How best to make a SSD and HDD hybrid?

[sentur]

I've got a new 500GB SDD drive and a 1.5TB SATA HDD. And wondering for recommendations on the best way to use both drives together for maximum performance.

Prior to upgrade I have a 128gb SSD and 1.5TB SATA HDD. I had the OS and /Applications folder on the SSD and all of my /Users/ and other big file locations on the SATA HDD. This worked well but I did notice the occasional lag, presumably because apps where loading preferences files from ~/Library which resided on the slower SATA HDD.

I work as a designer and so have a lot of large files in my ~/ folder and ideally wouldn't want to start changing the way I file things or the automated backup scripts I have in places.

I was planning on using the SSD for /Applications and /Users. Then making a copy of the directory structure of ~/ onto the SATA HDD and then having all of my big files on here. Then sysmlinking the folders on the SSD to the SATA. So something like this.

/Volumes/SSD/Users/Person1/Pictures -> /Volumes/SATA/Users/Person1/Pictures

Is there a better method out there or any pitfalls I could run into with this method?

 

[Going Bald]

I've got a new 500GB SDD drive and a 1.5TB SATA HDD. And wondering for recommendations on the best way to use both drives together for maximum performance.

Prior to upgrade I have a 128gb SSD and 1.5TB SATA HDD. I had the OS and /Applications folder on the SSD and all of my /Users/ and other big file locations on the SATA HDD. This worked well but I did notice the occasional lag, presumably because apps where loading preferences files from ~/Library which resided on the slower SATA HDD.

I work as a designer and so have a lot of large files in my ~/ folder and ideally wouldn't want to start changing the way I file things or the automated backup scripts I have in places.

I was planning on using the SSD for /Applications and /Users. Then making a copy of the directory structure of ~/ onto the SATA HDD and then having all of my big files on here. Then sysmlinking the folders on the SSD to the SATA. So something like this.

/Volumes/SSD/Users/Person1/Pictures -> /Volumes/SATA/Users/Person1/Pictures

Is there a better method out there or any pitfalls I could run into with this method?

I would keep the 128GB SSD as the boot drive, move Users and apps to the new 500GB SSD and use the 1.5 TB drive for file storage only.

 

[sentur]

I would keep the 128GB SSD as the boot drive, move Users and apps to the new 500GB SSD and use the 1.5 TB drive for file storage only.

Apologies I forgot to mention that the old 128gb SSD is getting moved to another computer in need of an upgrade.

 

[macnb]

Is there a better method out there or any pitfalls I could run into with this method?

You could always setup a FUSION drive that's a virtual drive made up your SSD+HDD. There's a guide on this site. With a fusion drive, you would not have to worry about tracking which files are where as the OS optimises their location between the SSD and the HDD.

 

[sentur]

You could always setup a FUSION drive that's a virtual drive made up your SSD+HDD. There's a guide on this site. With a fusion drive, you would not have to worry about tracking which files are where as the OS optimises their location between the SSD and the HDD.

Thank you.

In case it helps anyone else, I installed the new SSD. Cloned the old SSD drive to the new one via CC Cloner. I then copied everything from my old $HOME (/Volume/Data/Users/User1/) to the new $HOME dir (/Volumes/Macintosh HD/Users/User1/). I then repointed my $HOME dir to the SSD drive and sysmlinked the big file hogging directories back to the SATA HDD (ie, ~/Pictures ~/Music ~/Documents ~/Movies).

Everything seems to work fine, although at first a couple of apps broken. Presumably because of preferences files in ~/Library had absolute paths instead of relative ones. So it's not a totally seamless process.