You will need an SSD, a piece of wire with a USB connector, and blue electrical tape. Will this set of “ingredients” suit you for assembling an external USB SSD? I’m not here, and I offer you a solution to the problem using improvised means, but the result should be no worse than the factory one. The problem is actually minor and can easily be solved in other ways, but it does require a trip to the store or waiting for delivery.

I found an unclaimed SSD with SATA interface III and the idea came up to use it as an external high-speed storage device. What is it for? You can install a second one on it operating system, you can record project files when processing video or photos, you can use it as a high-speed flash drive if you have to carry it often large files between work and home laptops.

Selecting a connection interface

My laptop doesn't have SATA inputs, but it does have USB 3.0. Their operating speed is approximately the same - 5 Gbit/s on USB3.0 and 6 Gbit/s on SATA 3.0, but USB is much more widespread and universal, there will be no problems with finding a device to connect it to. This determined the choice of connection interface.

Theoretically achievable speed USB operation 3.0 is equal to 640Mb/s, which is higher than the declared speed SSD operation. For USB 2.0, the throughput does not exceed 60Mb/s; you will not see any difference in operation between an SSD and a regular hard drive, but if necessary, you can use this interface. This is the advantage of USB's versatility and backward compatibility.

Unfortunately, SATA and USB are not compatible with each other; you cannot connect them simply by connecting the pins. An interface converter is required for connection. The speed of operation with such an adapter will be lower than with a direct connection via SATA. In any case, it is much higher than the speed of the HDD, which will never exceed 100Mb/s, and in most operating modes it will be noticeably lower.

Donor

Previously, I used Thermaltake to connect external SATA HDDs BlacX Duet 5G HDD Docking Station. It is designed to connect two hard drives 3.5″ or 2.5″ format, the design is rather large, but quite convenient for home. Carrying it with me is not part of my plans; I need to look for another way to connect the SSD.

The easiest way was to buy a USB box for 2.5″ drives, but the solution came unexpectedly. One of the external USB drives died at work, I'll try to use it as a USB box.

Disassembling a USB drive

It is better not to use metal tools for disassembly; they can easily damage the case. I use plastic spatulas from a phone repair kit.

Frame external HDD consists of two halves connected to each other with latches. Carefully separate them.

Inside is the 2.5″ HDD itself, covered with protective foil. We pry it off from the side opposite the USB connector, and the disk is easily removed from the case.

We peel off the foil along with the insulating backing, under it there is a small scarf attached to the HDD, this is the converter we need.

SATA 3 to USB 3.0 converter

The board is double-sided, factory soldered, almost perfect. One side of the board houses the main components and a USB 3.0 connector. On the left of the board there is a USB 3.0 to SATA controller – JMICRON JMS577, on the right is a microcircuit responsible for power supply.

The power and SATA 3 connectors are located on the other side.

SSD connection

We connect the converter to the SSD, the contacts match completely.

If you need to connect different disks to the computer, changing them often, you can simply insulate the scarf (it’s not for everyone, you can use electrical tape or heat shrink) and use it without a case.

Since the SSD dimensions are the same as the 2.5″ HDD, we can use its case. We insert an SSD with a connected converter into it. It stays there quite tightly.

Close the top with a lid. If you were careful and did not break the latches, the lid will close tightly.

Operation speed

All that remains is to check the functionality of the design and test the speed. I copied several video files to the SSD, and then started copying them to another folder on the same disk. The copying speed was at 164Mb/s.

If you still have questions, you can watch the video version of this article.

You can also buy ready-made USB 3.0 converters or USB boxes for 2.5″ drives.

conclusions

I am quite pleased with the result, when connecting this SSD directly to SATA on motherboard another computer, the speed of its operation differed slightly.

SSD drive and (they are also called “solid-state”) are no longer a curiosity for a computer user. So how to connect an SSD drive to your computer once you are the proud owner of it?

