Upgrading whole HD to SSD? Expected performance improve?

[Citizen]

Even since I got Push 2, I've been kinda unhappy with the responsiveness, especially when browsing. Delays of about a second are not uncommon.

I maxed out my RAM on this machine, and this guy at the refurb/repair place said they can actually replace the whole HD (2TB) for a 2TB SSD.

Any idea if that is gonna result in noticeable improvements in performance – esp. re. loading Live sets faster, and Push responsiveness?



My current specs are 3.4GHZ Intel Core i7, 16GB RAM, running OSX 10.7.5

[McAnix]

I have almost the same specs as you except I have a 500 gig SSD and my 2012 MB feels brand new since my upgrade. Although I can't give you any measurable differences between having a HDD and a SSD it is definitely noticeable. My machine used to take forever to boot now it boots in 20 seconds sometimes. Live also used to take forever to open and now it's almost instant even with a big default set.

My suggestion is to go for a good quality SSD, like the samsungs, rather than a large SSD, I put my old HDD in an external drive caddy and I just moved all my stuff that I don't use often onto there to clear space.

[McAnix]

Oh and I also use a push2 and it plays great, don't feel the latency.

Cheers.

[Citizen]

THANK YOOOOOOU!

I think I'm gonna do it. Coming from Maschine, the laggy response of Push really bugged me, subsequently, I didn't use it as much.

My suggestion is to go for a good quality SSD, like the samsungs, rather than a large SSD, I put my old HDD in an external drive caddy and I just moved all my stuff that I don't use often onto there to clear space.

The brand name makes that much of a difference?

My (current) HD is 2TB – if I go for a smaller SSD (ie. 1TB or 500GB) , will I still get the same improvement?

[McAnix]

I can't tell you which SSD will perform better size wise, you would have to research that, but my 500gig SSD is brilliant. If you can afford a 2TB SSD then go for it I guess but it isn't really necessary. Like i suggested, put the stuff you don't use often onto your old SSD into an external caddy, you can even take out your optical drive and put your old HD into there and keep everything in your laptop.

If it was me I would rather pay more for a better brand than for size but you would also have to research this yourself, there are a ton of youtube videos on this topic. SSDs do perform differently as far as I know, I think Crucial is also a good brand to go far and a bit cheaper than the Samsungs.

[Citizen]

Cool – thanks for the advice. I'll check out some of those Youtube clips.

[Citizen]

One last quick question – when you switch over to SSD, does it mess with all your authorisations for all your VSTs etc?

Do you have to redirect your Live browser – or are all references to sample locations on your HD maintained?

[Pitch Black]

One last quick question – when you switch over to SSD, does it mess with all your authorisations for all your VSTs etc?

Do you have to redirect your Live browser – or are all references to sample locations on your HD maintained?

No, if you make a complete clone of your hd to the ssd using Carbon Copy Cloner or similar. I did this when I upgraded and not a thing went wrong.

[Citizen]

Awesome. Thanks for that.

And I gather that you are now lavishing in the delight of ultra-fast computing, yes?

[Pitch Black]

Waaay faster power-up of the MBP, and booting of apps. Overall improvements in everything.

[micksmuse]

by far one of the best upgrades i have ever done. the speed in loading is amazing compared to regular hard drive. don't even think about it (other than logistics of course) do it.

[Stromkraft]

Any idea if that is gonna result in noticeable improvements in performance – esp. re. loading Live sets faster, and Push responsiveness?

It will improve things considerably — think four times faster or more for everything that needs to be loaded, including data for graphics like menus — I'm not sure what you're doing running 10.7 though? Are you running it in 32bit kernel mode? If not, macOS 10.12 (not 10.13) is the best OS for Macs since 10.6 IMHO. Of course your may have older software, drivers that haven't been updated, and so on and you might have stayed on 10.7 for good reasons. I'm just sharing my joy of using 10.12. I even updated unsupported older Macs with it (no issues).

10.12 is also more lax with Trim than previous versions, making third party solutions unnecessary in most cases.

[Citizen]

Hey Stormkraft – my reason for staying on 10.7.5 is that I am still running a copy of Adobe CS5. (graphic design software suite)

If I upgrade the OSX, it will mean that I will have to switch to Adobe's subscription service, which is bollocks – since I'm only doing the occasional odd job at home here and there, so I can't justify the expenditure for a subscription.

I *might* look at upgrading the OSX on my iMac (the machine I'm contemplating changing to SSD), and perhaps switching the CS5 to an older macbook which I would just keep on hand for little design jobs. Would the improvements in OSX 10.12 be worth it?

[Stromkraft]

Hey Stormkraft – my reason for staying on 10.7.5 is that I am still running a copy of Adobe CS5. (graphic design software suite)

If I upgrade the OSX, it will mean that I will have to switch to Adobe's subscription service, which is bollocks – since I'm only doing the occasional odd job at home here and there, so I can't justify the expenditure for a subscription.

I *might* look at upgrading the OSX on my iMac (the machine I'm contemplating changing to SSD), and perhaps switching the CS5 to an older macbook which I would just keep on hand for little design jobs. Would the improvements in OSX 10.12 be worth it? :?:

I think so.