Adding an external SSD to a 2012 iMac

[honestone]

I have never found Safari to be fast at all. Google Chrome easily beats it in terms of being speedy. In fact, it is the fastest browser. Opera is not bad either, and starting with V57.0, Firefox became much faster. All 3 of them still leave Safari in the dust, and that is true even with the newest version of Safari.

 

[Allen Davis]

I have never found Safari to be fast at all. Google Chrome easily beats it in terms of being speedy. In fact, it is the fastest browser. Opera is not bad either, and starting with V57.0, Firefox became much faster. All 3 of them still leave Safari in the dust, and that is true even with the newest version of Safari.

I may have to download Firefox and give it a spin, but I have a really bad taste in my mouth whenever anything is associated with Google.

Since the origin of this thread concerned external drives, it looks like I may have to begin depending on one for a few days.

When I sat down at my MacBook this morning, there was a warning on my screen saying TechTool was reporting that my internal SSD had failed a routine SMART test. I rebooted from an external drive and ran TechTool aggressively. Twice. Then I launched InTech's Speed Tools and ran a diagnostic, and it also reported my SSD had failed a SMART test and warned me of impending drive failure. I rebuilt the volume (twice) and it's still failing.

Thankfully, the drive in question is under a 3-year warranty, and I only purchased it last September. I fished out my OWC invoice, printed it out and highlighted the date, order number, item number, S/N, etc., etc. (One little thing that annoys me is that OWC has dropped the price of that drive by almost $30 since then, but I knew SSDs were going to begin falling in price anyway).

I don't like using the external drive to boot from because its connected to one of my USB ports because they're USB 2.0, so I don't get the speed I would like to get. This is why I'm looking for a 2012 MacBook Pro since it has USB 3.0, FireWire 800 AND a Lightning port. Since it retains the overall form factor of my MacBook, it has a faster optical drive and replacing the internal HD and upgrading the RAM won't be a problem, unless, of course, it already has 16 GB installed.

Good thing I began listening to you closely and began making multiple clones to back up my system! I'd sure hate to have to rely on TimeMachine alone for backups!

 

[honestone]

Sorry to hear about your SSD, but failing after only 5 months of use? That's somewhat disturbing, although OWC is a reputable company. I've had my Samsung 840 Pro 256 gig SSD inside my late 2012 Mac Mini for about 4 1/2 years, and I am having no issues. Also, knock on wood, so far the 2 Samsung 850 Pro 512 gig SSDs I have in separate external Orico cases are fine.

Just out of curiosity, did Tech Tool Pro's Surface Scan tell you anything? Most likely OK, but won't hurt to know. I actually wonder how "accurate" the SMART test is with Tech Tool Pro. I recently purchased a new mid 2017 13" MacBook Air, with a 252 gig SSD and 8 gig of RAM. When I run TTP's SMART test on it, it shows the internal temperature to be rather high. Yet, when I run SMART Utility (made by Volitans Software), the value of the internal temperature is much more reasonable.

Yeah, USB 2.0 is no speed demon. The connection with my external SSDs is via USB 3.0, and when I restart either machine from its respective SuperDuper! backup, it's not bad in terms of starting up, but as I have previously mentioned, such is process is rather slow in part (maybe mostly?) due to High Sierra. With my prior MacBook Air and an external HDD (made by Seagate), the enclosure had 2 Firewire 800 ports. I used an Apple Thunderbolt-to-Firewire 800 adapter, and restarting that MacBook Air from the SuperDuper! backup on the Seagate drive was not bad. For that same drive, given that my Mac Mini has a Firewire 800 port, when I used a Firewire 800 cable to directly connect the Seagate drive to the Mini, booting the Mini from the SuperDuper! backup was not bad. However, all of that was with prior versions of the Mac OS.

Hope you can find a 2012 MacBook Pro. eBay might be your best option.

 

[Allen Davis]

Sorry to hear about your SSD, but failing after only 5 months of use? That's somewhat disturbing, although OWC is a reputable company. I've had my Samsung 840 Pro 256 gig SSD inside my late 2012 Mac Mini for about 4 1/2 years, and I am having no issues. Also, knock on wood, so far the 2 Samsung 850 Pro 512 gig SSDs I have in separate external Orico cases are fine.

Just out of curiosity, did Tech Tool Pro's Surface Scan tell you anything? Most likely OK, but won't hurt to know. I actually wonder how "accurate" the SMART test is with Tech Tool Pro. I recently purchased a new mid 2017 13" MacBook Air, with a 252 gig SSD and 8 gig of RAM. When I run TTP's SMART test on it, it shows the internal temperature to be rather high. Yet, when I run SMART Utility (made by Volitans Software), the value of the internal temperature is much more reasonable.

