Gonna try running a Firewire 800 SSD as my iMac boot drive

[Eug]

This may be an interesting experiment. I'm getting sick of waiting around for my platter drive to churn through files on my 2010 iMac. It has a 7200 3.5" drive, but I don't want to try to swap in an SSD because it's a real PITA to do so. I don't want to remove the optical drive either to put an SSD there, and also, it's a PITA to get at that too.

My machine has no Thunderbolt, nor does it have USB 3. It does have Firewire 800 though. The SSD will be seriously limited in that enclosure by Firewire (Oxford 944), but at least the low latency should be relatively maintained, good for random read/writes, and the sequential speeds shouldn't be that much slower than a platter drive, at around 85 MB/s.

I ordered a 500 GB Samsung 850 EVO, plus an OWC Firewire 800 / USB 3 Mercury Elite Pro mini enclosure.

Not sure how well this will work, but it won't hurt to give it a shot. If it doesn't work well, then I'll just repurpose that drive for another desktop. If it does work well, then great, it will save me from having to upgrade this Core i7 iMac for a while.

FW 800 can bus power it, but I'm not sure if I just leave it plugged into an AC adapter all the time or not just in case. I would if it was USB 2 power, but FW 800 power is much more.

 

[Essence_of_War]

I'd just plug it into AC power and use the switch when/if you turn your imac off.

Interested to here how this goes for you!

 

[cronos]

This should work fine (I'm also wondering about the power issue), but if I were you I'd go grab a pair of suction cups and a set of torx screwdriver and follow iFixit guide to replace the HDD with an SSD. It's quite a bit of pain, but it's going to be so satisfying when you're done.

 

[Eug]

Actually, I'm considering the take apart for an old iMac Core Duo. Why? Because it's ancient, I got it for free, and because I'd swap the CPU at the same time to a Core 2 Duo. And after a firmware update increase the RAM and install a later version of the OS on it.

But it still seems like way too much of a hassle.

 

[Rakehellion]

Just buy a SSD. Firewire 800 is barely faster than a regular harddrive, assuming you reach the theoretical maximum speeds.

 

[Eug]

Maximum speeds are not really as relevant. What's most important is latency, for small files.

 

[Eug]

Both the drive and the enclosure are with the shipper now. Yay!

Here are my Xbench Disk results of my 27" 2.93 GHz iMac Core i7 870 with 2 TB Hitachi HDS722020ALA330 in OS X 10.10.5:

Results	63.34	
	System Info		
		Xbench Version		1.3
		System Version		10.10.5 (14F27)
		Physical RAM		12288 MB
		Model		iMac11,3
		Drive Type		Hitachi HDS722020ALA330
	Disk Test	63.34	
		Sequential	135.31	
			Uncached Write	233.56	143.41 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Write	202.27	114.44 MB/sec [256K blocks]
			Uncached Read	64.19	18.79 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Read	210.15	105.62 MB/sec [256K blocks]
		Random	41.35	
			Uncached Write	13.89	1.47 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Write	135.39	43.34 MB/sec [256K blocks]
			Uncached Read	100.08	0.71 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Read	135.99	25.23 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Note the horrible random 4K read/write speeds. This is the better of two runs, yet it is still only 0.7 and 1.5 MB/s.

And here is my 13" 2.26 GHz Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro with 120 GB Samsung 840 in OS X 10.10.5:

Results	166.99	
	System Info		
		Xbench Version		1.3
		System Version		10.10.5 (14F27)
		Physical RAM		4096 MB
		Model		MacBookPro5,5
		Drive Type		Samsung SSD 840 Series
	Disk Test	166.99	
		Sequential	113.68	
			Uncached Write	81.57	50.08 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Write	73.10	41.36 MB/sec [256K blocks]
			Uncached Read	178.09	52.12 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Read	275.28	138.35 MB/sec [256K blocks]
		Random	314.51	
			Uncached Write	1290.60	136.63 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Write	97.57	31.24 MB/sec [256K blocks]
			Uncached Read	1354.23	9.60 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Read	1046.24	194.14 MB/sec [256K blocks]

 

[Eug]

Found this article at Storage Review, of an older model of a similar FW800 enclosure, although that enclosure is built to accept the older Apple form factor SSDs:

http://www.storagereview.com/owc_mercury_elite_pro_mini_review

Using CrystalDiskMark we were able to quickly saturate the FW-800 interface, getting sequential speeds of 89MB/s read and 80MB/s write. Random 512K transfers topped at 86MB/s read and 78MB/s write, while even smaller 4K random transfers peaked at 12.06MB/s read and 22.82MB/s write. The eSATA interface proved to be much faster with more available bandwidth with a connection speed of 3Gb/s. In this setup sequential transfer speeds topped at 196.3MB/s read and 196MB/s write. 512K random speeds measured 194MB/s read and 143.2MB/s read while smaller 4K random transfers were 19.12MB/s read and 35.47MB/s write.