SSD (Solid-State Drive), which translates roughly as “solid-state storage device”, which replaces HDD (or “hard” disks, “hard drives”) is a non-mechanical memory unit based on microcircuits. Due to much higher read and write speeds, it can significantly improve the speed performance of your personal computer or laptop.

I’ll say right away that installing a solid-state drive is not much different from installing an HDD (“hard drive” or “ hard drive", as they are also commonly called). And if it is different, it represents a less demanding installation option. Why? Because SSD drives:

• unlike HDDs, they do not have a moving rotating element;
• due to their design, they do not heat up and do not make noise;
• smaller in size (2.5 inches versus standard 3.5 inches HDD);
• more durable and less capricious to mechanical damage.

Some SSDs, along with the disk, include a special adapter panel from 2.5 to 3.5 inches (metal or plastic), which is intended for installing the disk into a standard HDD bay. There are adapters from 2.5 to 5.25 inches, in case we want to install new disk into slots for CD/DVD drives. In some modern computer cases Manufacturers began to provide special slots for SSDs. If such a slot is not provided, there is no adapter included, or all disk bays (slots) are occupied, you can place our SSD disk in any convenient place inside system unit. You can secure the disc using, for example, simple vinyl clamps.

It is not recommended to use adhesive tapes or double-sided tapes - such fastening will not be reliable.

So,

1. turn off the computer's power;
2. remove the side panel of the system unit;
3. let's get ours new SSD disc out of the box. *Note that if the disc is brought in from the cold, you need to let it warm up to room temperature. We save the packaging (just in case);
4. Choosing a place SSD installation, secure it, connect SATA cables to the motherboard. We try to use a SATA 3 6 GB/s cable, but if you have SATA 3 ports and there are no cables, then you can connect an ordinary SATA cable to the SATA ports.

The maximum performance of an SSD drive will be ensured when it is connected to a SATA 3.0 connector or higher at speeds of up to 6 GB/sec. On the board, it is usually distinguished from others by its black color and corresponding markings. If there are no symbols for SATA 3.0, you should read the documentation for the motherboard.

Then we connect power from the unit (PSU), close the system unit and start the computer.

SSD drives do not tolerate overheating well. Therefore, when installing a new SSD drive, it would be useful to take care of upgrading the cooling systems. For this, you can install, for example, a simple additional fan in the side parts of the system unit. This wind blower will perfectly cool not only our new SSD drive, but also a regular hard drive.

Setting up in BIOS and installing OS

Before you start installing the operating system on the SSD (it is preferable to do a clean installation from scratch), we enter the BIOS (basic input/output system) of your computer. The most common way to enter the BIOS is by pressing the Delete key; the F1 and F2 keys are used somewhat less frequently.

Let's look at an example BIOS settings to work with SSD on ASUS UEFI BIOS:

Go to the advanced system settings Advanced Mode;

We move to the Advanced/SATA Configuration settings and look at the connected devices. It is necessary that the SSD be connected to the first SATA 3, and the HDD to SATA 2;

Be sure to remember that you need to switch the SATA controller to AHCI mode;

Then go to the Boot/Hard Drive Priorities section and install first boot disk our new SSD. If this is not done, the system will continue to boot from HDD drive A;

We save all our settings and reboot by pressing the F10 key. We make sure that solid state drive was ranked first among bootable HDDs. For Windows installations You can leave the CD/DVD drive first in loading. Or we use a one-time initial boot from CD/DVD via the F8 key on ASUS boards.

On many Internet resources, would-be specialists recommend copying, transferring, cloning or restoring from an image, etc., the C:\HDD drive with an already installed OS when installing an SSD. This is not recommended under any circumstances. Be prepared to install the OS from scratch after you have installed a new SSD drive on your computer. After all, when the OS is installed on the HDD, then all services are launched to work specifically on the HDD. If we transfer a system designed to work on an HDD to an SSD, then the overwhelming number of services will not only not help improve the performance of the OS and computer, but will only contribute to the rapid wear of the new SSD. In order for the SSD disk to work long-term and correctly under our operating system, we definitely need to install it “from scratch” and on a clean SSD disk.

