This article was originally written in 2015 but it is still relevant. I have just updated it given that SSD prices have dropped dramatically in the last 3 years. Upgrading the boot drive on my Mac Mini to an SSD drive was by far the biggest speed enhancement I’ve experienced on any computer! The speed increase is incredible – almost hard to believe. Boot time went from 60 seconds to under 30 seconds, and applications launch instantly – no bouncing dock icon. In terms of bang for dollar, upgrading to an SSD drive is by far the best upgrade you can do.
SSD drives can improve the performance of Mac Machine and offer a lightning speed loading time. The high-performance players in SSDs are the operating speed and resistance to impact and shock. Even though SSDs are bit expensive, the investment on SSD can pay back you in terms of speed. Once the SSD is bolted in then it fits the Mac hard drive caddy like any other standard 3.5 drive. One SATA or two? This is where it gets interesting, one SSD it would seem is not enough, and for this journey, I require a SATA SSD for my boot drive and a PCI-E Nvme SSD for my working drive. Solid state drives. For the best speed, capacity, and performance boost in your ideal workflow, whether it's for content creation, editing, or mission critical data storage, choose an OWC SSD. Rigorously lab tested, OWC SSDs deliver unwavering dependability and performance. So I've been thinking about putting one or two into my Mac Pro: I have a 2 1 TB RAID-1 for boot right now, but /Users is 760 GB of that-all that / really needs is about 90 GB. The other two drives in the Mac Pro are for scratch work. Putting the swap file onto a second SSD seems like a good idea.
SDD stands for ‘Solid State Drive.’ SSD drives are the same shape and size as a traditional drive. The difference is that an SSD drive uses RAM chips instead of a spinning hard disk to store information. This makes it much, much faster.
SSD drives are now reasonably cheap. I’d suggest you upgrade your entire hard drive to SSD.
1. Order an SSD.
There have been issues in the past with SSD drives and there have been some brands not working with OSX, so make sure you get a good one.
The first place I would recommend is macsales.com. I have one of their OWC Mercury SSD drives in 2 of my laptops. They have a screen where you choose your macintosh computer, and it tells you which SSD drive is compatible. Just click here and you will be asked what mac you have, follow the prompts. (I have signed up to be an affiliate of Macsales so I get a commission if you use these links.) Last check a 1TB drive was under $400. When I first wrote this article a 480G SSD drive was $1579.99!
The second place I would recommend is crucial.com. If you do get a Crucial SSD you can go for the MX or BX series. I’ve also got a Samsung EVO drive running in a 2012 Macbook pro and it’s running fine. Buy a new SSD not a second hand one. They do degrade over time.
2. Temporarily connect the new SSD Drive to your Mac.
For this you will need a cable to connect your SSD drive to your USB port. They are only about $20 and they look like this:
The external drive enclosures for normal hard disks should also work with an SSD.
Plug the SSD into the enclosure, and then into the Mac, and it should appear on the desktop as an ‘Untitled’ drive.
3. Format the SSD Drive using disk utility.
After your SDD drive is plugged in you’ll need to use Disk Utility to format it – Mac OS Extended (Journaled): Download samsung android driver for windows.
4. Copy everything onto the new boot drive.
Now you need to copy your entire drive onto your SSD drive. You can’t do this by hand – there are hidden files that need to be copied, so need to make what is called a ‘Clone.’ Apple’s built-in Disk Utility won’t do this so you will need an app like Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper.
Using Carbon Copy Cloner, select your boot drive as the target Disk and then select ‘Backup Everything’:
Click ‘Clone’ and your boot disk will be created on the SSD disk.
The other option is to use Super Duper. There’s a free version that will enable to clone your drive. Select ‘Backup -all files’ to make a clone.
Making a clone of you drive can take a long time – hours – so take a break!
5. Reboot from the new SSD boot drive.
https://magnetrenew427.weebly.com/free-graphic-design-software-for-mac.html. Under System Preferences click Startup Drive select the SSD Drive, then restart! (wow – notice how fast it is!)
6. Swap the internal Hard disk for the SSD drive.
Now that it’s working it’s time to get rid of your old hard drive and physically replace it with the working SSD.
The difficulty of this varies according to what kind of a Macintosh computer you have. I’d check out ifixit.com for the best instructions according to your mac model.
Mac Pro
Difficulty: easy – 30 seconds.
Goldwave for macintosh. For a mac pro it simply connects into the spare optical bay slot – no adapters needed, a 30 second operation – see how here. I just sat the SSD drive in and added a bit of gaffe tape but there are some great adapters out there eg Angelbird SSD Adapter
Macbook
Difficulty: moderate – 1 hour.
For a Macbook or Macbook Pro can replace the internal optical drive with your old Hard Drive or order a large SSD drive and replace your old hard drive with it. You can find instructions here.
