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guitarmann13

Logician
Hard drive upgrade suggestions

This post originally requested information regarding the purchase of a new Mac. After some research I am considering upgrading my hard drives instead.

My current system is a MacBook Pro 6.2 with a 2.4 Ghz i5 and a full 8 Gigs of memory running Mountain Lion. I have an internal 320 GB 5400 rpm hard drive with my applications on and a 2TB Iomega drive connected via FireWire 800 that I use for my project files. I work with mostly audio tracks, very few software instrument tracks, and my projects are in the 20 to 40 tracks range. I don't do any video at all.

I spoke with a sales rep at OWC yesterday and got some information regarding SSD drives and some recommendations as well. I would like to run them by you folks that have actually implemented these changes and hear how they worked for you.

The path we worked out involves:

Upgrading my system drive to 480GB OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G

Replacing my optical drive with a 1.0TB Samsung 840 EVO Series SSD 2.5" Serial-ATA 9.5mm 6Gb/s Solid State Drive

Using my existing Iomega drive for backups.

She recommended the 6G drives over the 3G in spite of my systems 3G limitations.

I have a couple questions for you guys.

If I were to do this in stages which single step would give me the biggest improvement in Logic Pro X? Upgrading the system drive or the project drive?

I can save some money if I go with a smaller system drive. How small would you consider going?

Would you expect this system to meet my needs for a few years?

TIA
 
Adding a faster system drive will make your system faster, make apps load faster, and maybe let you play a few more audio tracks.

It will not give you more CPU power for more instruments and effects.

If you want more power the money would be better used on a quad i7 machine.

😎
 
Thanks for the input. Currently the only real issues I am having are with Logic X stopping and giving me a "disc to slow" message. That's why I was thinking of upgrading the drive. I'm just not sure if the message is regarding my system drive or my data drive.

If I can't resolve the issue with a new drive then a new computer/processor is definitely the way I will go.

Thanks again.
 
Not sure it's a firewire 800 connection and the only speed reference I can find for it is the following from PCMag.

"It copied a 1.2GB file in 16 seconds in the Mac OS"

I could replace the optical drive with an SSD if the external is the real issue.
 
Thanks, that seems to just give me the speed of the firewire.

Maximum Speed: Up to 800 Mb/sec
Connection Speed: Up to 800 Mb/sec

I was thinking that the drive is faster than the connection so that the speed is limited to 800 Mb/sec even if the drive is faster than that.

Another question would be if my existing 5400 RPM system drive would be faster in the internal optical port than anything I could connect to the firewire port. My understanding is that connection is 3G.
 
I would put the 5400rpm drive in the external enclosure, and the faster drive/ drives in the laptop.

My MBP has a 750 GB Momentus hybrid drive for my system drive, and a 7200 rpm drive where the optical was.

You may have to go to the company site to find the exact specs of your external drive.

😎
 
gdoubleyou said:
I would put the 5400rpm drive in the external enclosure, and the faster drive/ drives in the laptop.

My MBP has a 750 GB Momentus hybrid drive for my system drive, and a 7200 rpm drive where the optical was.

You may have to go to the company site to find the exact specs of your external drive.

😎
Click to expand...

Thanks for the idea.
 
guitarmann13 said:
... existing 5400 RPM system drive ...
Click to expand...
System requirements for audio recording apps usually call for a 7200 rpm drive. Also, note that an external FW 800 connection has a practical upper end of about 55 Mbytes per second. That might seem low, but you can do a lot with it. I have a FW 800 connection from the Mac to a FW 800 drive which then connects to a FW 400 audio interface. Running 24 tracks from the disk to computer and then back out to the converter has never been a problem.
 
bayswater said:
System requirements for audio recording apps usually call for a 7200 rpm drive. Also, note that an external FW 800 connection has a practical upper end of about 55 Mbytes per second. That might seem low, but you can do a lot with it. I have a FW 800 connection from the Mac to a FW 800 drive which then connects to a FW 400 audio interface. Running 24 tracks from the disk to computer and then back out to the converter has never been a problem.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the information. Looks like if I continue to use my current system I may have to upgrade my internal drive.
 
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