We set the main time and language settings and we get to the selection of partitions and disks for installing the OS;

After we have seen our unallocated SSD (Disk 0), select it to install the system and click “Disk Setup”;

There is no need to format the disk. Click the “Create” button and create a partition for the entire available SSD size;

Then click “Apply”. The system requests 100 MB for its needs - we agree;

We indicate in which partition the system should be installed, in our case, on Disk 0 Partition 2, because Partition 1 is reserved by the system itself and it will not be possible to install the operating system on it;

Then we start the installation of the operating system itself.

After completing the installation of the operating system, do not forget to install all the necessary drivers that come with our motherboard– from a disk or from the manufacturer’s website.

When a new SSD drive is installed in the computer, and the system is installed on it, and we see that everything works, it’s worth thinking about optimizing the operating system to work with the flash memory drive.

Conclusion

In order for our new SSD disk to serve us as long as possible and not fail prematurely, we should adhere to certain rules when using it - to increase the service life of the disk, it is necessary to leave at least 10-15% of free space on the disk.

During the entire process of using an SSD drive, you must constantly ensure that the latest drivers for the SSD drive are installed in the system. They can usually be found on the SSD drive manufacturer's website. As a rule, with each subsequent firmware the number of drive capabilities is updated and its service life increases. In order to check the resource of our SDD disk, it is best to periodically run programs to identify disk errors and the amount of used resource - for example, software such as SSD Life.

Connecting an SSD as the main drive in many cases will significantly speed up the operation of the operating system installed on it, access to documents and main programs, and eliminate some previously necessary operations, for example, the need to regularly defragment the disk. If, of course, the machine is old enough, the processor is single-core, the RAM is less than 4 GB, and the motherboard was released more than 6-8 years ago, then an upgrade regular computer Only installing an SSD will not give noticeable results, but it will 100% give a second life to a laptop or netbook.

Good day.

For many users, one disk is often not enough for everyday work on a laptop. There are, of course, different options for solving the problem: buy an external HDD, flash drive, etc. media (we will not consider this option in the article).

Or you can install a second hard drive (or SSD (solid state)) instead of a drive for optical disks. For example, I use it very rarely (I’ve used it a couple of times over the last year, and if I didn’t have it, I probably wouldn’t remember about it).

In this article I want to look at the main questions that may arise when connecting a second drive to a laptop. So...

1. Selecting the required “adapter” (which is installed instead of the drive)

This is the first question and the most important! The fact is that many people do not suspect that the thickness of disk drives is different laptops may be different! The most common thicknesses are 12.7 mm and 9.5 mm.

To find out the thickness of your drive, there are 2 ways:

1. Open some utility, such as AIDA ( free utilities: http://pcpro100.info/harakteristiki-kompyutera/#i), further find out in it exact model drive, and then find its characteristics on the manufacturer’s website and look at the dimensions there.

2. Measure the thickness of the drive by removing it from the laptop (this is a 100% option, I recommend it so as not to make a mistake). This option is discussed further down in the article.

By the way, please note that this “adapter” is correctly called a little differently: “Caddy for Laptop Notebook” (see Fig. 1).

Rice. 1. Adapter for a laptop for installing a second disk. 12.7mm SATA to SATA 2nd Aluminum Hard Disk Drive HDD Caddy for Laptop Notebook)

2. How to remove the disk drive from a laptop

This is done quite simply. Important! If your laptop is under warranty, such an operation may cause a refusal warranty service. Whatever you do next, do it at your own peril and risk.

1) Turn off the laptop, disconnect all wires from it (power, mice, headphones, etc.).

2) Turn it over and remove the battery. Usually its fastening is a simple latch (sometimes there can be 2 of them).

3) To remove the drive, as a rule, it is enough to unscrew 1 screw that holds it. In a typical laptop design, this screw is located approximately in the center. When you unscrew it, it will be enough to lightly pull the drive housing (see Fig. 2) and it should easily “move out” of the laptop.

