some money back c) store the old drive and reinstall it when you want to upgrade your computer then reinstall the SSD in your new one.
I picked up my 2010 base model 13″ MBP around Jan this year….1st thing I did was swap out the original HD for a 128gig PNY Optima SSD and got a 2.5inch 500gig 7200rpm WD Scorpio to go in an OWC external enclosure (to use FireWire 800 instead of USB) the combination is incredible. I bumped the RAM to 8gigs about a month ago.
In my opinion for performance an SSD is the best option. The investment is good too. Lifehacker had an article on that aspect; basically: buy your SSD and either a) keep the replaced drive for an external b) sell it and make some money back c) store the old drive and reinstall it when you want to upgrade your computer then reinstall the SSD in your new one.
Brawn AND brains? Good choice, DJTT!
Brawn AND brains? Good choice, DJTT!
Almost there Ean!
“One way of improving your computer memory performance is by installing a SSD hard drive.”
*BZZZT* The best any storage device will do for ‘computer memory performance’ (whatever that is) is make the swap file faster, which means you’re out of available physical RAM. Which means you need to upgrade that.
“Regular 7200 RPM Rotary Hard Drives push about 60MB/s read and write.”
I don’t know what hard-disks you’re buying. But they’re crap. I bought a cheap Hitachi 2TB just the other day; does well in excess of that. Wasn’t even 7200RPM.
As some earlier posters have said a fast reliable computer is all about correctly maintaining it. My AU$650 dell c2d runs TS Pro no dramas; can’t seem to slow it down? Deck loads close enough to instant, start up times rather good too.
That said I obviously don’t have quite as much music as you and the 250GB drive in my laptop is more than adequate as its sole purpose is DJ’ing.
Also, the amount stored on a hard-drive has no effect on the performance of the computer/OS. Maybe years ago it might of due to fragmentation but modern file-systems don’t fragment much, if at all.
Almost there Ean!
“One way of improving your computer memory performance is by installing a SSD hard drive.”
*BZZZT* The best any storage device will do for ‘computer memory performance’ (whatever that is) is make the swap file faster, which means you’re out of available physical RAM. Which means you need to upgrade that.
“Regular 7200 RPM Rotary Hard Drives push about 60MB/s read and write.”
I don’t know what hard-disks you’re buying. But they’re crap. I bought a cheap Hitachi 2TB just the other day; does well in excess of that. Wasn’t even 7200RPM.
As some earlier posters have said a fast reliable computer is all about correctly maintaining it. My AU$650 dell c2d runs TS Pro no dramas; can’t seem to slow it down? Deck loads close enough to instant, start up times rather good too.
That said I obviously don’t have quite as much music as you and the 250GB drive in my laptop is more than adequate as its sole purpose is DJ’ing.
Also, the amount stored on a hard-drive has no effect on the performance of the computer/OS. Maybe years ago it might of due to fragmentation but modern file-systems don’t fragment much, if at all.
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/3.5-hard-drive-charts-2008/Minimum-Read-Transfer-Performance,668.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/3.5-hard-drive-charts-2008/Minimum-Read-Transfer-Performance,668.html
That link is from 2008. http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2009-3.5-desktop-hard-drive-charts/h2benchw-3.12-Min-Read-Throughput,1011.html That is 2009, which is 2 years old. You are also looking at the MINIMUM read speed.
That link is from 2008. http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2009-3.5-desktop-hard-drive-charts/h2benchw-3.12-Min-Read-Throughput,1011.html That is 2009, which is 2 years old. You are also looking at the MINIMUM read speed.
That link is from 2008. http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2009-3.5-desktop-hard-drive-charts/h2benchw-3.12-Min-Read-Throughput,1011.html That is 2009, which is 2 years old. You are also looking at the MINIMUM read speed.
That link is from 2008. http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2009-3.5-desktop-hard-drive-charts/h2benchw-3.12-Min-Read-Throughput,1011.html That is 2009, which is 2 years old. You are also looking at the MINIMUM read speed.
Do you have the slightest idea what access times are like for RAM and for block devices (as HDDs)?
Hint: Fetching data from RAM is at least some hundred thousand times (!) faster than fetching them from any mass storage device.
Has any one used Virtual DJ Pro7 Mac with the SSD and OS X 10.6.7 yet?
Will i see any improvements using one of them with Virtual DJ, another word will there be improvements in Virtual DJ performance?
Will there be some improvements with videos using OS X 10.6.7 and Virtual DJ pro 7 Mac videos?
Is that kind of investment worth It?
Has any one used Virtual DJ Pro7 Mac with the SSD and OS X 10.6.7 yet?
Will i see any improvements using one of them with Virtual DJ, another word will there be improvements in Virtual DJ performance?
Will there be some improvements with videos using OS X 10.6.7 and Virtual DJ pro 7 Mac videos?
Is that kind of investment worth It?
it’s the way mine is set up. VDJ Pro Full 7.0.2 (see the post by DceibelKing2204…misspelled due to the iPad typing). I love it so far and the performance is pretty great. The only bottlenecks I could think of are the CPU on Video playback and mixing with the base configuration. That really only if you’re multitasking (browsers, iTunes, downloading all at the same time).
