Ssd (flash), Internal/external Drives. Need Some Edukashun

I need a little advise and education:

I'm a little mystified about the new Flash drive configs for MacPros, etc. I currently have a 750gb HD in my MacBookPro. I've got about 550gb of stuff on it ... if I highlight "APPs" and click on info, it says I have 148 "items" (97 apps/38 folders, aliases) and uses 19gb. However, if I go to "About this Mac" and click on apps, it looks like there are about 300 (lots of "versions"); in any event, I don't think the apps are a problem in any event.

I also have two External HDs with about 300gb of stuff on them (we're talking about 12 yrs or so of "stuff").

I understand the 128gb and 256gb sizes for the flash drives (SSD, correct?) speed, good reasons, etc ... but my question is... if I "upgrade" to a new MacBookPro with considerably less capacity on it, do I move all that stuff that's on my current computer onto external HDs?

I know that sounds like a stupid question, but I do a lot of video editing and a 20 min film easily turns into a very large gb file. I'm working with iMovie 11 and it's not the friendliest when it comes to making copies and moving to the external. I've also read where some folks have issues with the new versions of iMovie ... so in an effort to ask the questions that I don't know in order to save time and aggravation:

Would I save that large gb file on an external now, and use the iMovie on the new computer?

Won't that be rather slow?

I know now that I have to leave enough space on the HD to edit the video, THEN move it to the external for storage and move it back to work on it ... otherwise I get lots of spinning (The MacBookPro I'm using is 6 years old as well).

And, if you want to leave iTunes music on the computer to take with you, or a presentation for example, do you move those back and forth as well? or just leave on the computer .... as long as you have about 40% of the 256gb free for the apps to use?

Let me know if I'm sort of following this ... or if I'm totally missing something. Thank you.

Here's something that you didn't mention:
If you get a new MBPro - you also have the option of 512 GB, or even 1 TB of flash storage.
That does cost extra - but if you need more internal storage, then get it.

Or, you can add Thunderbolt external storage, which in theory has very little speed penalty - and you would not likely notice any slowdown.

Thanks. I didn't mention budget. $1350 or so ... but I'll check it out.

DeltaMac said:

Here's something that you didn't mention:
If you get a new MBPro - you also have the option of 512 GB, or even 1 TB of flash storage.
That does cost extra - but if you need more internal storage, then get it.

Or, you can add Thunderbolt external storage, which in theory has very little speed penalty - and you would not likely notice any slowdown.

Click to expand...

So, sounds like the existing USB storage, though, will cause somewhat of a slowdown, correct?

I have a lot of experience with SSD in various forms and functions.

An SSD will give any older machine, the feeling of being new again. You will noticed drastic performance increases by replacing at 5400 RPM or 7200 RPM drive in a MacBookPro or even a desktop machine.

But, you need to look beyond the price because not all SSD is created equal.

The main issue with Consumer Grade SSD drives is they lose their speed over time. What was once a zippy SSD that will blow your mind away, doesn't lose it's speed because you simply get used to it, it will actually slow down. My first SSD was an Intel SSD and it did just that. At first, I thought it was just me, but then I started doing the research and got the tools to run tests and indeed, it had slowed down drastically. From this point on, I only bough OWC Enterprise level SSD's which don't lose their speed over time. They cost MORE because they actually store more data than they advertise, but that's how they maintain the speed on them.

For every day tasks, SSD is awesome. But where you need to be concerned and is important to this tread, is editing video files. Remember, the write speed on a SSD is much slower than the read speed. When your editing video files, your doing a lot of I/O and writing very large files. While they will open up zippily, they won't write so fast. Will it be faster than your 5400/7200 RPM drive in your computer? Perhaps it will, but having Enterprise level on such tasks would be very important choice.

One way to increase the WRITE speed of SSD to make it more usable in situations in which you write a lot of data, is to get two and put them in a RAID 0 configuration. This will double your write speeds and give you the bonus of double read speeds. But this really starts to get costly.

If you need an external drive solution, you can save lots of money by simply getting a bunch of normal drives and putting them into a RAID configuration and you will still double, triple, quad your speeds by how many drives you have. I'd get SSD and make that your main drive in your MacBookPro and run your apps from that, and go with a lower cost drive system using normal drives.

In a server and database environment, like this forum for example, writes a TON of data, but it also reads more. The database is actually on a RAID 0 SSD setup. But compared to a RAID 0 of 15,000 RPM SCSI drives, the performance is negligible and you get better write performance on those SCSI drives.

Last, but not least, when dealing with an external drive, you have to look at how your connecting it up. With Mac, I would also recommend Firewire for external drives for best performance, but Thunderbolt is the new recommendation for that avenue. If your MacBookPro is older and had Firewire, you can save money since Thunderbolt devices, last I checked, still carried a premium, although that may be changing.

If your going to RAID route, hardware RAID options (more costly) are always better than a Software RAID that you can easily setup with Disk Utility. But, either way, you will still have better performance.

As a general rule, if someone says, should I get SSD for my main OS/Boot drive? YES. Should I get it as an external drive solution, my answer is DEPENDS on your application.

Apple's Fusion Drive, which mixes the SSD and the mechanical drives is a great idea on marketing material, I have no used it myself to know if it's practical. But if it works as designed, then it maximizes the SSD while giving you the ample space considerations of old school drives.

Oh and you will almost ALWAYS save money by upgrade the SSD drive yourself from some place like OWC and you can buy the drive and performance level you want, vs what is stock from Apple. Which is probably a consumer grade, SSD.

No, not too slow - unless you have USB 2.0 storage devices.
Easy enough to fix that with cases that support USB 3.0

Your budget will be the limiting factor, so you may just get to be willing to accept the performance that you get, using external drives. Whatever flash storage you get will be a great improvement, assuming that you have a spinning hard drive in your present Mac. You should expect that a new Mac, using your existing externals, will end up being faster than a 2008-era model.
So - you can move on from there

Thanks to you both. I need to digest the info, Scott, as I have a few other questions. Not quite following DeltaMac with the comment, "assuming you have a spinning hard drive in your present Mac," unless you're asking whether it's already a Flashdrive. No, it's definitely a spinning HD.

Anyone with an older Mac (use FireWire 800,USB3 or better) get an external with a 7200 HHD and move your iTunes Library to the external.

The best way to move a modern iTunes Library has changed since 10.9. Here is the video. The video guy use a Snology NAS but it is the same for any external.

Satcomer said:

Anyone with an older Mac (use FireWire 800,USB3 or better) get an external with a 7200 HHD and move your iTunes Library to the external.

The best way to move a modern iTunes Library has changed since 10.9. Here is the video. The video guy use a Snology NAS but it is the same for any external.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip, but not really on topic. I guess what you are suggesting is that regardless of whether I go with a FLASH or HD to move the iTunes library?

TuckerdogAVL said:

Thanks for the tip, but not really on topic. I guess what you are suggesting is that regardless of whether I go with a FLASH or HD to move the iTunes library?

Click to expand...

Well it depends on two things. What are you using for the connection to the drive compared to the speed of drive itself. Plus are you going to be storing 4K raw videos then I say go Thunderbolt to Thunderbolt RAID 0 that uses Flash Drives. If anything else just use my previous suggested connections and 1080 will be good on a 7200 speed HHD.

IMHO with the large Music/Video collections in iTunes and moving to internal Flash you will have to move the iTunes Library to an external. The video I posted by using a NAS you will also have a viable backup to the iTunes Library.

Now if you want to go to SSD then find your model of MBP and install videos.