I emphasize that proceed carefully; as a rule, the drive comes out of the case very easily (without any effort).

Rice. 2. Laptop: drive mount.

4) It is advisable to measure the thickness using a caliper rod. If it is not there, you can use a ruler (as in Fig. 3). In principle, to distinguish 9.5 mm from 12.7, a ruler is more than enough.

Rice. 3. Measuring the thickness of the drive: it is clearly visible that the drive is about 9 mm thick.

Connecting a second drive to a laptop (step by step)

To begin with, I want to draw your attention to 2 nuances:

Many users complain that the laptop is somewhat lost appearance after installing such an adapter. But in most cases, the old drive socket can be carefully removed (sometimes small screws can hold it in place) and installed on the adapter (red arrow in Fig. 4);

Before installing the disk, remove the stop (green arrow in Fig. 4). Some people push the disk “from above” at an angle without removing the stop. This often leads to damage to the contacts of the disk or adapter.

Rice. 4. Type of adapter

As a rule, the disk fits into the adapter slot quite easily and there are no problems with installing the disk into the adapter itself (see Fig. 5).

Rice. 5. An SSD drive is installed in the adapter

Problems often arise when users try to put the adapter in place optical drive into a laptop. Most often the problems are as follows:

The adapter was chosen incorrectly; for example, it turned out to be thicker than needed. Forcing the adapter into the laptop can cause damage! In general, the adapter itself should “ride” into the laptop as if on rails, without the slightest effort;

On such adapters you can often find compensator screws. In my opinion, there is no benefit from them, I recommend removing them immediately. By the way, it often happens that it is they that rest against the laptop body, preventing the adapter from being installed in the laptop (see Fig. 6).

Rice. 6. Adjustment screw, compensator

If everything is done carefully, the laptop will have its original appearance after installing the second disk. Everyone will “think” that the laptop has an optical drive, but in fact there is another HDD or SSD (see Fig. 7) ...

Rice. 7. The adapter along with the disk is installed in the laptop

I recommend that after installing the second disk, go to Laptop BIOS and check if the disk is detected there. In most cases (if installed disk It works and there were no problems with the drive before) BIOS correctly detects the drive.

How to enter BIOS (keys to to different manufacturers devices): http://pcpro100.info/kak-voyti-v-bios-klavishi-vhoda/

Rice. 8. BIOS recognized the installed disk

To summarize, I want to say that the installation itself is a simple matter, anyone can do it. The main thing is to take your time and act carefully. Problems often arise due to haste: first they didn’t measure the drive, then they bought the wrong adapter, then they started installing it by force - as a result, they took the laptop for repair...

That's all for me, I tried to sort out all the pitfalls that may exist when installing a second disk.

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2 in 1. Installing SSD and HDD in a laptop

With the advent of SSD drives, many users began to abandon HDD drives in favor of SSD drives. This is not surprising, because SSD has a number of advantages. The main advantage is the high read/write speed; also among the advantages it is worth noting the absence of noise and low power consumption. Among all the advantages, there is also one disadvantage - the small storage capacity. But what if it is necessary? fast work systems and at the same time a lot of space for information? On a PC, this can easily be solved by installing an SSD drive as system disk and HDD as a disk for storing information. But what should laptop users do if there is only one drive bay? For laptop users, there are two solutions to this problem.

First. Install an SSD instead of a hard drive and use an external drive to store information. This method consists of installing an SSD drive instead of the system drive (hard drive), and the hard drive in a USB pocket. Some manufacturers sell SSD drives in two configurations. The first and most common includes a solid-state drive, instructions, and in some cases an adapter for installing an SSD in a PC. The second package is a little more expensive and, accordingly, more advanced, it includes a drive, a USB pocket for 2.5″ drives, instructions, and an adapter for installing an SSD in a PC. SSDs that come with a USB pocket are ideal for this installation method.