Mac Mini
Difficulty: hard – 1/2 hr.
For a new aluminium mac mini you will need to replace one of the internal drives. This involves pulling out the fan and motherboard to get the new SSD drive in. You can get the old hard disk out without pulling out the motherboard but the SSD drives are actually ever so slightly thicker and more uniform in shape so the motherboard needs to come out to manoeuvre the SSD drive in place. There’s easy to follow instructions here at mac fixit.
iMac
Difficulty: hard – 1/2 hr.
It’s quite complex to pull the iMac apart and you need a vacuum clamp to pull the glass screen off. This is easier than it sounds, but you still need to but the suction caps to do it. It requires some mechanical skill. There are good instructions here and crucial have their own guide here.
So how fast is it? Here’s a demo of how quickly applications launch from my new SSD drive…
7. Check if you need to Enable TRIM.
Some Hard Drives do not come with TRIM support and so you need to download this TRIM Enabler app and run it. This will enable OS X built in TRIM support which keeps your SSD drive lean and clean.
The SSD I recommend above (Crucial M4) does not need TRIM support (read this article for more information). You can turn it on anyway no problems. The OWC Mercury SSD drives do not need TRIM enabled either.
STOP PRESS: There are new reports that TRIM enabler does not work with Yosemite. Read this article for more information.
8. Time Machine
If you already have a Time Machine backup, when you change Hard Drives it starts all over again and won’t recognise the old Time Machine backup. Read this post for info on how to get around this. Also here is another very good article on this.
I also just found this GREAT article on keeping Time Machine working when you change the Hard Drive.
If you don’t have a Time Machine backup now is a great time to start! You can use your old Internal Drive as a backup drive.
Related posts:What is TRIM and do I need to turn it on in OS X?What’s the best SSD drive for a Mac and how do I install it?The best place to buy RAM for your macbook or imac.How to use 2 monitors on your mac7 ways to make your Mac boot faster.« Older CommentsStevesays:February 25, 2019 at 4:02 pm
I am using a Seagate 250GB USB 3.0 as the boot drive (Mojave) on my 2014 Mac Mini. Seriously fast boot-up and excellent system responsiveness compared to the 1TB internal hard drive. No need to pull the Mac apart to upgrade the boot drive (just leave the internal spinning disk in place as your data drive, it works fine as an APFS volume, provided its not the system disk).
Installing an internal SSD may give you optimal performance but using an external USB boot SSD still gives a much more responsive system than the old hard drive, for minimal upgrade difficulty and minimal cost.
(I don’t have any trim issues either).
ReplyWaynesays:February 28, 2019 at 12:20 pm
Yes now that they have fast External SSD drives with thunderbolt/USB-C this is certainly a great option.
ReplyS Bartruffsays:April 15, 2019 at 11:39 am
Help….I have established the SSD as the start-up drive (Mac Mini 2012) and it works effectively (much faster).
However, during the night the Mac reboots and establishes the Mac HD as the default start-up….How do I remedy this issue?
ReplyBartruff Stuartsays:April 30, 2019 at 8:21 am
I may have solved the reboot problem by not allowing the Mac mini to transition to a sleep mode Code blocks for mac.
ReplyStuart Bartruffsays:April 16, 2019 at 4:08 am
Follow-up to my prior comment. The MAC rebooted again to default the MAC HD as the start-up. I received the following error message: The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer.
ReplyBobsays:May 30, 2019 at 6:46 am
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I did this with my wifes’ old 21′ Imac…those horrible ones that come with the built in memory. We were going to replace it , but this solution made it work like a new machine…much faster overall. I used a 256 Samsung T5, erxactly as described here.
Replynmetrosays:June 28, 2019 at 3:26 pm
I bought a SanDisk Extreme Portable 1TB SSD dirve at Amazon.
I plugged it into my USB 3.0 port on an iMac late 2014 4k system, with soldered 8 GB memory.
I went through the formatting process with Disk Utility. Making sure that GUID was set.
I downloaded Carbon Copy, and ran it clicking on Trial. Gantt chart software for mac. I then closed the disks (it took about 40 minutes for 6 GB)
I rebooted, when it was done, held down the Option key and selected the new disk. https://goodiwant.weebly.com/fallout-3-on-mac-download.html.
I was up in under a minute. I tried a few things and they run much, much faster.
The SSD disk, I purchased, supports USB 3.1 and USB-C. It is also very tiny, light, and it wrapped in rubber to protect it. It is so small it can be attached, by Velcro, to the back of the monitor stand. I wasn’t that comfortable trying to take apart an iMac just to replace the disk.
I do not use my iMac for heavy duty gaming, and the like, but I feel like that I have a new computer.
So these instructions, at least in my situation.