I also found this old review which compares a RAID 0 dual Samsung 470 SSD via FW800 (ie. the SSDx2 RAID version of the enclosure I bought) vs. the internal iMac's Seagate drive:

http://forums.macrumors.com/threads...ual-mini-review-photos.1180415/#post-12866490

It looks like I should expect to see sequential speeds of 70+ MB/s, and more importantly, random 4K speeds of 10+ MB/s.

 

[redheeler]

@Eug, when you get the drive and enclosure, do tell how the real-world Yosemite performance compares to the original Seagate HDD. This does seem easier than replacing the HDD internally, although I am still inclined to do so mainly because of the noise and heat it produces.

 

[Eug]

@Eug, how is real-world Yosemite performance compared to the original Seagate HDD? This does seem easier than replacing the HDD internally.

If I understand you correctly, you're asking how much the benefit going to SSD would be on Yosemite with my Hitachi drive, vs. the benefit on whatever that other guy was running on his Seagate.

Obviously I'm just guessing, but here goes...

He was probably running 10.6 Snow Leopard at the time, since 10.7 Lion came out after that message was posted.

If that's the case, I'm thinking Yosemite's benefit might be even bigger. IIRC Yosemite is slower to launch than Snow Leopard, and furthermore, when I wake up Yosemite, I'm often waiting 10 seconds before I can type in my password and get onto the desktop. I don't remember it being that long on Snow Leopard. (My iMac 2010 shipped with Snow Leopard.)

 

[Eug]

Got the drive, not the enclosure. I do have a USB 3.0 SATA adapter though so I did some limited testing.

On my Windows machine with USB 3, I was getting about 115 MB/s sequential speeds. For 4K reads it was about 20 MB/s, and 4K writes were 32-37 MB/s.

On my iMac with the same USB 3 adapter, I have to use USB 2 since the iMac has no USB 3. The sequential speeds maxed out at about 29 MB/s in Xbench. Many closer to 24 MB/s. For 4K reads and writes I'm getting around 7-8 MB/s.

I'm not sure the CrystalDiskMark and Xbench scores are directly comparable, but assuming they are, that's a humungous difference. The sequential speed limitation is to be expected on USB 2, but then there is the limitation on random speeds as well. USB 2 can up to about 30 MB/s so I guess the reason it maxes out at 8 MB/s for 4K read/writes may be because of the significantly increased latency when using USB 2.

In real world usage it works fine as a boot drive over USB 2, but boot times and application launch times are only mild to moderately shorter than with the 7200 rpm platter drive. OTOH, wake from sleep is noticeably faster than the platter drive. I guess for booting we're loading much more data. Wake from sleep requires much less data transfer. But this is with 8 MB/s 4K speeds and 25 MB/s sequential. I'm thinking I will be able to hit 70+ MB/s and 10+ MB/s with Firewire 800, and thus I should see moderately better gains in perceived performance, esp. with boot times and application launches.

 

[Eug]

Both the drive and the enclosure are with the shipper now. Yay!

Here are my Xbench Disk results of my 27" 2.93 GHz iMac Core i7 870 with 2 TB Hitachi HDS722020ALA330 in OS X 10.10.5:

Results	63.34	
	System Info		
		Xbench Version		1.3
		System Version		10.10.5 (14F27)
		Physical RAM		12288 MB
		Model		iMac11,3
		Drive Type		Hitachi HDS722020ALA330
	Disk Test	63.34	
		Sequential	135.31	
			Uncached Write	233.56	143.41 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Write	202.27	114.44 MB/sec [256K blocks]
			Uncached Read	64.19	18.79 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Read	210.15	105.62 MB/sec [256K blocks]
		Random	41.35	
			Uncached Write	13.89	1.47 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Write	135.39	43.34 MB/sec [256K blocks]
			Uncached Read	100.08	0.71 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Read	135.99	25.23 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Note the horrible random 4K read/write speeds. This is the better of two runs, yet it is still only 0.7 and 1.5 MB/s.