This method is not always convenient for a number of reasons: - one or two people are busy USB port(depending on the removable drive) - when transporting a laptop, you also need to remember about the external drive - the external drive is more prone to mechanical damage

I would like to demonstrate and describe the second solution using the example of the ASUS K55Vm laptop.

Test configuration: Processor: Mobile QuadCore Intel Core i7-3610QM Memory: 2x4GB Hynix HMT351S6CFR8C-PB DDR3-1600 Video adapter: NVIDIA GeForce GT 630M (2048 MB) This method characterized by the fact that the SSD drive is installed in the main compartment intended for the hard drive. The second disk is installed instead of a CD-ROM.

For this we need: 1) A laptop (it won’t work without it)

2) SSD drive. We chose KINGSTON Sh203S390G for testing

3) Hard drive. WDC WD7500BPKT

4) Special adapter for installing HDD instead of CD-ROM

Step by step installation: 1) Remove the HDD from the bay

2) Install the SSD into the hard drive bay

3) Fix the hard drive in the adapter

4) Remove the CD ROM from the laptop

5) Install the adapter with the hard drive into the CD ROM bay

The appearance of the laptop after replacement is also important. optical drive to an adapter from HDD. After such a replacement, the appearance will not change; visually it will look exactly the same as before installation.

If these manipulations with the laptop are done correctly, then when you boot you will see two drives in the system.

What to do with the drive left idle? You can find a lot of applications for it, but considering that the laptop has lost a drive, and sometimes you have to use optical disks, it would be advisable to make the drive external and connect it to the laptop as needed via USB. This solution can be implemented by installing the drive in a special “pocket”.

At the end of the article I would like to present the results of testing HDD and SSD. For testing, we used a program that tests drives for read and write speed - Crystal Disk Mark and AIDA64 for the linear read test.

Based on the results of linear reading, it is worth noting that SSD drives maintain a relatively stable speed throughout the entire test, which cannot be said about HDDs. At the beginning of testing, the disk demonstrated relatively high speed at 120Mb/s, but at the end of the test the speed dropped to 54Mb/s. Accordingly, SSDs exceed HDDs in reading speed by more than 5 times.

This test can be called biased, since the media worked in different modes. The SSD operates in SATA 3 data transfer mode, and the HDD drive operates in SATA 2 mode.

But what will the test results be if we place these drives under the same SATA 2 conditions?

Was taken for testing ASUS laptop G1Sn with configuration:

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo T9500, 2600 MHz

Memory: 2x2GB Kingston 99U5295-011 DDR2 Video adapter: NVIDIA GeForce 9500M GS (512 MB) As a test software The program was taken - Crystal Disk Mark.

As expected, the test results for SSDs changed downwards. The reading speed decreased almost by half, while the writing speed changed slightly, by a third. Despite the reduced read speed, an SSD is almost twice as fast as a hard drive.

Information on read speed and other characteristics of solid-state drives and hard drives can be easily found on the manufacturer’s website.

In order to clearly demonstrate the superiority of SSDs over HDDs, we checked how the speed of loading, shutting down and rebooting the operating system on both types of drives would change. The ASUS K55Vm laptop mentioned above was taken for measurements. We installed an operating room Windows system 7 (64-bit version) and drivers provided by the laptop manufacturer for both types of drives. We invite you to familiarize yourself with the test results.

The difference in speed is noticeable. This replacement will not only speed up booting and shutting down the computer, but also loading programs, opening or playing files, and generally speed up the operation of the laptop.

Our service center specialists will select the optimal adapter and HDD/SSD based on your wishes, taking into account the technical features of the laptop.

nfs.kiev.ua

How to install an SSD in a laptop and transfer Windows to it?

Translation of an article by Mike Clements from the Corsair blog.

When talking about computers, I like to use the term "chimprost". The best upgrade you can imagine is one that is so simple that even a chimpanzee can do it, that's when it can be called "chim-simple." Corsair Force 3 SSD with special kit for transferring information from a laptop, exactly corresponds to this ideology.