Most HD are pulling at about 3gb/s so you’re looking at the bottleneck of transferring the data via USB 2.0 (probly where DJTT got the 60MB/s since thats USB 2.0 supposed “real” speed) or Firewire 800 (technically 400MB/s). Google search the info
internally I’m not sure…the SSD will probly be able to transfer at 6GB/s but the cables have to be able to comply and the motherboard receive it at the same. You’d have to research your year/model MBP to find that out, but I’m satisfied with everything save the CPU (Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz) since I’m running a few CPU intensive programs at once. VDJ is a resource hog fo sho’
it’s the way mine is set up. VDJ Pro Full 7.0.2 (see the post by DceibelKing2204…misspelled due to the iPad typing). I love it so far and the performance is pretty great. The only bottlenecks I could think of are the CPU on Video playback and mixing with the base configuration. That really only if you’re multitasking (browsers, iTunes, downloading all at the same time).
Most HD are pulling at about 3gb/s so you’re looking at the bottleneck of transferring the data via USB 2.0 (probly where DJTT got the 60MB/s since thats USB 2.0 supposed “real” speed) or Firewire 800 (technically 400MB/s). Google search the info
internally I’m not sure…the SSD will probly be able to transfer at 6GB/s but the cables have to be able to comply and the motherboard receive it at the same. You’d have to research your year/model MBP to find that out, but I’m satisfied with everything save the CPU (Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz) since I’m running a few CPU intensive programs at once. VDJ is a resource hog fo sho’
I see a lot of people suggesting to just “defrag” the hard drive. But in Mac-land (which this article seemed geared towards), there really isn’t a built in defragment application, nor is there much need for one.
OS-X automatically attempts to defragments files smaller than 20mb. So unless you load up the drive to the point where that’s not possible (or play tons of lossless files), you’re not really going to run into fragmentation as a primary cause of slowness on a mac based machine.
I see a lot of people suggesting to just “defrag” the hard drive. But in Mac-land (which this article seemed geared towards), there really isn’t a built in defragment application, nor is there much need for one.
OS-X automatically attempts to defragments files smaller than 20mb. So unless you load up the drive to the point where that’s not possible (or play tons of lossless files), you’re not really going to run into fragmentation as a primary cause of slowness on a mac based machine.
More of this sort of article. Well done kids.
One thing I don’t quite think that he explains very well is if the OptiBay becomes the 1st or 2nd drive in your boot HD order. I’ve not tried using two HDs in my MacBook but how do you select which drive you boot from. I know from my days of building PCs that you can select a boot order from a BIOS but I didn’t think that was how Mac’s were set up.
Because he isn’t changing the main HD in the vid? Just closing the original boot HD to the SSD but how do you get it to then boot from the SSD? Or is the MacBook designed to boot from the DVD/CD first (now SSD) and then onto the HD?
Sorry I’ve ended up saying SSD and HD a few too many times in this post !
One thing I don’t quite think that he explains very well is if the OptiBay becomes the 1st or 2nd drive in your boot HD order. I’ve not tried using two HDs in my MacBook but how do you select which drive you boot from. I know from my days of building PCs that you can select a boot order from a BIOS but I didn’t think that was how Mac’s were set up.
Because he isn’t changing the main HD in the vid? Just closing the original boot HD to the SSD but how do you get it to then boot from the SSD? Or is the MacBook designed to boot from the DVD/CD first (now SSD) and then onto the HD?
Sorry I’ve ended up saying SSD and HD a few too many times in this post !
Actually – just seen – go to System Prefs > Start Up Disk
i miss the mentioning of a hybrid drive as a cost-effective alternative. it will give you the best of both worlds at a reasonble price ;).
i miss the mentioning of a hybrid drive as a cost-effective alternative. it will give you the best of both worlds at a reasonble price ;).
yeah, but you still get the impact risks. I looked into them but the reviews were iffy compared to SSD’s so I just dropped the cash.
yeah, but you still get the impact risks. I looked into them but the reviews were iffy compared to SSD’s so I just dropped the cash.
yeah, but you still get the impact risks. I looked into them but the reviews were iffy compared to SSD’s so I just dropped the cash.
yeah, but you still get the impact risks. I looked into them but the reviews were iffy compared to SSD’s so I just dropped the cash.
yeah, but you still get the impact risks. I looked into them but the reviews were iffy compared to SSD’s so I just dropped the cash.
yeah, but you still get the impact risks. I looked into them but the reviews were iffy compared to SSD’s so I just dropped the cash.
regarding voiding your applecare, if you go to the Mac store will they do this kind of upgrade for you?
They would not do this for you.
They would not do this for you.
regarding voiding your applecare, if you go to the Mac store will they do this kind of upgrade for you?
This is definitely a super upgrade, and one I’m saving money to do right now. As Jared said on the first comment here be sure to look at http://www.macsales.com as the OWC SSDs are pretty reasonably priced and are super fast!Also a good place to grab some extra RAM if you need it!
This is definitely a super upgrade, and one I’m saving money to do right now. As Jared said on the first comment here be sure to look at http://www.macsales.com as the OWC SSDs are pretty reasonably priced and are super fast!Also a good place to grab some extra RAM if you need it!
