SSD/HDD filesystem layout on iMac

[ChristianVirtual]

Not sure if this is the right place but lets try it:

as we can buy the new iMac with SSD and HDD I wonder how flexible the OS can be installed. I read in the past that for SSD it should be avoided to write lots of small files in order to keep the health status of the device. I also understand that with modern SSD's that effect should be reduced.

Therefore I would like to reinstall OS X and finetune the disks on which certain filesystems are stored, e.g. swap-space, /var and /tmp on a conventional HDD while OS and Apps on the SSD.

I did that with my UBUNTU box where I could during the setup of the system define all those little details. SSD for Linux kernel and lib's, a (very) fast disk for swapping, temp files and log files, and bigger disks for /home. Works very nice this way.

I actually never really (re)installed OSX myself so I wonder if someone have some hints for me. My main UNIX admin experience comes from LINUX.

Thanks in advance
Christian

 

[lssmit02]

I followed the guide done by photographer Lloyd Chambers. His basic idea is system plus basic user account on SSD, large files on HDD (iTunes folder, iPhoto folder, etc).

 

[ChristianVirtual]

Thanks for the link, a nice collection of tips. Some of them I use today like my iTunes media files are stored on a NAS which is mapped with a link into my iTunes local folder.
But my idea goes one level deeper as I would like to make sure that some intensively used files are not stored on the SSD (e.g. Log files).

 

[symbology]

I followed the guide done by photographer Lloyd Chambers. His basic idea is system plus basic user account on SSD, large files on HDD (iTunes folder, iPhoto folder, etc).

This makes no sense IMO. (for an additional cost of $750)

If you setup the OS on the SSD, but all of your working data is on std SATA disks you are wasting $$$. With the above setup, the only thing that will load quicker is your OS and applications. How often do you start your machine, or launch an application per day? So, you start the computer (faster than std SATA). then you load editing software (faster than std SATA). Now that you have done that, all you are doing is loading files from std SATA disk and the SSD is just sitting there doing nothing. At this point, photo editing is marginally faster (if you have enough memory) than a system without a SSD disk.

Not worth the $750 IMO. If it were cheaper, than yeah sure. I will consider adding a small (100GB) SSD to my iMac when the prices get around $200.