In the extended delivery package you will find an SSD, a software disk and a special SATA-USB cable for transferring information. The disk contains the necessary utility for cloning an image. In this case, The Apricorn EZ GIG IV is a simple and straightforward utility, however, we will look at some of the steps that will be required to transfer the operating system from a laptop to a new SSD.

For those users who have never upgraded their laptop, there are only three options: you can install the OS on your SSD from scratch, you can restore the partition from backup copy or follow the “simple” path using the software included with the solid-state drive. After you connect the SSD to the laptop, it may not appear in the system - this is normal, the main thing is that the cloning program will see it.

Insert the CD with the software, and if the autorun function does not work, you will have to launch the utility yourself.

After launching EZ GIG IV, you will see a utility welcome window and several options to choose from. We need the Start EZ GIG IV option.

Then you have to accept license agreement.

Finally, click the Let`s Get Started button.

After this, the program will prompt you to select the source drive from which the information will be transferred. In this case, this is drive “C”, located under No. 1.

Once you have selected both drives, you can continue with the default settings, or you can set a number of your own options. For example, for an SSD it is highly advisable to select the 4K equalization option. The program will first align the partition, which will be critical for the speed of the solid-state drive.

In the Data Select column you can exclude some folders from the cloning operation. For example, you can exclude the “My Music” folder (which in our case takes up 19.8 GB of information), since this will significantly reduce cloning time, and you can add it later.

Once you have selected all the options you want and agree, click Next, in which case a window will open that will once again ask you to verify making the right choice options. If you are sure you haven't forgotten anything, just click Start Copying.

The completed copying section will be displayed below. Cloning time will depend on the speed of the drives, as well as the amount of data being copied.

Once the cloning is complete, you can repeat it with different settings and options, or simply exit the program.

After exiting the program, you can replace your old drive with a new SSD, while you will still have your operating system with which you are used to working. Of course, this will require disassembling the laptop. It is almost impossible to give more detailed instructions on how to do this, since all laptops and netbooks differ in their design and location of the hard drive. In some places this will be easier to do, and in others it will be more difficult; the video shows an example of replacement on one of the laptops Lenovo Thinkpad:

Note Allssd.ru:

Most often replace RAM and the hard drive is quite simple in large laptops and this, as a rule, does not deprive the owner of the device of the warranty. In order to find a guide on “how to open your laptop/netbook”, it is best to use Youtube, where users post a huge number of videos on the most different models about this theme.

allssd.ru

Changing the DVD drive to a solid state drive

If you have long stopped using the DVD drive in your laptop, then it’s time to replace it with a brand new SSD. You didn't know this was possible? Then today we will talk in detail about how to do this and what is required for this.

How to install an SSD instead of a DVD drive in a laptop

So, after weighing all the pros and cons, we came to the conclusion that an optical drive is already an extra device and it would be nice to install an SSD instead. To do this, we need the drive itself and a special adapter (or adapter), which is a perfect size instead of a DVD drive. This way, it will not only be easier for us to connect the drive, but the laptop body itself will look more aesthetically pleasing.

Preparatory stage

Before purchasing such an adapter, you should pay attention to the size of your drive. A regular drive has a height of 12.7 mm, and there are also ultra-thin drives that are 9.5 mm in height.

Now that we have the appropriate adapter and SSD, we can begin the installation.

Disconnecting the DVD drive

The first step is to disconnect the battery. In cases where the battery is not removable, you will have to remove the laptop cover and disconnect the battery connector from the motherboard.

In most cases, in order to remove the drive, you do not need to completely disassemble the laptop. Just unscrew a few screws and the optical drive can be easily removed. If you are not entirely confident in your abilities, then it is better to look for video instructions directly for your model or contact a specialist.

Installing SSD

That's all, our drive is ready for installation.

Now all that remains is to insert the adapter with the SSD into the laptop, tighten the bolts and connect the battery. We turn on the laptop, format the new disk, and then you can transfer the operating system from the magnetic drive to it, and use the latter for storing data.

My wife has a 21.5-inch iMac 2013 with a built-in HDD. A few months ago it became almost impossible to work on it.