On a side note i am running traktor S4 on my base cofiguration macbook air 11.6″ with a usb 2.0 external hardrive and it runs flawless with keylock on and round 11ms latency. Check beatsupnorth utube video
On a side note i am running traktor S4 on my base cofiguration macbook air 11.6″ with a usb 2.0 external hardrive and it runs flawless with keylock on and round 11ms latency. Check beatsupnorth utube video
You just needed to defrag, no need to pay so much money for a probably very bad fragmented hard disk. And if you are full, just upgrade to a bigger HDD. Is even a bad idea to have lots of files in a single directory (read: thousands), the index systems will drop in efficiency drastically, whatever the file system you want to use or the OS.
It’s a good idea, but not ideal for the average joe (cost lots of money, and SSD is still an unproved technology in the long term). And theres is even not need to do it just for “dj”.
If everytime a client has come to my business (I work at a IT Consultant company) with this problem, and has offered him / her a solution like that, i will just be swimming in millions of dollars rigth now.
The question is most pepople with mac’s don’t know s**t about maintaining their computer in optimal conditions, and this is some of the best possible examples we can find. The “it just works” is true for simple task, the question is that 90%+ users, don’t know how to maintain it in optimal conditions (there’s no need to be a super hero to do that or something).
Solution for a slow hard disk if its not at full capacity (thats like sucide)?
Defrag (“free”).
Then new Hard disk if neccesary (100€ por 750GB 5400rpm WD).
Even reinstall system in principal HDD, and substitute the CD bay with a magnetic disk for 10 times less money probably). You will not see launching OS so fast, but for dj you will not see so much difference (2 seconds loading a mp3 song of 8 minutes@320kbps CBR maybe?)
There is no need for this kind of upgrade, for real. It’s an impressive one (and costly!), but taking account of the file size of most audio files, is not neccesary at all. SSD rocks when you flyes through hundreds or thousand files per second. Thats not the case here, where you are totally fine accesing 100+ files per second.
I wish i had some of this SSD at work for deploy my actual J2EE project (40000+ files <30kb each), i would save 4+ minutes everytime i have to start it over the 5 minutes a magnetik disk takes.
sorry for my english 🙂
Regards,
You just needed to defrag, no need to pay so much money for a probably very bad fragmented hard disk. And if you are full, just upgrade to a bigger HDD. Is even a bad idea to have lots of files in a single directory (read: thousands), the index systems will drop in efficiency drastically, whatever the file system you want to use or the OS.
It’s a good idea, but not ideal for the average joe (cost lots of money, and SSD is still an unproved technology in the long term). And theres is even not need to do it just for “dj”.
If everytime a client has come to my business (I work at a IT Consultant company) with this problem, and has offered him / her a solution like that, i will just be swimming in millions of dollars rigth now.
The question is most pepople with mac’s don’t know s**t about maintaining their computer in optimal conditions, and this is some of the best possible examples we can find. The “it just works” is true for simple task, the question is that 90%+ users, don’t know how to maintain it in optimal conditions (there’s no need to be a super hero to do that or something).
Solution for a slow hard disk if its not at full capacity (thats like sucide)?
Defrag (“free”).
Then new Hard disk if neccesary (100€ por 750GB 5400rpm WD).
Even reinstall system in principal HDD, and substitute the CD bay with a magnetic disk for 10 times less money probably). You will not see launching OS so fast, but for dj you will not see so much difference (2 seconds loading a mp3 song of 8 minutes@320kbps CBR maybe?)
There is no need for this kind of upgrade, for real. It’s an impressive one (and costly!), but taking account of the file size of most audio files, is not neccesary at all. SSD rocks when you flyes through hundreds or thousand files per second. Thats not the case here, where you are totally fine accesing 100+ files per second.
I wish i had some of this SSD at work for deploy my actual J2EE project (40000+ files <30kb each), i would save 4+ minutes everytime i have to start it over the 5 minutes a magnetik disk takes.
sorry for my english 🙂
Regards,
Can you guys give us a walk through on how to do this on a 5.2 13inch macbook??
Can you guys give us a walk through on how to do this on a 5.2 13inch macbook??
Hi All,
I got a question about this. I’m actualy planning to buy brand new MBP and now there is an option to upgrade to 128 GB SSD for a $100 extra which is not bad. So should I just do that and get an external drive for music files, get it and switch my DVD drive with internal HDD drive for music or just get the regular drive and do the mod?
Thanks!
Hi All,
I got a question about this. I’m actualy planning to buy brand new MBP and now there is an option to upgrade to 128 GB SSD for a $100 extra which is not bad. So should I just do that and get an external drive for music files, get it and switch my DVD drive with internal HDD drive for music or just get the regular drive and do the mod?
Thanks!
I just got my first Macbook pro last week with apples SSD. Now going to get a Optibay for the extra space. But yeah it’s a great drive and cheap.
I’ll do the same. Extra 750GB 7200rpm Optibay for my media and if I even need more space I can always connect external drive via Thunderbolt once they’re out and cheap.
I’ll do the same. Extra 750GB 7200rpm Optibay for my media and if I even need more space I can always connect external drive via Thunderbolt once they’re out and cheap.
I just got my first Macbook pro last week with apples SSD. Now going to get a Optibay for the extra space. But yeah it’s a great drive and cheap.