And here is my 13" 2.26 GHz Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro with 120 GB Samsung 840 in OS X 10.10.5:

Results	166.99	
	System Info		
		Xbench Version		1.3
		System Version		10.10.5 (14F27)
		Physical RAM		4096 MB
		Model		MacBookPro5,5
		Drive Type		Samsung SSD 840 Series
	Disk Test	166.99	
		Sequential	113.68	
			Uncached Write	81.57	50.08 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Write	73.10	41.36 MB/sec [256K blocks]
			Uncached Read	178.09	52.12 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Read	275.28	138.35 MB/sec [256K blocks]
		Random	314.51	
			Uncached Write	1290.60	136.63 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Write	97.57	31.24 MB/sec [256K blocks]
			Uncached Read	1354.23	9.60 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Read	1046.24	194.14 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Sweet! Got the drive installed into the FW800 enclosure and the results are quite good. This is running off Firewire power only.

Results	172.03	
	System Info		
		Xbench Version		1.3
		System Version		10.10.5 (14F27)
		Physical RAM		12288 MB
		Model		iMac11,3
		Drive Type		External RAID
	Disk Test	172.03	
		Sequential	109.86	
			Uncached Write	157.17	96.50 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Write	132.03	74.70 MB/sec [256K blocks]
			Uncached Read	62.09	18.17 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Read	157.06	78.94 MB/sec [256K blocks]
		Random	396.26	
			Uncached Write	304.72	32.26 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Write	249.47	79.87 MB/sec [256K blocks]
			Uncached Read	2477.99	17.56 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Read	416.54	77.29 MB/sec [256K blocks]

In real life, booting is faster than the platter drive, but not as fast as my MacBook Pro which has an internal SATA SSD. The MBP has a much slower SSD, but isn't limited too much for sequential speeds by the SATA interface. The FW 800 drive is also noticeably faster than booting off a USB 2 SSD. As mentioned in my last post, suffered over USB 2 suffered hugely for sequential speeds, but also suffered significantly for random speeds. In contrast, I'm getting way faster random 4K read speeds over FW800 with the Samsung 850 EVO than I get with an internal SATA drive on the MBP with a Kingston V+100.

After selecting the Firewire drive as the boot disk in the System Preferences, it works just fine each time for booting (but I have only tried it a few times). This is all off FireWire power, which should be sufficient since Apple specifies at least 7 Watts per port.

For actual usage after booting, the FW 800 SSD does well too. Noticeably faster than both the internal platter drive and the USB 2 SSD. Wake from sleep is very quick too. It also happens to be much better than trying to use an SSD installed in a MBP and then turning the MBP into target mode. For some reason performance isn't so great like that.

This is exactly what I was hoping for. Quite decent performance and a big improvement overall compared to the internal HD.

At some point I'll likely upgrade, but now I am not in any rush to upgrade, and the thought of installing an internal SSD is no longer on my mind.

The only problem is if I want to use my SanDisk FW 800 CompactFlash reader, I'd have to pull out my FW 800 hub. Probably better off just using a USB 2 flash reader. I do note when I was running the drive off USB 2, when I tried to sync photos from my iPhone via USB 2, it took FOREVER. I guess the interface just couldn't deal with the high bandwidth file transfers happening in two directions at the same time.

---

Conclusion: Those of you with an older iMac with only FW800 and USB2, and who are scared of cracking the case, you can most definitely speed up the machine with a FW800 SSD. It's not like a modern machine, but nonetheless it will be a big improvement overall, and enough for many people to delay a new purchase for several years.

 

[Eug]

 

[Tegeril]

Nice findings SSD power draw is quite low so you definitely shouldn't need to concern yourself with anything but bus power.

Bonus: Amusingly looks like you're running a huge screen from a tiny little computer next to/under it

 

[Eug]

Nice findings SSD power draw is quite low so you definitely shouldn't need to concern yourself with anything but bus power.

One of the reasons I bought the 500 GB 850 EVO besides the cost is the power consumption. My 840 120 GB uses more power:

Samsung 840 240 GB:

Samsung 850 EVO 500 GB:

However, Samsung says the "system level" max power usage of the 500 GB 850 EVO is average 3.5 Watts and maximum 4.7 Watts:

http://www.samsung.com/global/busin...SSD/global/html/ssd850evo/specifications.html

With the enclosure, that's still likely fine on Firewire bus power, but that's pushing it on USB 3.0 bus power, although it would be fine with AnandTech's measurements. However, the Samsung 840 would not be reliable on USB 2 bus power.