Standard OS X applications opened and executed with a significant delay, and while heavy programs were running, you could have time to go get some tea. Almost every action on the computer forced you to do one thing: wait.

The reason is that the hard drive is outdated. It can be solved by simply replacing the HDD with an SSD.

How simple?

– you need to take your iMac to a service center;
- only unauthorized people do this service centers;
– iMac will be disassembled;
- expensive.

A 1TB SSD will cost from 20,000 rub., cost of work - from 2500 rub.

In older models, you can place an inexpensive SSD instead of an optical drive and use it to install the system and basic programs. In thin 2012 models, an additional SSD fits and works using a special adapter. The iMac 2013 and newer did not have this feature, but some samples can connect PCIe SSD strips, the prices of which are quite high. The situation is ambiguous; service centers provide different information.

I decided to find an alternative option.

And I found it.

OS X launches and works from external drives.

Bandwidth USB 3.0– 640 megabytes/sec, this is enough for an entry-level SSD. Thunderbolt is expensive.

The instructions are valid for iMac computers and Mac mini Late 2012 and newer: Requires USB 3.0.

A more or less reliable external SSD costs from 6,000 rubles. and higher. A normal option, but there is a way to divide this amount in half.

Assembling an external SSD

We will need:
– SATA/USB 3.0 adapter;
– SSD drive.

Cost of adapter on AliExpress – 250 rubles, reviews – 5 stars out of 5.

SSD capacity:
We will be able to use the built-in hard drive as file storage, so for comfortable work with the system, a 120GB SSD drive will be enough for most tasks.

SSD speed:
Working through an adapter, it will not reveal its full potential. Up to 400 MB/sec for reading and writing – more than that.

Therefore, we choose a high-quality, moderately fast and economical option. I settled on SanDisk, which costs about 3,000 rubles.

Setting up the system

Procedure:

1 . Connect the external SSD to the computer. By using Disk Utility format it in Mac OS Extended (journaled) with a GUID partition scheme.

2 . computer on another external storage. Heavy files may need to be saved separately: the backup volume should not exceed the capacity of the SSD drive.

3 . Download the current OS X image from App Store. Install on an external SSD.

4 . If after installation the computer automatically starts from the built-in HDD, reboot it and press and hold the alt (option) key until the loading screen appears. We select an external SSD, start it, and restore from a backup.

5 . Test the system. If there are no complaints, format the built-in HDD using Disk Utility . Now it can be used as file storage.

Operating experience

My wife did not recognize her iMac and for the first time in a long time began to use it with pleasure. I was also surprised: applications launch instantly, all actions are performed without delay. Performance boost huge.

Program launch time:

Photoshop CC 2017 – 2.8 sec.
Lightroom CC 2015.8 – 3.2 sec.
Final Cut Pro 10.2.2 – 2.6 sec.
Microsoft Word 2016 – 1.5 sec.
Safari, iTunes – 0.5 sec.
Turning on the computer: 19 sec. (previously – up to two minutes)

If your applications take several times longer to launch, and the system runs with noticeable slowdowns, it makes sense to switch to an SSD.

No disruptions due to working with external drive for half a year it was not noticed. The main disadvantage is that external, and must be constantly connected to the computer. The drive case is not protected from shocks and drops, and if in doubt, it is better to overpay and buy a regular external SSD intended for transportation.

You can purchase a special container for installing and protecting 2.5-inch HDD/SSD; it is not very expensive.

Or simply attach the drive to the iMac leg using double-sided tape:

And forget about him.

Bottom line

• external, must always be connected (but can be hidden)
• SSD performance over USB 3.0 is slightly reduced

• very economical option
• the built-in HDD remains for files, you can
• no need to take it to an unauthorized service and open the iMac
• can be returned to its original state at any time

Performance of hard drives when connecting them via USB, leaving the new one behind the scenes USB interface 3.0. Then we did not conduct such tests due to the small selection and high cost of USB 3.0 equipment; today there are enough devices on the market with this interface in an acceptable range. price range, so we decided to return to this issue.

