Everything else (OS, apps, accounts) can run from the SSD. The internal fusion drive will still work well for storage of 'large libraries' (such as movies, music and pictures). No need to spend the $$$ for a 1tb drive. He should get a Samsung t5 drive, re-initialize it for the Mac (HFS+ with journaling enabled), and then install a copy of the OS onto it and set it up to become the boot drive.Ī 256 or 512gb drive would do fine.

Cons would be slightly reduced performance but for real-world usage it's not really noticeable unless you're doing intensive work. You can easily install & run macOS to/from an external drive. Should be fine, just ensure the boot drive is set for default (hold Alt on startup, press CTRL to change the arrow icon and press Enter to make that one default).

Has anyone done this long term? Any pros or cons? If they're frequently running applications & data from the 1TB HDD rather than the SSD (which was only 24GB or something IIRC) then the system would feel much snappier.Ĥ. The main benefits to SSDs over mechanical drives are the seek times rather than read/write speeds. What sort of performance improvement would be achieved over the stock 1TB Fusion Drive with a current generation SSD (connected via Thunderbolt or USB 3)? USB 3 will be quick enough and a cheaper/universalised option.ģ. Remember it's going to be 6Gb/s SATA on the drive which wouldn't get close to the theoretical max speeds of TB2 anyway. On paper Thunderbolt should be a little quicker, but TB2 enclosures would be more expensive.

Which is better for this - Thunderbolt or USB 3? Will only specific drives do this or can I buy any enclosure or external drive and it will work?Ģ.

Best ssd for imac 2017