Restart the computer from the freshly minted SSD startup drive.
Perform a clean install of OS X Mountain Lion on the new SSD volume.I named it SSD to easily distinguish it from my traditional Mac’s spinning hard drive.
I just screwed the thin “drive” into the adapter bracket, opened my Mac Pro, and inserted it into one of the available drive bays.
Total price in October 2012 was $259 with shipping (it’s a bit less now). I opted for a 240GB Mercury Electra 3G SSD 2.5″ Serial-ATA Solid State Drive plus a AdaptaDrive 2.5″ to 3.5″ Drive Converter Bracket from Other World Computing. My calculations showed that I required no more than 120GB of space to contain the OS X System, Applications and Library folder items.
The new SSD would be my startup drive and contain only the operating system and my software applications. Since I couldn’t buy (or afford) a one-terabyte SSD replacement drive, I decided to keep my existing hard drive and dedicate it to my User Data (my Home directory) only. Of my startup hard drive’s one-terabyte capacity (1,000 GB), here was the rough usage breakdown: What minimum capacity did I need? How should I configure my files for maximum efficiency and performance?įirst I needed to analyze the my current setup. SSD downsides? Their storage capacities are on the low side and price/gigabyte costs are higher. Plus, SSD read/write specs are much faster than traditional spinning platter hard drives. What if I switched to a solid state drive to my system? SSDs have no moving parts and therefore no latency wait times. I had a theory that my Mac Pro’s performance bottlenecks were from excessive disk activity on the startup drive. I needed to do something but didn’t feel like replacing my computer just yet. Plus, there was the promised but non-specific 2013 Mac Pro redesign. The Mac Pro models Apple was selling were pretty expensive and didn’t provide me with the power boost I was seeking.
An additional factor was my very nice 30-inch Apple Cinema Display, which made the iMac alternative less attractive. I considered upgrading to a new computer and thought about whether to buy a new Mac Pro tower or possibly switch to a large-screen all-in-one iMac. Sometimes I encountered the “spinning beach ball” - 20, 40, 60 seconds or more - for reasons I could not predict nor understand! Needless to say, it was getting very frustrating. The reason? My theory is multiple upgrades to OS X and other software applications placed increasing demands on the aging hardware. My Mac Pro has been a real workhorse for me in my consulting and web design business.īut in 2012, I noticed that it was really slowing down. Over my next four years, I was able to increase its capabilities by upgrading its memory to 14 gigabytes and adding a larger hard drive for more storage capacity. When I bought my Mac Pro in early 2008, it was the fastest computer Apple had ever produced. As I impatiently waited for this hardware announcement, I discovered a way to boost my Mac Pro’s performance so I could continue using it productively. The current model has been around since 2006 and was in desperate need of a serious upgrade. Apple just announced a completely redesigned Mac Pro that will be available in the Fall of 2013.