Purchased SSD for MP 3.1 some suggestions..

[rhett7660]

Hello All..

Ok, here is what I am planning on doing. I have a Mac Pro 3.1 8 core 2.8 2008 system. I just purchased a 120 gig ssd.

Here is my issue. Right now my Macintosh_HD is sitting at 160 gigs. I am wondering if there is anything I can do to get this number down whether moving something deleting etc. I haven't touched this folder.

I just want this for the OS and the Applications. I don't want to have to do a re-install if at all possible.

Any suggestions? Maybe moving my user folder which is about 62 gigs off to another drive? I have three left open.

Thoughts suggestions?

 

[tamvly]

Move your user data to another HDD, then clone the 160 to the SSD with Carbon Copy or similar program. Suggest you also get another disk for TimeMachine.

 

[imacdaddy]

I also have MP 3.1 and recently did an overhaul of the entire system! My OS upgrades were Tiger > Leopard > Snow Leopard > Lion. All ware upgraded from previous version...no clean install. After upgrading to Lion, I found my MP extremely slow and seeing beach balls all the time. Even with 2 x 2.8GHz quad w/ 16GB of RAM.

Make sure you plan everything ahead of time to save yourself the headache. Before the clean install, I backed up everything (incl. user folders, iTunes, iPhoto, etc.) to an external HD. I even cleaned out my iTunes for any duplicate songs.

Once everything is backed up, I then formatted my 4 x HD with RAID0 to be used later as User's home directory and data files. I purchased a SATA III SDD for the OS/system and Applications. If your SSD is SATA III be sure to pick up one of these mentioned in this forum. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1280517/

It made a world of difference from SATA II to SATA III. It's cheap and boots Lion!!!

I then installed a clean version of Lion on the SSD. Ran all updates and then Time Machine backup. Then I moved my User directory to the RAID partition by following this. http://lnx2mac.blogspot.com/2010/09/moving-os-x-users-to-separate-partition.html

After moving User directory to a different drive, from your backup you can import your iTunes, iPhoto etc. The files will go to your User directory on your other drive. Your new installed apps will be on your SSD.

Let me tell you, my MP now breathes a new life with a fresh install and the SSD makes the whole system soooooo much faster! No more beach balls or bouncing icon on the dock when launching apps. I also upgraded the video card to the 5870. It's a new beast!

 

[rhett7660]

I wish I would have known about the card earlier. I was chatting with OWC about which one I should get. However, I am looking at getting another one and I could have two SSD's, one 3g and 6g and pick up the card and have the 6g be my os and applications and have the 3g be my home folder etc.

I have everything backed up already I am not worried about that, including a hard drive that is nothing but my Main HD cloned.

So here is what I am thinking:

I have an extra sata slot of my machine. Use that one for the sata II ssd 120 gig. This is where my user files would reside along with maybe a small bit for scratch disk for PS and the like.

Purchase the second sata III ssd 120 gig and also purchase the card and have this one be my main ssd for the os and applications.

Or have both ssd's off the card to make things simpler.

What do you think?

I am staying with SL for right now.

One other thing the extra sata port can be used correct?

 

[rhett7660]

Also.. I am reading conflicting reports about using the ODD (Mac Pro 3.1) port for booting off of. Is this possible? Some say you can and others say you can't. Can someone please confirm.

 

[rhett7660]

Well I was final able to install my SSD and have to say.. wow. What a freaking difference. Thanks for the responses... Can't believe I waited this long.

 

[TinHead88]

For the OS disk it probably won't feel any different using the 6G. I would use the SATA6 card and 6G SDD for the data instead as it's the sustained transfers that will benefit more from SATA6.

I'd be interested to know if you can notice any difference between the two (if you can be bothered to test this).

 

[rhett7660]

For the OS disk it probably won't feel any different using the 6G. I would use the SATA6 card and 6G SDD for the data instead as it's the sustained transfers that will benefit more from SATA6.

I'd be interested to know if you can notice any difference between the two (if you can be bothered to test this).

I only have the one drive right now. I held off on getting the second due to wanting to do some more research on the internal PCIe card that you can boot from.

I am loving my ssd right now though.... IT is a lot quicker as most people already know but man it makes a difference and I didn't know how much of a difference till I did it myself. It is very nice!

I am thinking about getting the second one though just to use as a scratch disk for Photoshop since I use this program the most.