I’d hold off until they drop the OS Lion…it’s supposed to have TRIM support built in and you can get an SSD for cheaper (with better specs) online for cheap. Newegg or OWC I’d say. Got my RAM from OWC and probly would have got my SSD there too but $150 in bestbuy gift cards said 128gigs for $100 out of pocket =)
I’d hold off until they drop the OS Lion…it’s supposed to have TRIM support built in and you can get an SSD for cheaper (with better specs) online for cheap. Newegg or OWC I’d say. Got my RAM from OWC and probly would have got my SSD there too but $150 in bestbuy gift cards said 128gigs for $100 out of pocket =)
I’d hold off until they drop the OS Lion…it’s supposed to have TRIM support built in and you can get an SSD for cheaper (with better specs) online for cheap. Newegg or OWC I’d say. Got my RAM from OWC and probly would have got my SSD there too but $150 in bestbuy gift cards said 128gigs for $100 out of pocket =)
I’d hold off until they drop the OS Lion…it’s supposed to have TRIM support built in and you can get an SSD for cheaper (with better specs) online for cheap. Newegg or OWC I’d say. Got my RAM from OWC and probly would have got my SSD there too but $150 in bestbuy gift cards said 128gigs for $100 out of pocket =)
I’d hold off until they drop the OS Lion…it’s supposed to have TRIM support built in and you can get an SSD for cheaper (with better specs) online for cheap. Newegg or OWC I’d say. Got my RAM from OWC and probly would have got my SSD there too but $150 in bestbuy gift cards said 128gigs for $100 out of pocket =)
I’d hold off until they drop the OS Lion…it’s supposed to have TRIM support built in and you can get an SSD for cheaper (with better specs) online for cheap. Newegg or OWC I’d say. Got my RAM from OWC and probly would have got my SSD there too but $150 in bestbuy gift cards said 128gigs for $100 out of pocket =)
I have given this plenty of thought, currently as a macbook model 4.1 owner, I have increased the Ram to the “unofficial” 6GB capacity. A SSD is my next upgrade choice. But keeping my 500GB 7200rpm drive as a secondary drive, is an excellent option!
I rarely use my DVD rom drive….
Interesting article!, keep us posted on how it performs after some gigs.
I have given this plenty of thought, currently as a macbook model 4.1 owner, I have increased the Ram to the “unofficial” 6GB capacity. A SSD is my next upgrade choice. But keeping my 500GB 7200rpm drive as a secondary drive, is an excellent option!
I rarely use my DVD rom drive….
Interesting article!, keep us posted on how it performs after some gigs.
Is this “upgrade” possible with an macbook pro 13″ from mid 2010??
Yup…google search for the how-to videos. Seemingly easy but voids your warranty. Pretty much why I went the external route.
Is this “upgrade” possible with an macbook pro 13″ from mid 2010??
I’m not sure many people will notice an increase in performance from a DVS standpoint but if you are doing digital signal processing and production then probably a good reason to get an SSD.
I’m not sure many people will notice an increase in performance from a DVS standpoint but if you are doing digital signal processing and production then probably a good reason to get an SSD.
The quickest and most cost effective way to speed up your operating system is with a faster hard drive and newer SSDs are at the top of the food chain. As for life expectancy you shouldn’t have anything to worry about unless you keep the drive full because it will decrease the life expectancy of the drive. Once a block fails it’s possible that the drive will fail. Each block on a SSD only has a limited number of write cycles. SSDs spread writes to different blocks to increase the longevity of the drive. When you upgrade the firmware of the drive there is often an upgrade to the algorithm that spreads write cycle to different blocks thus increasing the lifespan of the drive. If the disk is full than there are a limited number of open blocks or blocks that will be written to much more often. You can google the math behind SSD life expectancy. I always recommend a SSD that’s double the maximum amount of space you’ll use. For example, I use the 128gb OCZ Vertex 2 with 30 gbs used and 80gb of space left. This leaves me with plenty of room if I want to install programs later. All my media sits on a 2nd larger 7200 rpm platter drive which is fast enough. Unless your SSD is full often, you shouldn’t have to worry about longevity.
Nik makes a good point too – check out the new OCZ Vertex 3, it’s fast and if you have a SATA iii interface (most notebooks don’t) you’ll really notice the difference!
The quickest and most cost effective way to speed up your operating system is with a faster hard drive and newer SSDs are at the top of the food chain. As for life expectancy you shouldn’t have anything to worry about unless you keep the drive full because it will decrease the life expectancy of the drive. Once a block fails it’s possible that the drive will fail. Each block on a SSD only has a limited number of write cycles. SSDs spread writes to different blocks to increase the longevity of the drive. When you upgrade the firmware of the drive there is often an upgrade to the algorithm that spreads write cycle to different blocks thus increasing the lifespan of the drive. If the disk is full than there are a limited number of open blocks or blocks that will be written to much more often. You can google the math behind SSD life expectancy. I always recommend a SSD that’s double the maximum amount of space you’ll use. For example, I use the 128gb OCZ Vertex 2 with 30 gbs used and 80gb of space left. This leaves me with plenty of room if I want to install programs later. All my media sits on a 2nd larger 7200 rpm platter drive which is fast enough. Unless your SSD is full often, you shouldn’t have to worry about longevity.
