Geez, Apple…5400rpm? Rants and questions.

[August West]

External ssd boot +1

[Robert M]

Ka jowct,

External boot drive all the way. Go for an NVME based model that connects via USB-C. USB 3.1 Gen 2 min. That way, it'll connect to a Thunderbolt 3 port on the machine. It'll cost about the same or a little more than a 2.5" based USB 3 that connects to the USB-A port and will provide superior performance.

I also wouldn't use the internal drive for Time Machine. Actually, I probably wouldn't use the internal drive at all. That's me. If I were to use the internal drive, it would only be for scratch purposes. Maybe throw a clone of the external boot drive onto the internal drive to use as an emergency last resort.

For Time Machine, you'll want a higher capacity platter drive that connects externally. It shouldbe 2 to 3 times the used capacity of the main boot drive. Easier just to buy it in terms of terabytes i.e. 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, etc.

Robert

[ka jowct]

Robert M wrote:
Ka jowct,

External boot drive all the way. Go for an NVME based model that connects via USB-C. USB 3.1 Gen 2 min. That way, it'll connect to a Thunderbolt 3 port on the machine. It'll cost about the same or a little more than a 2.5" based USB 3 that connects to the USB-A port and will provide superior performance.

I also wouldn't use the internal drive for Time Machine. Actually, I probably wouldn't use the internal drive at all. That's me. If I were to use the internal drive, it would only be for scratch purposes. Maybe throw a clone of the external boot drive onto the internal drive to use as an emergency last resort.

For Time Machine, you'll want a higher capacity platter drive that connects externally. It shouldbe 2 to 3 times the used capacity of the main boot drive. Easier just to buy it in terms of terabytes i.e. 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, etc.

Robert

She has a 1TB internal and a 3TB external. I took apart the Seagate external drive that had been rudely powered off by cat teeth, and put it into a decent OWC enclosure. About 500 GB of the internal drive appear to be used, but it may be less. Given how painfully bad the iMac’s performance is now, I think she’ll very happy with USB A and an SSD. She doesn’t do anything demanding with it.

[Robert M]

Ka Jowct,

I'd agree with you if there was a significant difference in savings but there isn't one. Given The difference in price between an SSD that maxes at 540MB/s or so vs one that maxes out at 1050MB/s or so is minimal. It makes little sense to go with a model that supports the slower speeds.

Robert

[mrlynn]

FWIW, when I upgraded from Sierra to High Sierra on my 2015 iMac, everything slowed down. Dunno why. Drive is a 2TB spinning drive, ¾ full.

I had my 2009 iMac open a couple of times, and actually replaced the internal drive myself. Still have the suction cups. But I'd be reluctant to try it on my 2015, as they went to a glued-on screen.

I do have an external RAID 1 drive, USB3, which really drags when accessing it.

/Mr Lynn

[Robert M]

MrLynn,

That's why I've gone external on all my desktop machines. Apple made it _way_ too much of a pain and nuisance to replace drives in them. And, nowadays, Apple has made it impossible with the M series machines. Definitely makes me miss the days when I could swap the internal drive of a machine in a matter of minutes.

Now, since the storage I use is all external, it's a matter of conencting extra drives or swapping drives. I've adapted my work flow to account for not having the drives all in the box. I'll keep using the same work flow as long as Apple allows me to do so. And, that's the key. It's less about how I want to work and more about what Apple allows as I move to newer machines.

Robert

[ka jowct]

mrlynn wrote:
FWIW, when I upgraded from Sierra to High Sierra on my 2015 iMac, everything slowed down. Dunno why. Drive is a 2TB spinning drive, ¾ full.

I had my 2009 iMac open a couple of times, and actually replaced the internal drive myself. Still have the suction cups. But I'd be reluctant to try it on my 2015, as they went to a glued-on screen.

I do have an external RAID 1 drive, USB3, which really drags when accessing it.

/Mr Lynn

Everything after Sierra seems optimized for SSDs. The High Sierra drive in my Mac Pro takes far longer to boot up fully than my Sierra or earlier drives, but runs fine once it has done whatever it does that takes so long. At some point, I will clone it to a SSD installed on a PCI card.