Hybrid Vs SSD

[Sysman]

It's a compromise by design, but for instance in a MacMini or most laptops you can't physically fit two drives in.

I gather you can fit an extra SSD drive into a Mac mini but it's not straightforward; you need the right brackets and stuff.

I've read about a UK company who supplies the mounting kit and they will do the work for you if you ship your system to them.

[eek]

I've seen others sell that sort of thing - amazing there's room inside the case.

If doing a cold install of OSX isn't too awkward I might just do that... get the lowest-spec quad-core i7 model and then buy an SSD and 16Gb RAM.

I wonder though if you could even buy the cheapest £499 dual-core i5 and replace the CPU with an i7 for less. No idea if it's the same mainboard/chipset in both although you'd think in the interest of cost saving they would use the same parts in both.

I doubt you can upgrade the cpu as its a mobile part so probably soldered in.

Supposedly its not a difficult task will be able to tell you on the 14th after I've done it to the mac mini I just bought (brand new i5, £415 off the bay)...

[d000hg]

Is that the £499 basic model or a higher spec?

iFixit have guides IIRC but I'd always assumed a second drive was stuck in an external case and that put me off.

The only thing that's an issue is the GPU (Intel HD4000 I think) but this doesn't matter to me. Although it is one reason I am hoping for a product refresh to use Haswell and the HD5000 which are a big step up and quite capable really.

[Sysman]

I know someone who has done this. I think he got a new Mac mini delivered straight from Apple to the upgrade company and they delivered it to him once the work was done.

This looks like the company concerned. Pick the Mac mini section, if you already have one feed in the serial number, and off you go.

Mac Upgrades - Macintosh Upgrades in the UK

[sal]

Not quite.

How about that 2.5 GB of stuff in Xcode.app ? Do you really need all of it on the SSD portion?

Ditto with the stuff in /Library and ~/Library. Both can get quite large.

I regularly edit audio files of 1-2 GB. I'd be far happier not having to manually shunt them around to work on them and remembering to move them to slower storage when I've done.

And you know that the movement between the SSD/HDD parts of the hybrid is doesn't happen instantaneous. Working on said audio files for some time and them leaving them alone, will probably not qualify them for movement to the SSD portion. Even if it does you will have to endure the process of some old files being read from the SSD, then written to the HDD so your audio files can be read from the HDD and then written to the SSD. During all this your slowed down by the HDD. Not to mention that frequent re-writes are destroying the SSD.

In this scenario you are better off with getting some more RAM and keep the files in it while working instead of having to pray for the algorithm to predict your needs.

If you really need the speed you won't skimp £100 for the SSD. Hybrids are compromise in any aspect and only justified if you don't have the physical ability to put 2 separate disks (even then i would probably prefer the WD offering with 2 drives in the same chassis).

[d000hg]

And you know that the movement between the SSD/HDD parts of the hybrid is doesn't happen instantaneous. Working on said audio files for some time and them leaving them alone, will probably not qualify them for movement to the SSD portion. Even if it does you will have to endure the process of some old files being read from the SSD, then written to the HDD so your audio files can be read from the HDD and then written to the SSD. During all this your slowed down by the HDD.

That just sounds similar to JIT compilers - code is slow the first time it is run but is then cached as a compiled version.

Not to mention that frequent re-writes are destroying the SSD.

I think your information on SSDs is rather behind the times. Not using your SSD in case you wear it out is like leaving the lights turned on in your house 24/7 to avoid blowing the bulb when you turn them on. They're designed to be used this way and unless you use the same disk for a decade it's not likely to be an issue.

In this scenario you are better off with getting some more RAM and keep the files in it while working instead of having to pray for the algorithm to predict your needs.

If you think algorithms can only work based on prayer, I worry what kind of IT contractor you can be. This is not rocket science, they don't even need to be complicated algorithms.

When you consider data-centres rely 100% on algorithms and software to run efficiently, saying a disk can't optimise itself sensibly is crazy.

[Unix]

That just sounds similar to JIT compilers - code is slow the first time it is run but is then cached as a compiled version.I think your information on SSDs is rather behind the times. Not using your SSD in case you wear it out is like leaving the lights turned on in your house 24/7 to avoid blowing the bulb when you turn them on. They're designed to be used this way and unless you use the same disk for a decade it's not likely to be an issue.

If you think algorithms can only work based on prayer, I worry what kind of IT contractor you can be. This is not rocket science, they don't even need to be complicated algorithms.

When you consider data-centres rely 100% on algorithms and software to run efficiently, saying a disk can't optimise itself sensibly is crazy.

Although at the moment I prefer doing the partition myself I can see a time where storage will be a black box to the user. You will have RAM/SSD/HD/Cloud Storage and the algorithms will just handle everything, you just save a file and maybe tag it with metadata and not specify the location. It will be brought from the cloud first time you use it to HD then to SSD if it's used a lot and in RAM if used a hell of a lot (there you go algorithm pseudo code )

[d000hg]

I know someone who has done this. I think he got a new Mac mini delivered straight from Apple to the upgrade company and they delivered it to him once the work was done.

This looks like the company concerned. Pick the Mac mini section, if you already have one feed in the serial number, and off you go.

Mac Upgrades - Macintosh Upgrades in the UK

That looks kind of cool.

[eek]

Is that the £499 basic model or a higher spec?

iFixit have guides IIRC but I'd always assumed a second drive was stuck in an external case and that put me off.

The only thing that's an issue is the GPU (Intel HD4000 I think) but this doesn't matter to me. Although it is one reason I am hoping for a product refresh to use Haswell and the HD5000 which are a big step up and quite capable really.

The £499 model (its for the Jrs so doesn't need to be any better)..

I was hoping for the same spec jump before buying but as there was a mini refresh of the range in June I gave up and bought...

[Scrag Meister]

I would go for a smaller SSD for OS/Programs/source code etc (256GB) and larger IDE (1TB+) for bigger files you don't use often (videos/pic/porn/ISO/backup etc). This is my current setup and it works very well.

Can you still buy IDE drives?

I have 2 striped 128Gb SDDs for system and stuff I want NOW!!, a 600Gb 6Gbs SATA for slightly slower stuff and 2x 1Tb on 3Gbs SATA for other stuff that I don't mind being slower, built in 2011.

Also have a 4Tb Raid 6 NAS.