Nik makes a good point too – check out the new OCZ Vertex 3, it’s fast and if you have a SATA iii interface (most notebooks don’t) you’ll really notice the difference!
perfect timing! my hard drive crashed last night because it was jam packed bahahahaha what a freakin coincidence hhahahahaha done and done thanks guys
perfect timing! my hard drive crashed last night because it was jam packed bahahahaha what a freakin coincidence hhahahahaha done and done thanks guys
quick comments from an IT guy by day, DJ by night:
SSD: Best upgrade for a laptop, hands down. The responsiveness of the OS will be instantly noticeable. The typical SSD will use the same amount of power at full speed that a platter drive uses as idle. They also run cooler, which is always good for laptops as they sometimes get their vents covered by cables, paper etc. SSD’s also don’t have the same problems with getting bumped or jarred.
2nd hard drive: Great idea to keep your music drive separate from your Traktor/Serato/etc drive. This allows the OS to get something from the SSD while a song is being pulled from the HDD into memory.
regarding HHD drives: don’t get an eco drive. This includes the green series from Western Digital. These drives spin slow and go idle on their own, which leads to delay in retrieving a file, which can make your application pause for a bit. The black series, or any performance series of drive is a good bet. The hybrid sdd/hdd drives also perform about as well as the black series of drives.
regarding SSD: Any SSD on the market is going to show improvement. I personally would recommend more than 60GB if you use the laptop for anything other than music, such as web browsing, games, etc. 60GB fills qucker than you would think.
!!!WARNING!!! !!!WARNING!!! !!!WARNING!!! !!!WARNING!!! !!!WARNING!!!
I learned the hard way that you really should put your start up drive in the original hard drive bay.
After adding a 256GB SSD via Optibay to my MacBookPro back in April 2010 I started having some weird crashes. I took the lazy way and installed 256GB SSD as my startup drive in the DVD drive bay and I kept the original platter 500GB as a media drive in the original HD location. I started getting random crashes in apps like Safari, Photoshop and sometimes even TRAKTOR! I scowered the internet for answers and finially found some forums mentioning that the DVD drive bay should not be used as your startup dive. I opened the my MacBookPro back up and swapped the drives, putting my SSD startup in the normal HD location and the platter media drive in the DVD bay / Optibay. This solved all my crashing problems. Took me like 4 months to figure this out. Since them, everything’s been just peachy.
I highly recommend this mod. It’s been the biggest speed boost I’ve ever seen with a computer. I never use the DVD drive and app startup times are amazing. As the system drive, virtual memory screams, startup times are jaw dropping, and using it as your Photoshop cache is the dog’s bullocks.
Well, I hope this helps people. Hopefully Ean posts a PS on the bottom of the article cause this probably trips up a lot of people.
Cheers!
Not everyone experiences this problem. Thank you for posting though.
Not everyone experiences this problem. Thank you for posting though.
I thought there were heat problems with putting the regular HD in the drive spot, because there is not proper ventilation for a HD.
I could be wrong though, I know I read it somewhere.
I thought there were heat problems with putting the regular HD in the drive spot, because there is not proper ventilation for a HD.
I could be wrong though, I know I read it somewhere.
Seagate makes a Hybrid Solid State Drive which uses both standard hard drive technology as well as Solid State. You can buy a 500Gb Hybrid Drive for about $120. It’s alot cheaper than a SSD and only a little slower.
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/laptops/laptop-hdd/
Amazon has it on sale now for $99.99 (including free shipping)
http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Momentus-7200RPM-Hybrid-ST95005620AS-Bare/dp/B003NSBF32
Seagate makes a Hybrid Solid State Drive which uses both standard hard drive technology as well as Solid State. You can buy a 500Gb Hybrid Drive for about $120. It’s alot cheaper than a SSD and only a little slower.
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/laptops/laptop-hdd/
Amazon has it on sale now for $99.99 (including free shipping)
http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Momentus-7200RPM-Hybrid-ST95005620AS-Bare/dp/B003NSBF32
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/seagate-momentus-xt-hybrid-hard-drive-ssd,2638-6.html
SSD’s push data about 3x as fast.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/seagate-momentus-xt-hybrid-hard-drive-ssd,2638-6.html
SSD’s push data about 3x as fast.
DIGITAL DRIP !!!!
DIGITAL DRIP !!!!
😛
yoo im just wondering but lets say i did this would i be able to access both drives simultaneously like if i was on the ssd drive would the hdd show up as external storage?
yoo im just wondering but lets say i did this would i be able to access both drives simultaneously like if i was on the ssd drive would the hdd show up as external storage?
Ya, thats the idea. You use the SSD as your boot drive, and the large HDD for data.
exactly will be doing this in a similayr way with my laptop same poweras the mac pros on windows 7 insalled os and trakor nothing else but enable ing my i 160 gb ipos classic as a hhd which works as a flash i think ot the mo it is a 5400rpm 250 g sata but the speed will be awsome its good now but tis will be a vasit improvmed wen te d is cloned
so where would i put my actual applications for example serato on the ssd and then all the music on my hdd?
yes
yes
so where would i put my actual applications for example serato on the ssd and then all the music on my hdd?
Ya, thats the idea. You use the SSD as your boot drive, and the large HDD for data.
There is one big advantage of ssd drives that will be lost when you go that route: The shock resistance of SSDs. Play in a club with a badly vibrating dj booth, trigger the sudden motion sensor right in the middle of a set and you know what I mean – aside from the fact that conventional HDs with spinning platters and moving heads don’t take that kind of treatment well.