Hope you can find a 2012 MacBook Pro. eBay might be your best option.

Thanks for the input. I did indeed run a Surface Scan, both with TechTool and SpeedTools, and nary a bump was found either time.

TechTool continues to display the SMART warning every few minutes, so I turned off the background scanning in System Preferences.

I’ve scanned my SSD repeatedly with both applications, and SpeedTools now reports the drive is in perfect working order, so I’m at a loss as to what to think or how to proceed.

I’ve included two screen shots because the SMART testing in SpeedTools lists items in a scrollable window and doesn’t show everything in a single picture. But you can see the little green lights and the “OK” next to each item.

Let me add that my SpeedTools is version 3.9.3 OEM. It came bundled with an ATA/IDE-to-SATA legacy upgrade I purchased from OWC which included a 250 GB Mercury SSD, a converting mounting bracket to accommodate the 2.5” drive in a 3.5” bay and a little circuit board on which to mount the drive on in the bracket and provides a power and connection ribbon to complete the conversion to SATA. (This was for my G4 MDD.)

This OEM version is identical to the “full version,” but there are a (very) few features which are disabled, and certainly none of which that limits the software’s ability to perform all its major functions. OWC offers an upgrade to the full version for $49. Purchasing the key to unlock the software includes unlimited lifetime upgrades. That’s a tempting offer, considering that MicroMat charges $20 for its upgrades!

I might add that this software is fully functional with all pre-Intel Macs, including G3 and G4 Macs running OS X 10.2 and later, as well as Windows PCs. (An OWC tech I spoke with told me that SpeedTools, while not yet High Sierra-ready, will be in a soon-to-be released future version.)

I’ve been running ST in “evaluation mode” on my MacBook since I got it, but only every now and then, with the idea of paying for the unlock key later if it passed my smell test. I now wish I’d been running it more diligently to get a better feel for it.

ST’s interface isn’t as pretty as TTP, nor is it quite as intuitive, but it comes with a very hefty User Guide which I’ve been studying intensely, only having scanned over it a few times in the past.

I’m at a loss as to what to do at this point. I don’t want to get an RMA yet since I can’t say definitively say that my SSD has one foot in the grave. The great thing about OWC is that if I get an RMA, they’ll have a new SSD on my doorstep the very next day along with a pre-paid Priority Mail postage label to use in returning the old drive. (It helps that OWC is “next door” in Illinois, not far from Chicago.)

I’m going to continue using the SSD as my boot disk for the time being, cross my fingers and see what happens. And do a CCC 2-3 times a day and keep TimeMachine turned on 24/7 for hourly backups (I normally run TimeMachine manually, and then only once a day).

For what it’s worth, I normally don’t keep my external drives powered on. I usually only mount them for backups. For all my testing, I turned on one of my external SSDs so I could run all the tests on it as well so I’d have a point of reference. All it takes is the spectre of a catastrophe for the brain to kick into Holy God Go To Def-Con 1 Mode! (By the way, no pun intended with the “spectre” reference.) The boot disk (OWC MacBook) is a 7,200 rpm HGST 1 TB HDD, which is a pretty snappy little drive for a mechanical device. The USB 2.0 connection really throttles its performance back, and especially so for the SSD you see mounted in the window on the left in the screen shots. I have it mounted in a NewerTech Voyager S3 Dock which can accommodate 2.5” and 3.5” drives, and is one of the best $30 expenditures I’ve ever laid out.

I’ve also been reading some “white papers” online about the workings of hard drive technology. I have to admit, 90% of it was really over my head, but I think I got the gist of some of it. I haven’t strained my noodle so hard since I wrote my doctoral thesis!

I hope this is simply some sort of anomaly and isn’t a real case of an impending drive failure. I’ve been doing business with OWC since 1998, and they’ve never failed to impress me with the quality of their merchandise, or of that with their tech support and customer service. I can only remember one instance where I had any glitches in doing business with them, and they ironed everything out to my complete satisfaction in a couple of blinks.

I hope you’ve got a magic rabbit up your sleeve or some golden nugget of advice you can offer. In the meantime, I’m going to dust off a rabbit’s foot and hang it over my desk. Just hope I don’t have to wave some chicken bones over the burning carcass of a dead cat marinated in an eye of newt-laced potion!

One last thing to mention is my Energy settings in System Prefs. With my MacBook plugged in and booted from my SSD, I set the monitor to go to sleep after 1 hour. But I keep the System and the drive set to “Never,” since I put the computer to sleep by simply closing the lid when I know I’m going to be away from my desk for more than an hour. (In battery mode, everything goes to sleep in 15 minutes.)

