Tag: ssd
Time to get an SSD…
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…
How do I format a new Hard Drive to use with Time Machine?
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…
Adding an SSD to the new 2018 Mac Mini
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…
Adding Network Storage (NAS) to your Mac
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.
How to speed up your mac with a Solid State SSD Drive
How to upgrad the boot drive on your Macintosh to an SSD drive.
What’s the best SSD drive for a Mac and how do I install it?
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…
How I saved 30 GB of disk space in El Capitan
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…
How to format a thumb drive, hard disk or SSD drive.
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.
7 ways to make your Mac boot faster.
When your computer first turns on it needs to load the system software (OS-X) and some settings from the hard drive. This is called ‘booting’. Boot time can slow down over time as you accumulate more software and hardware connected to your computer. Here are some tips to make your Mac boot faster.
What is TRIM and do I need to turn it on in OS X?
Some SSD drives are crashing in Yosemite do to an issue with something called ‘TRIM’. Thankfully if you followed the method in my article entitled “How to speed up your mac with a Solid State SSD Drive” you will not have this problem. But if you have used an SSD that needs TRIM, read on to…