There is one big advantage of ssd drives that will be lost when you go that route: The shock resistance of SSDs. Play in a club with a badly vibrating dj booth, trigger the sudden motion sensor right in the middle of a set and you know what I mean – aside from the fact that conventional HDs with spinning platters and moving heads don’t take that kind of treatment well.
you know you could solve all your problems by temporarily saving you music on your HD then transfer them to an external . I usually keep my music on my HD for a month then transfer to external havent even broke 50 GB of my 250 GB of my hd yet. computer is as fast as it was when i first bought it 🙂
you know you could solve all your problems by temporarily saving you music on your HD then transfer them to an external . I usually keep my music on my HD for a month then transfer to external havent even broke 50 GB of my 250 GB of my hd yet. computer is as fast as it was when i first bought it 🙂
I have a 2.66 MBP with the 500Gb HDD and 8GB RAM. I use a firewire-based SSD and have no trouble at all with speed. My old Macbook with the 2.0, 2Gb Ram and 180GB HDD was decent, but it was outdated and didn’t like Snow Leopard. I’m glad I made the switch.
I have a 2.66 MBP with the 500Gb HDD and 8GB RAM. I use a firewire-based SSD and have no trouble at all with speed. My old Macbook with the 2.0, 2Gb Ram and 180GB HDD was decent, but it was outdated and didn’t like Snow Leopard. I’m glad I made the switch.
I have a Powerbook G4 I’m planning to swap out the cd drive with a dual setup and maxout the ram as well. Does that place you reccomend carry parts for the powerbook?
I have a Powerbook G4 I’m planning to swap out the cd drive with a dual setup and maxout the ram as well. Does that place you reccomend carry parts for the powerbook?
I did this on my 1st Gen 17″ Unibody and it saved my computer from being scrapped. However the real way to go is with the OWC SSD’s. Hands down the best out there. http://www.macsales.com FTW!!!! I tested against a friends brand new 17″ i7 and I had adobe photoshop/illustrator/dreamweaver/logic/live/ safari and chrome all open before he could get photoshop open.
I did this on my 1st Gen 17″ Unibody and it saved my computer from being scrapped. However the real way to go is with the OWC SSD’s. Hands down the best out there. http://www.macsales.com FTW!!!! I tested against a friends brand new 17″ i7 and I had adobe photoshop/illustrator/dreamweaver/logic/live/ safari and chrome all open before he could get photoshop open.
Is it the “best out there” because you own it? The OCZ drives also use the Sandyforce chipset, and they have a slightly faster throughput.
Is it the “best out there” because you own it? The OCZ drives also use the Sandyforce chipset, and they have a slightly faster throughput.
I have a Patriot SSD 250 Gig, i can definatively state it makes IO
considerably faster. Granted Traktor is not very disk intensive, however
when i run 40 tracks in Ableton, launching clips, recording and 4 decks
in Traktor at the same time, it works great. I think the biggest benefit is in recording multiple tracks anything streaming to the disk or from the
disk. Also in regards to TRIM support, some drives do require TRIM
to acheive optimum performance. However some of the Gen 3 drives,
don’t incorporate this feature. But for those who want to enable it, there
is a unsupported app that enables it on 10.6.7
http://osxdaily.com/2011/03/27/enable-trim-ssd-mac-os-x-10-6-7/
I have a Patriot SSD 250 Gig, i can definatively state it makes IO
considerably faster. Granted Traktor is not very disk intensive, however
when i run 40 tracks in Ableton, launching clips, recording and 4 decks
in Traktor at the same time, it works great. I think the biggest benefit is in recording multiple tracks anything streaming to the disk or from the
disk. Also in regards to TRIM support, some drives do require TRIM
to acheive optimum performance. However some of the Gen 3 drives,
don’t incorporate this feature. But for those who want to enable it, there
is a unsupported app that enables it on 10.6.7
http://osxdaily.com/2011/03/27/enable-trim-ssd-mac-os-x-10-6-7/
you could’ve asked me ive been running a 256GB P256 Corsair Drive and a 500GB 7200RPM drive since may of last Year!!!!Makes a heck of a difference even on my i7 MAcbook Pro
you could’ve asked me ive been running a 256GB P256 Corsair Drive and a 500GB 7200RPM drive since may of last Year!!!!Makes a heck of a difference even on my i7 MAcbook Pro
I really can’t give up my CD drive on my mac (I get a ton of CDs from indie artist trying to get played).
But if you want another good hard-drive, I’d get the “Seagate Momentus XT ST95005620AS”
Its a hybrid drive: it has 500Gb of rotary drive space AND 3GB of SSD; the SSD is used to load up all the core OS elements. Its really fast and only $99.
Check it out: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148591
I’ll second that. I put a 500Gb hybrid drive in my late 2008 MBP a few months ago and have noticed a massive speed increase.
I’ll second that. I put a 500Gb hybrid drive in my late 2008 MBP a few months ago and have noticed a massive speed increase.
