I mentioned this in another thread, but I got the itch for more speed while I wait for the iMac refresh likely to be coming, so I got a 128GB Samsung SSD Drive and a USB 3.0/FireWire 800 external enclosure to try as a boot drive on my late 2009 Mac Mini. It arrived today and I zeroed it out (which I always do with new drives) and transferred my internal boot drive. I'm using 10.7.4, for anyone interested.
Yes, the enclosure has bad reviews, but if you read them you'll realize it's because the people reviewing them don't know what they are talking about and/or didn't do the proper research. I got that (rather expensive) enclosure because it is by far the cheapest I found with both USB 3 and FireWire 800, but there are issues I'll explain later, so read the end if that is something you plan on doing.
BTW, I got the desktop drive kit because at the time it was the same price as the bare drive and I thought the 3.5" bracket might come in handy some day.
I intended to connect with FireWire 800, which works when the drive is the only thing connected, but I have 5 other FireWire drives and once they were all connected (with the SSD first), it wouldn't boot from it. It saw the drive and let me select it during startup, but then it just sat there and the wheel spun on the screen. In the long run I plan to use USB 3.0 on a new iMac, so for now I am connecting it straight to a USB 2.0 port, so it doesn't have to share any bandwidth.
The boot time didn't improve by any drastic amount, going from 60 to 45 seconds, but the computer has to let several external drives spin up before starting. That wasn't where I expected or wanted an improvement anyway. Once it is running, even just using a rather slow USB 2.0 connection it is like a brand new computer. EVERYTHING is faster. I expected faster app loading, but I didn't expect them to run SO MUCH faster once they were going. A big surprise was that downloads (to the SSD) were 2-3 times faster, which I first noticed on a OS update.
Basic little things like loading and scrolling web pages, and especially printing, absolutely FLY! Even though I am hampered some by 4GB RAM. I can't wait to get this on a USB 3.0 equipped iMac with 20GB of RAM and a Quad Core processor.
I know that by using USB 2 I am limiting the drive to roughly 20% of its maximum bandwidth, but my understanding was that with how the Mac OS works, I'd still get an huge boost due to its virtually 0 access time. That has proven to be true.
I can't recommend this upgrade highly enough. Doing it this way may have some bandwidth limitations vs. an Apple internal, but it only cost $150 compared to Apple's $600 (?) price.
Yes, the enclosure has bad reviews, but if you read them you'll realize it's because the people reviewing them don't know what they are talking about and/or didn't do the proper research. I got that (rather expensive) enclosure because it is by far the cheapest I found with both USB 3 and FireWire 800, but there are issues I'll explain later, so read the end if that is something you plan on doing.
BTW, I got the desktop drive kit because at the time it was the same price as the bare drive and I thought the 3.5" bracket might come in handy some day.
I intended to connect with FireWire 800, which works when the drive is the only thing connected, but I have 5 other FireWire drives and once they were all connected (with the SSD first), it wouldn't boot from it. It saw the drive and let me select it during startup, but then it just sat there and the wheel spun on the screen. In the long run I plan to use USB 3.0 on a new iMac, so for now I am connecting it straight to a USB 2.0 port, so it doesn't have to share any bandwidth.
The boot time didn't improve by any drastic amount, going from 60 to 45 seconds, but the computer has to let several external drives spin up before starting. That wasn't where I expected or wanted an improvement anyway. Once it is running, even just using a rather slow USB 2.0 connection it is like a brand new computer. EVERYTHING is faster. I expected faster app loading, but I didn't expect them to run SO MUCH faster once they were going. A big surprise was that downloads (to the SSD) were 2-3 times faster, which I first noticed on a OS update.
Basic little things like loading and scrolling web pages, and especially printing, absolutely FLY! Even though I am hampered some by 4GB RAM. I can't wait to get this on a USB 3.0 equipped iMac with 20GB of RAM and a Quad Core processor.
I know that by using USB 2 I am limiting the drive to roughly 20% of its maximum bandwidth, but my understanding was that with how the Mac OS works, I'd still get an huge boost due to its virtually 0 access time. That has proven to be true.
I can't recommend this upgrade highly enough. Doing it this way may have some bandwidth limitations vs. an Apple internal, but it only cost $150 compared to Apple's $600 (?) price.