Firewire bus power = 7 Watts
USB 3 bus power = 4.5 Watts
USB 2 bus power = 2.5 Watts

That's also why I made sure to buy an enclosure with a DC input. I have a couple of USB 2 and USB 3 enclosures that are flaky with drives on USB 2 ports and I think it's purely because of power issues. Similarly, my bus powered USB 2 optical drive is unreliable on USB 2 power (even with power from 2 USB ports). Interestingly, it's also unreliable with a cheap 1A USB charger, but works fine with an Apple iPhone 1A USB charger.

Bonus: Amusingly looks like you're running a huge screen from a tiny little computer next to/under it

Heh.

 

[KeithP]

This great information, thank you. I know some people with older iMacs and I don't think I would have recommended a set up like yours before. However, it does seem like a viable alternative.

:thumbsup:

-KeithP

 

[Claudius-07]

This is brilliant thank you. One question: Was it hard to transfer the OS to the SSD and all the settings? Sorry I have my wife's imac which I was about to try the "surgery" and replace the HD with an SSD. But this firewire deal looks better. My only thing is that I have no idea how to transfer her OS with all her files, and apps which many she has bought, over to the new SSD. It's actually why I have stalled in this, well this and the fact I have to open up her iMac LOL. I am a windows guy so I am equating reinstalling Windows to this.

 

[Eug]

SuperDuper! will do it, and it's free for home use for stuff like this.

http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html

Or you can just use Disk Utility but that doesn't work if the target drive is smaller than the current drive, and you need another machine to do since Disk Utility no longer allows you to copy the boot drive.

Be aware that an internal SSD is definitely faster, so don't expect that kind of speed, but it should be a noticeable improvement vs. internal HDD.

After using this setup some more I'm convinced that the usual statement by some that only random reads are really important for general OS use is simply not correct. Speeding up random reads with an SSD is a hugely important factor, but sequential speeds are also important.

So:

1) HDD - Poor random speeds but decent sequential speeds = Overall mediocre to OK performance
2) USB 2 SSD - Mediocre random speeds and poor sequential speeds = Overall mediocre performance.
3) Firewire 800 SSD - Great random speeds and OK sequential speeds = Overall relatively good performance
4) Internal SSD - Great random speeds and great sequential speeds = Great performance

BTW, I haven't used a modern PCIe SSD yet, but I suspect it will be totally awesome, now that I understand better the importance of sequential speeds in general OS usage. Boot times and app loading need good sequential speeds too.

The boot times and app loading times are still faster on my MacBook Pro with internal SSD, but both are very fast for stuff like wake from sleep. The thing that pissed me off the most about the HDD was the long delays from wake from sleep.

---

BTW, I've since put the drive sideways, sitting on the iMac's stand, which helps for two reasons:

1) I don't like the blue light of the drive shining in my face. In the dark it's very distracting.
2) When I move or turn the iMac, the drive moves with it. No need to worry about unplugging the drive by accident.

 

[Claudius-07]

Thank you so much Eug! Got the Evo 500 and the same enclosure ordered. Will install that app when the time comes!

Yah for sure the best solution would have been to do the hardrive swap inside the machine, but heck... I want that easy button , and add to that she was not keen on anyone -- especially me -- touching her precious iMac.

 

[Eug]

I was playing around with the newest MacBook Pros and the new MacBook and it was an interesting comparison, between those and my current SSD MacBook Pro from 2009 and my FW800 iMac from 2010.

MacBook Pro Retina - Lightning fast. Apps load instantly and snap to attention. Navigating around the OS is just a pleasure.
MacBook Retina - Fast beginning to app loading, but the apps take longer to finish loading.
My old Core 2 Duo MacBook with SSD - Moderate speed to beginning of app loading, but the apps take even longer to finish loading.
My Core i7 iMac with FW800 SSD - Moderate speed to beginning of app loading but longer than Core 2 Duo MacBook with SSD, but the apps finish loading quicker.

What I mean by this is for example, when you load MS Excel, one option is to have a menu pop up with the document types. It seems the slower the CPU, the longer it takes for that menu to finish loading.

OTOH, the MacBook Retina and the MacBook Pro Retina both always launch Word on the very first bounce, regardless if it's a fresh reboot or not. OTOH, on the older MacBook Pro with SSD and my FW 800 SSD iMac, on a fresh reboot it takes a few bounces to get started, and then only after the first launch does it launch again later on the first bounce.

Granted, we're only talking seconds here and there, but it's enough to be extremely noticeable when you're comparing these machines side-by-side, or all on the same day.

---

BTW, one concerning thing happened. The machine locked up once when the display went into sleep (energy saver setting). I just got the spinning beachball of death when I tried to wake the machine from that. Dammit! This only happened when I tapped the keyboard just as the screen was turning off. The screen did turn back on, but only to give me a black screen with the spinning beachball.

