Nov 30

Time to get an SSD…

hardware No Comments »

If you don’t yet have an SSD in your Mac, it’s time to upgrade!

By far the biggest speed boost on a Mac comes with upgrading the Hard Disk to an SSD. A faster processor (i7 etc) will improve the speed of some tasks, more RAM can avoid a slowdown, but a faster SSD improves the speed of everything. If you still have an old Hard Disk I can’t say how strongly I suggest upgrading.

a faster SSD improves the speed of everything

I received an email today from Amazon telling me that 240GB SSD drives are AU$42.19. I just checked the US store and you can get a 1TB Crucial MX500 drive for $94.99. These prices are ridiculously cheap.

This article back in August 2018 is about how to upgrade to an SSD drive. But back then a 480GB drive was $1579.99!

If you are running a 2012 MacBook with an old SATA drive, or even a 2018 iMac without an SSD, grab one, and install it. It’s not complicated.

There are good instructions at macfixit.

How to pull apart an iMac

How to pull apart a macbook

How to pull apart a Mac mini

Check out your Mac first to see if the Hard disk is upgradable.

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Oct 13

How do I format a new Hard Drive to use with Time Machine?

backup 2 Comments »

Answer: Use Mac OS Extended.

Mac OS Extended, also known as HFS Plus or HFS+, is the file system that was used on all Macs from 1998 until the last couple of years. APFS is the new file system for OSX and it works well for an SSD drive. But you can’t backup to an APFS drive using Time Machine (even if the external drive is an SSD drive). It sounds a bit backwards I know but that’s the way Apple are doing it at the moment.

There’s a work-around: you can use a sparse image to create a DMG to back up to an APFS SSD drive, (see here). I would not recommend this because the Apple recovery mode will not be able to find your backup.

From Apple Support:

Important: You can back up from an HFS+ or APFS-formatted disk to an HFS+ disk; however, Time Machine can’t back up to an APFS-formatted disk. If you select a back up disk formatted as APFS, Time Machine offers to reformat it as HFS+.

[retrieved Oct 7 2020 from ‘https://support.apple.com/en-au/guide/mac-help/mh15139/mac’]

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May 05

Adding an SSD to the new 2018 Mac Mini

hardware 20 Comments »

The hard drives in the new 2018 Mac mini are PCIe which means they are very fast, but also expensive. Unlike previous models, you cannot upgrade the internal hard drive. It is soldered in. But thanks to the USB-C interface on the new Mac Mini, an external SSD drive is now a good option. I chose to buy the smaller (and cheaper) 250GB Mac Mini and supplement it with a 500GB external SSD drive.

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Dec 12

Adding Network Storage (NAS) to your Mac

hardware 2 Comments »
Network attached storage

This article is about how to get your large files off your main computer hard drive and onto some external network storage that is more reliable, longer-term, and doesn’t take up precious space on your laptop or desktop computer. Apple don’t make an external storage solution but I found Synology have some great devices.

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Aug 09

How to speed up your mac with a Solid State SSD Drive

hardware 270 Comments »

prod_merc-legacy-pro

This article was originally written in 2015 but it is still relevant.  I have just updated it given that SSD prices have dropped dramatically in the last 3 years. Upgrading the boot drive on my Mac Mini to an SSD drive was by far the biggest speed enhancement I’ve experienced on any computer! The speed increase is incredible – almost hard to believe. Boot time went from 60 seconds to under 30 seconds, and applications launch instantly – no bouncing dock icon. In terms of bang for dollar, upgrading to an SSD drive is by far the best upgrade you can do.

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Mar 08

What’s the best SSD drive for a Mac and how do I install it?

hardware No Comments »

prod_merc-legacy-pro

In 2015 I wrote this post about installing an SSD drive.  Back then SSD drives were expensive and the whole process I described was a bit complicated. Now SSD drives have dropped dramatically in price and you can just replace your existing drive with an SSD one.  I can’t think of any reason why you should not be using one. All MacBooks now come standard with an SSD drive.  If you have an older one that you’d like to upgrade you should be able to take your Macintosh computer to a local dealer and have them install an SSD drive. Otherwise you can have a go at installing one yourself.

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Nov 10

How I saved 30 GB of disk space in El Capitan

performance 7 Comments »

elcap

My MacBook Air is running a 120GB SSD drive so I don’t want my hard drive full of excess things I don’t need. I just noticed after El Capitan that I lost a lot of space. I only had 10GB free. To run well a mac hard disk needs at least 20% free.  Here’s how I freed up some more space.

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Mar 08

How to format a thumb drive, hard disk or SSD drive.

hardware No Comments »

util

You may not know that USB Thumbdrives come in different formats. This article explains why this matters and how to format a USB drive into the format that you want.

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