Reply« Older Comments
Leave a ReplyApple Compatible Solid-State Drive UpgradesInternal or external, there's a great range of SSD upgrades you can perform on your Macintosh desktop or MacBook laptop to bring it up-to-speed with high-performance storage.Mac Compatible SATA SSD'sFor upgrading many legacy Mac's and MacBooks, a very affordable off-the-shelf 2.5' laptop-size 6Gbps SATA III SSD is the right choice. When used with a 2.5' to 3.5' drive adapter, sled, or tray it's also the right choice for older Mac Pro towers and iMac computers which used full-size 3.5 inch drives. They're also ideal for building a DIY SSD Macintosh backup drive with a low-cost USB enclosure.Delivers Peak Read / Write SSD Performance Mac Compatible NVMe PCIe SSD BladesFor Apple users with modern Thunderbolt 3 equipped Macs, you can build your own SSD backup drive using ultra-fast NVMe PCIe SSD modules and either a very affordable 10Gbps USB 3.1 enclosure or a much costlier 40Gbps Thunderbolt 3 drive case designed to hold M.2 form-factor solid-state modules. We reccomend the Western Digital Black or a Crucial P1 Series SSD blade.Enclosure For M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD Blades MacBook Compatible SSD'sFrom the original white MacBooks and early MacBook Pro's through around 2012, a standard 2.5' SATA SSD was generally an easy upgrade. As with other Mac's, modules supplanted standard drive form factors, first with custom M.2 SATA and then as of 2014, custom pinout PCIe NVME SSD modules. Adapters are available to convert a standard M.2 SSD blade to Apple's custom pinouts.May Be SATA or PCIe Modules Depending On Model The compatible MacBook Air SDD timeline is most complex. As the 1st Macs to feature solid-state storage, it has transitioned from 1.8' ATA-IDE to 1.8' SATA I, then II, then III, then onto custom-pinout M.2 SATA modules, to the more recent M.2 PCIe modules. iMac Compatible SSD'sWhite Plastic iMac's - both G5 and Intel used 3.5' SATA interface drives. Thick bodied Aluminum iMac's used full-size SATA drives as well. However with the ultra-Slim Aluminum iMac, Apple moved towards 2.5' laptop size SATA hard drives with (optionally) a custom SATA SSD module. We recommend complete iMac drive upgrade kits specific to your model with the proper tools and other things needed to complete the drive swap.Complete SSD Drive Swap Kits Apple Ssd DriveMac mini Compatible SSD'sFor Intel CPU based Mac minis, a 2.5 inch SATA SSD is the right choice, for older G4 Mac mini's you want an IDE-ATA interface 2.5' laptop size drive for upgrading.Mac Pro Compatible SSD'sThe Mac Pro cylinder models use a custom pinout PCIe SSD module. There aren't many aftermarket Apple compatible SSD upgrade options. OWC/MacSales is your best bet, followed by MCE which supplies larger, factory original Apple PCIe modules in larger capacities than your Mac Pro came with.The Aluminum Mac Pro Towers offer two solid-state drive upgrade options. One is to use a readily available drive tray/adapter to convert an off the shelf SATA SSD to 3.5' drive bay. Another option is the use of a PCIe SSD card in one of the slots which can typicially support either 1 or 2 2.5' SATA SSD drives, or more recent ones that support M.2 SATA or even PCIe SSD modules. Mac Compatible ATA-IDE SSD'sEven for much older G3 and G4 Macintosh models there are a few 2.5' IDE solid-state drives that can be a drop-in replacement for Mac Mini and iBooks. With an adapter, some can be retrofitted to tuck an IDE SSD into an iMac or other full-size Macintosh 3.5' drive bay common at the time.For G4 Era iBook MacBook Mac Minis SSD's And Apple CompatibilityRegardless of it's form factor, an SSD drive or module is a platform agnostic device. When formatted for the proper operating system, be it MacOS, Windows, Linux or other OS, it will perform as optimally as it can. Apple owners will most likely need to reformat a new SSD to the proper GUID or Extended formatting and partitioning depending on your Mac model and version of OSX.Ssd Drive For Mac Pro 2013Top Mac Compatible Internal SSD ManufacturersSsd Drives For Mac Pro 2013Notable companies who make Apple compatible internal SSD blades, modules and drives start with Samsung as the performance leader of the pack. Other venerable solid-state flash memory brands of note include Toshiba / OCZ, SanDisk, AData, Silicon Power, Transcend International, WD-Western Digital and Patriot.Ssd Drive For Macbook Air 2013Ssd Drive For Macbook Air Early 2015Mac Compatible External SSD Drive CompaniesFor off-the-shelf Apple friendly SSD data backup drives, look to brands such as Akitio, LaCie, Western Digital, OWC, CalDigit and others offering ultra-high performance flash memory based data storage hardware for Macintosh computers.Comments are closed.
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