Has worked fine since then though. Furthermore, every other time when I've let it sleep normally with either the display sleeping for a while or the computer sleeping for a while, it's woken back up just fine and as expected.

Maybe waking it up just as the display in going to sleep causes some sort of rare glitch.

 

[Eug]

BTW, one concerning thing happened. The machine locked up once when the display went into sleep (energy saver setting). I just got the spinning beachball of death when I tried to wake the machine from that. Dammit! This only happened when I tapped the keyboard just as the screen was turning off. The screen did turn back on, but only to give me a black screen with the spinning beachball.

Has worked fine since then though. Furthermore, every other time when I've let it sleep normally with either the display sleeping for a while or the computer sleeping for a while, it's woken back up just fine and as expected.

Maybe waking it up just as the display in going to sleep causes some sort of rare glitch.

So, it turns out bus power isn't good enough after all. That machine lock up happened more than once. Had to hard reset the machine by holding down the power button for several seconds. Solved the problem by plugging in an AC adapter (5 volts and 2.x amps). 7 Watts from bus power ought to be enough, but I wonder if the bus power fluctuates. Or perhaps it's just borderline. My AC adapter should provide up to around 12-13 Watts or so as I think it is 2.6 amps. I think OWC's adapter is 5 volts 2 amps, which would provide 10 watts.

After several days with the AC adapter, no more hard lockups. I did get a few brief pauses that gave me a short-lived beachball in Safari, but it turns out that is a result of Sophos Anti-virus. For testing purposes over the last few days I uninstalled Sophos, and those short beachballs are now gone too. It seems the on-access active scanning was doing something that bogged down the i7. I don't know about the memory usage but CPU usage was spiking every few seconds with Sophos active.

tl;dr:

Bus power may not be sufficient. Buy an AC adapter that provides 5 Volts and 2+ Amps.

---

BTW, this entire message was typed on an iPad Air 2 using a folding ThinkOutside Stowaway Portable Bluetooth Keyboard that was designed over a decade ago. This is still one of the best portable keyboards in existence, despite the fact they stopped making this keyboard a long, long time ago, long before the first iPad even came out.

 

[Eug]

I just picked up a 960 GB Crucial M500 for US$184 (refurb).

Given that my setup right now is the external 500 GB Samsung 850 EVO boot drive with about 300 GB used, with about 390 GB of data on my internal platter drive, maybe it might be easier just to put everything on my single 960 GB Crucial. Total usage would be about 690 GB out of the 960 GB.

The M500 is supposedly slower that the 850 EVO though. The sequential speeds would be the same because FW 800 would be the bottleneck, but it could affect random read/write speeds.

Or maybe I can just move some of that data to the NAS. I wonder how reliable it is to use iTunes with the data on the NAS. (My iTunes multimedia files are not on the boot drive.) My iTunes directory alone represents about 365 GB worth of data.

BTW, after a couple of weeks with the external plugged in to external power, and used as my primary boot drive, I've encountered zero problems. No sleep problems, and no beachballs of death. Feels just like running an internal drive, just slower than an internal SSD, but luckily usually much faster than an internal platter drive.

 

[Eug]

Still on this FireWire SSD. Worked perfectly for this past year and then some, once I put the drive on AC power.

The only issue I have noticed is that loading images from my CompactFlash cards is not as fast as I had hoped, probably because I am now using USB2 to transfer then instead of the FireWire reader I was using before. I think I had problems daisychaining the FireWire CF reader off the FireWire drive but maybe I'll try that again. I can remember if I had the drive on AC power at the time. Also, downloading images from my iPhone isn't fast either.

But otherwise, this machine is very responsive and 100% stable.

I'll probably buy a new machine in the next year, but a big driver of that is to get a Retina screen and Kaby Lake's 4K DRM support. I wonder if I could run this machine as a secondary screen for that new computer, since the 2010 iMac has this functionality.

 

[Tegeril]

Finding the right adapter might be tricky, https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204592 but that'd be a neat way of keeping the computer useful.

Maybe this would do it: https://www.amazon.com/AllSmartLife-DisplayPort-Aluminium-resolution-ChromeBook/dp/B017TZTLC6 though by the timeline you're talking there will probably be more options.

 

[slashbinslashbash]

Excellent info, I am thinking about picking up a used iMac and it's hard to be picky (I know that some models are easier than others to replace the internal HDD). Good to know that a FW (or Thunderbolt, which will presumably be even faster) SSD will be an easy performance upgrade without having to crack open the machine.