I will second this as well. Did it to a 2008 MBP the same as Jimdanson and got really nice results. I run Traktor Pro S4 next to iTunes when DJing and can flip back and forth easily (i like iTunes search and track display better) without drop outs, freezes or other ugliness…
DJ dennis
I will second this as well. Did it to a 2008 MBP the same as Jimdanson and got really nice results. I run Traktor Pro S4 next to iTunes when DJing and can flip back and forth easily (i like iTunes search and track display better) without drop outs, freezes or other ugliness…
DJ dennis
Would this Seagate drive work if I replaced my built in Mac OSX hard drive with it? I’m running an older early 2008 15 inch MBP with Leopard 10.5.
Would this Seagate drive work if I replaced my built in Mac OSX hard drive with it? I’m running an older early 2008 15 inch MBP with Leopard 10.5.
I really can’t give up my CD drive on my mac (I get a ton of CDs from indie artist trying to get played).
But if you want another good hard-drive, I’d get the “Seagate Momentus XT ST95005620AS”
Its a hybrid drive: it has 500Gb of rotary drive space AND 3GB of SSD; the SSD is used to load up all the core OS elements. Its really fast and only $99.
Check it out: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148591
Good article. I have been wondering if it would be worth comparing a mac to a PC, especially given that a computer is the keystone to digital DJing. I know I would enjoy a thorough grudge match between the two.
apparently I that douche who posted twice.
apparently I that douche who posted twice.
Good article. I have been wondering if it would be worth comparing a mac to a PC, especially given that a computer is the keystone to digital DJing. I know I would enjoy a thorough grudge match between the two.
Good article. I have been wondering if it’d be worth comparing a mac to a PC, especially given that the computer is the keystone in digital DJing. I know that I would enjoy a thorough grudge match between the 2.
http://www.ifixit.com/Browse/MacBook_Pro_15%22
http://lifehacker.com/#!5541774/how-to-install-a-solid+state-drive-in-your-macbook
Worth a read.
Just curious, would this work ok on 1st generation dual core macbook ?
If your referring to swapping out the optical drive, it shouldn’t be a problem. You just have to find out what connection interface is used for the drive, sata or IDE, and use the appropriate hard disk and caddy for replacement.
There’s a few ways to inprove performance in this case and seems they’ve all been mentioned now. Either way this was a good article for those that didnt know some of their options.
It should work In the direct bay the original drive is in. I have a second generation Macbook.
It should work In the direct bay the original drive is in. I have a second generation Macbook.
And you don’t need to spend $99 on an optibay. You can find a far cheaper alternative on fleabay from China that works just fine
A $20 solution was also provided.
A $20 solution was also provided.
I’ve already done this and used an OWC SSD. It has super charged my Mac and would recommend it to all Mac users.
Just watched the video. It’s advisable to put the new SSD in your main drive slot and the original drive in the slot that was housed by the CD drive. This should improve performance and stop the machime from having issues waking from sleep.
Hmmm… this is sooo tempting. Thanks for the great article!
That is great for older users but have you guys thought about the future? As in with Thunderbolt? With Thunderbolt technology you won’t need to swap out stuff like you mention here, although this is extremely useful for people with anything but the new 2011 MacBook Pros. I mean with being able to transfer GBs of data in a matter of split seconds with Thunderbolt I don’t know if it’s worth the effort to go through all of this for the newer users.
Great article :), much help for the older MBPro owners, not so much for the newer! Still really informative though!
I have the new MBP, but i am still considering swapping out for an ssd and high capacity hdd for the optical bay. It is the convenience of not having to carry around more drives.
I have the new MBP, but i am still considering swapping out for an ssd and high capacity hdd for the optical bay. It is the convenience of not having to carry around more drives.
Do you boot off an external drive through the thunderbolt port?
Do you boot off an external drive through the thunderbolt port?
A few things:
(i) Maxing out a hard drive is a really bad idea, even more so if it contains system files. First, fragmentation becomes an issue on hard drives with no or little free space (even on advanced file systems such as HFS+ and NTFS). Second, hard drive speed is not uniform across physical data locations on the platters. When you start using a drive, data is first written to the fast outer tracks. As you fill up the drive, you move towards the inner tracks which are slower (it gets slower and slower the closer you move to the center of the platter).
Both of those things explain why it is unwise to max out a drive (you typically wanna leave 15-25% free space). Chances are, Ean would have seen much improved performance by moving to a larger drive (with, say, 500+GB capacity).
(ii) An SSD is a fine upgrade. Upgrades of the sort described in the article can also be carried out in many, if not most PC laptops. E.g., I replaced the DVD drive in the media bay of my Dell Latitude with an SSD. However, one should note that an SSD does extremely little for Traktor performance. Traktor starts faster and browsing the explorer node gets faster. That’s basically it. I’m speaking from experience with two systems (one laptop and one desktop) which feature an SSD + HDD setup. SSDs are great for quite a few things but not particularly for Traktor–for most people, the very modest improvement in Traktor’s performance alone is not worth the high cost of an SSD. SSDs become attractive when you want them for other reasons as well.
(iii) SSD reliability. Life expectancy is not a real concern for most models (it might become a bit of a concern in the future, though, as more data is stored per cell and as the physical size of a cell decreases). I think, up to know, buggy firmwares (which sometimes led to data loss) have been a much more common issue in practice.
