What to do with my two SSD's

[edco]

This is my first time on the forum so greetings to you all!

I have a late 2012 iMac who's 3TB HDD failed. I decided I'd rather have the speed than extra storage so I'm replacing it with a 1TB SSD.

I will now have 128G flash + 1TB SSD. Seeing as how a fusion drive no longer makes sense, what would you recommend?

I was thinking of Creating a RAID1 by using the 128G flash and a 128G partition on the 1TB SSD for the root (/). Then the rest of my SSD could be mounted as /home.

What are your thoughts and how would you go about it? I have Linux experience but I'm unsure about what to use to have a scaleable setup... AppleRAID, CoreStorage or just a simple partition mounted on /home?

It should be filevault compatible. I want all my drives encrypted and if possible future proof aka APFS!

Any advice is welcome.

 

[Fishrrman]

Let each drive "be its own drive".
There's nothing to "managing" two drives on the desktop. I keep at least SEVEN drives/partitions mounted on my desktop at all times.

I'm thinking that the original 128gb internal SSD may benchmark somewhat faster than the SATA 2.5".
You should check this yourself, of course.

IF the factory SSD benchmarks significantly faster that the 2.5", I'd do this:
- put the OS, apps, and basic accounts on the factory SSD
- leave "large libraries" (movies, music, pics) on the 2.5" SSD.
In doing so, I'd keep the factory SSD "lean and clean" for fastest operation.

BUT -- if there aren't significant speed differences between either SSD, I'd put "everything" on the 2.5" SSD.
I would also keep a bootable copy of the OS on the factory SSD, for a backup and emergency use.

There is NOTHING that can get you out of an "I can't boot!" situation faster and easier than by having a SECOND bootable copy of the OS close-at-hand.

 

[edco]

Hi Fishrrman,
I expect you are right and the original SSD (128G) will be faster than what I just bought. As I said, I know about Linux and LVM but I am not sure about MacOS. It seems CoreStorage is the equivalent of LVM in terms ov VG, LV, ... but I have a few questions for you.

1. Are you saying to mount the /Library on the slower SSD? I was going to simply install the / and mount the slower SSD to /Users. It's not a server so I wouldn't bother with /var/log, ...

2. How do I mount volumes at boot on MacOS? If I want /Users mounted at boot where do I configure it. I understand I should not be using /etc/fstab.

3. If CS is the same as LVM, would the following be correct.

128G SSD -> 1 partition (disk0s1) -> native volume
1T SSD -> no partition (disk1) -> CS volume (just in case I want to be a bit more dynamic like shrink it to 512G and use the other 512G for whatever.

Thanks for your help!