What are the fundamental differences between USB 3.0 and previous generations of this interface? First of all, the throughput has been increased to 4.8 Gb/s (the same as SATA 6 Gb/s), the current per port has also increased from 500 mA to 900 mA, which eliminates the need for an external power supply for many peripheral devices. Technically, this is achieved by adding additional data lines and increasing the number of conductors USB cable, so USB 3.0 connectors are not fully compatible with USB 2.0, although a high degree of compatibility has still been maintained. Most often you will be able to connect your USB 3.0 devices with via USB 2.0 cables, another question is how they will work, but not vice versa.

The reason for testing was the purchase of an external box for a 2.5" drive. Zalman ZM-HE130 Black, this device belongs to the middle price category, is made of aluminum and has a rich set of equipment.

The test participants were hard drives already familiar from previous testing. 320 Gb SATA-II 300 Fujitsu 2.5" 5400 rpm 8Mb and solid state drive 60 Gb OCZ Agility 2 .

However, not everything went smoothly. As it turned out, not all USB 3.0 controllers are “equally useful”: controller Etron EJ168, which equips many Gigabyte boards, refused to work stably with the external box, after a while the disk simply turned off, continuing to be present in the system and producing errors when trying to access it. As it turned out, Etron is a very problematic controller and we cannot call the compatibility situation cloudless. The situation was saved by an additional controller on the chip Renesas µPD720202, however, the need to buy additional components is not encouraging, and if you add expensive USB 3.0 cables, then buying a device with a new interface can still cost a pretty penny.

First of all, we connected the hard drive directly via SATA to get starting point for performance comparison.

The values ​​are quite low, but this is not surprising; this is a typical “laptop” drive with a spindle speed of 5400 rpm and no performance claims. Now let's connect it via USB 3.0.

As we see the speed USB connections is no longer a bottleneck; the performance of a drive connected via USB 3.0 is no different from the performance of a drive connected via SATA. Let's see how things are going with the faster SSD. Similarly, first there is also a direct connection:

And then via USB 3.0:

If there are no special problems with writing, then we have a fairly significant decrease in performance for reading. In this case, the limitations of current controller models come into play. However, it’s still not bad, three times faster than via USB 2.0. Considering that no one will install SSDs in external boxes for economic reasons, and the speed of the most productive mass-produced HDDs does not exceed 100-130 MB/s, the result is simply remarkable. Already today, the performance of hard drives connected via USB is not inferior to drives connected via SATA.

Finally, we decided to check how the external box behaves when connected via USB 2.0. To connect, we used both a microUSB 3.0 cable and a regular microUSB, since the results differed only by the size of the error, we will present only one of them.

HDD:

Solid State Drive:

We did not find any significant differences from connecting via a “native” USB 2.0 controller (), except that the recording speed is slightly lower. Therefore, with backward compatibility everything is going well.

conclusions

If you are thinking about purchasing a new device or have decided to improve an existing one, then the choice of USB 3.0 is obvious. This will allow you to use any modern hard drive without losing performance. There is also a temptation to replace a slow 5400 rpm drive in an external box with a faster 7200 rpm one, but here you need to take into account the power consumption of the drive and the fact that not all USB ports 2.0, which is still the majority, will be able to provide him with power.

Also, before purchasing, you should pay close attention to the compatibility of your controller and the device you are purchasing. You may need to purchase an additional board and cables, since the box’s original short cable is not always convenient to use for connections to the back panel of the PC. This can overshadow the purchase and significantly increase financial costs.

Some may be disappointed, but modern USB 3.0 devices do not allow you to use everything provided by the standard. throughput, real performance limited to transfer rates of around 1 Gbps (125 MB/s), which was confirmed in our tests. Therefore, using an SSD via USB 3.0 remains, to put it mildly, a suboptimal use of funds, which cannot be said about classic hard drives. Purchasing an external box with a 3.0 interface for any of them would be an excellent purchase.