(iv) TRIM. Mac users should be aware that TRIM is only supported on SSDs shipped with new Macs. OS X does not support TRIM for systems that have been upgraded to an SSD in the aftermarket. The concern here is that over time, SSD performance may decrease. Windows users should be aware that TRIM is supported only on Win 7, not on XP or Vista.
To enable TRIM on MacOS : http://www.groths.org/
To enable TRIM on MacOS : http://www.groths.org/
“However, one should note that an SSD does extremely little for Traktor performance. Traktor starts faster and browsing the explorer node gets faster. That’s basically it.”
I don’t think Traktor really does anything else that takes time anyway, so this is really the only place you would perceive any improvements.
“However, one should note that an SSD does extremely little for Traktor performance. Traktor starts faster and browsing the explorer node gets faster. That’s basically it.”
I don’t think Traktor really does anything else that takes time anyway, so this is really the only place you would perceive any improvements.
Could you share or link the device/contraption you used to put in a hard drive into the media bay for dell latitudes? I’ve been wanting to do the same and wasn’t sure it was an option.
Excellent info John, I’ve never really filled up an OS drive before I tend to leave, coincidently 20% free. Once that 20% starts getting eaten into, it’s time for a bigger drive. So i’m yet to experience anything noticeable in the fragmentation / platter location slowness.
Excellent info John, I’ve never really filled up an OS drive before I tend to leave, coincidently 20% free. Once that 20% starts getting eaten into, it’s time for a bigger drive. So i’m yet to experience anything noticeable in the fragmentation / platter location slowness.
This is a great solution to increasing speed and performance to a Computer for sure. One drawback using SSD drives is that they slow down after continued use as more and more data gets written and erased. Windows 7 currently is the only operating system that supports a function called TRIM that erases old data on an SSD so that as new data is written, it can overwrite the old erased spaces. Without TRIM support for OSX, the drive will slow down.
The new MBP’s that were just released recently come with a special modified version of OSX that support the TRIM function. As for any other previous MBP (previous OSX versions), the function is not supported. OSX Lion (next OSX version) will support TRIM and will therefore maximize solid state drive performance.
I’m actually waiting for TRIM support before I get an SSD. For those that run a windows machine, an SSD upgrade is already do-able…
BC
Here you are : http://www.groths.org/
Is this an official apple patch or a hack? If the latter, I’ll probably wait, but thanks for the info.
BC
Is this an official apple patch or a hack? If the latter, I’ll probably wait, but thanks for the info.
BC
Here you are : http://www.groths.org/
It works great. But some old Macbook Pros could have problems with this. Before Unibody. Mine freezes when it wakes after putting on sleep.
I really don’t understand why the new macbooks only have a 5400 rpm HDD and not a 7200 rpm or ssd. That would justify the pricetag just a wee bit more.
They do that to get better battery life.
I’m also quite tempted after reading this.
Are there any advantages to which bay you install the SSD in? As it will be the boot drive, will it run any faster in the DVD drive location, or does the MacBook handle both locations exactly the same?
Regarding the warranty / apple care thing, just make sure you know exactly how to re-install the DVD in case of any problems! 🙂
I think it’s important to mention that there are different sizes of caddies/optybays for different laptops: 9.5mm and 12.7mm (height, that is). The new MBP’s have 9.5mm (older ones probably too, but always check first), most Windows laptops have 12.7mm.
Somewhat related: Here’s a video that shows the true power of the SSD http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96dWOEa4Djs
that’s one beast of a machine
My wife was going to let me build that SSD monster in the video until she got wind of the price tag… LOL! It was tres cool but oh, so expensive…
DJ dennis
My wife was going to let me build that SSD monster in the video until she got wind of the price tag… LOL! It was tres cool but oh, so expensive…
DJ dennis
keep in mind WD scorpio black (7200RPM) drains the battery by about 40 minutes to an hour, tried and tested on macbook pro 13 inch (2010). If you still want to keep your battery life, go for WD scorpio BLUE which spins at 5400RPM
Regarding Applecare, yeah, that probably will void it. Any time that you mod or replace native Apple hardware with third-party stuff, the Apple techs are very reluctant to touch it.
I replaced my MPB’s DVD drive with an SSD, and unfortunately the regular HDD died some months afterwards. No Apple shop would touch it when they heard about the mod, but I kept the original DVD drive around and put it back in just so they would do the repair…
good call
good call
Why would you recommend the OCZ Vertex 2 when the Vertex 3 was just released? Even on SATA 3Gbps bus, the Vertex 3 will have better performance, and a much longer usable lifetime in case one decides to upgrade to a laptop which supports SATA 6Gbps in the future.
where are you seeing them on sale?
They are not for sale yet. They will cost more, as all new technology does, and unless you have the latest generation macbook pro, the speed increase is minimal due to the fact that older macbook pro can only negotiate a link speed of 3 Gigabits.
They are not for sale yet. They will cost more, as all new technology does, and unless you have the latest generation macbook pro, the speed increase is minimal due to the fact that older macbook pro can only negotiate a link speed of 3 Gigabits.
where are you seeing them on sale?
Link me.
Link me.
I’ve been thinking about doing this for quite a while, but this article might just be the thing that finally convinces me to take the plunge!
My only question is regarding warranty – would I be right in thinking you’ll completely void your applecare plan if it’s still valid?
even without checking with the applecare terms and conditions i am pretty sure that such a mod voids any warranty.