When I used to have only HDDs, I set the drive to sleep after 1 hour because I hated the lag involved with the drive spinning back up (when running on AC). I still use that setting when I boot my MacBook from either of my OWC drives. I don’t know if never allowing my SSD to sleep may have played any part of my current problem.

 

[honestone]

Man, you certainly are covering all your bases, and then some!

When I queried Micromat about the differences between their SMART testing and the one I did with the SMART Utility program from Volitans Software, here is the reply I got:

"It is my understanding the the graphs in the SMART test in TechTool Pro are intended to be a visual guide to whether a particular SMART parameter is close to failing, but cannot be used to estimate exact values, and cannot be used to try to interpolate values (the display is not linear). Our Drive Scope program gives exact data comparable to SMART Utility from Volitans. I suggest that you download the demo of iStat Menus, and see what it gives for the temperatures"

Whoopti do! I did download and run iStat Menus, but it was too confusing. In any event, while I have been on here (I am entering this on my MacBook Air), with my 2 posts, I again ran both SMART tests, and once again, the Internal Temperature "reading" via TTP is still somewhat "scary", whereas the one via the SMART Utility program is more "comfortable".

So, if I were you, I would continue to run your Mac with the current SSD. You might also want to discuss this with OWC. Given all the excellent dealings you have had with them, it seems they would be honest and up front with you.

BTW, you might want to read the discussion on MIcromat about their upgrade fees. It is quite revealing, and they have already lost some long time customers over it. Again, for me, I did not mind paying the extra $20 to go from V9.6 to V9.6.1. I wanted TTP to be FULLY compatible with High Sierra, and that is what V9.6.1 is. It definitely clears up this APFS business. And as I already mentioned, neither Disk Warrior nor Drive Genius are fully compatible with High Sierra (and apparently neither is the tool you use from OWC, SpeedTools).

Finally, I am certainly aware of what Shirt Pocket Software and Bombich Software went through with upgrading SuperDuper! and Carbon Copy Cloner, respectively, for High Sierra compatibility. It was certainly no picnic, and I am just so grateful to see such dedication from these companies.

 

[Allen Davis]

I 've already booted with my internal SSD, and went into System Preferences and turned TechTool off and have been doing my usual routine, but with SpeedTools in the driver's seat. I set it to run a SMART test every 60 minutes. Every report it's given me since says the drive is okay. I'm just going to keep my fingers crossed and hope things are fine for now.

I'm curious about where you saw temperature readings in TTP, unless you're referring to those reported when running the "Check Computer" test suite.

And like I said, OWC says ST should be fully High Sierra savvy soon, but since I'm still pretty happy with plain vanilla Sierra, I'll probably go ahead and pony up the $49 "unlocked" version of ST, especially since it offers free lifetime upgrades. I'm also developing a growing preference for ST over TTP, and from what you relayed in your last post, I'm a bit dismayed, and even more so after reading about others' experiences with Micromat.

WHOA! Another ST SMART message just popped up. My SSD is still healthy! I may have to throttle back the messages to every 4 hours or twice a day because this will become monotonous soon! When I checked to see what ST's alarm warning would read should it display a negative SMART report, it was just too cool and a bit funny.

Warning! A drive is about to fail. Perform a backup immediately and replace the drive. This in not a test.

 

[honestone]

I actually run the SMART feature of TTP separately (along with other tests), but when it runs, it presents a horizontal graph of various parameters analyzed. The graph has 4 different colors, starting with green to the left (where it says "Pass"), to red on the right (where it says "Fail"). There are vertical lines separating each of the 4 colors. For my Mac Book Air, the Internal Temperature "reading" is on the border between Yellow and Red, which graphically looks disturbing. But when I run SMART Utility, for the Temperature (Celsius), it shows the following: Value - 71, Worst - 18, Raw Value - 29, Min -19, Max - 82.

Maybe I "jumped the gun", so to speak, about SMART Utility. If the actual temperature is the value figure of 71, and the max is 82, then maybe the graphical depiction by TTP is accurate. The "manual" that came with SMART Utility does not spell out any of the figures for any of the parameters that it measures. I wish I knew what "Raw Value" meant.

 

[christopher knight]

hi
i added a 250GB SSD via usb 3 to my 2012 mac mini and it has made a fantastic difference in performance and everything is much quieter
i considered internal installation but considered it risky and an unnecessary complication. i left the original 500gb data drive in place but it has little on it. i have other non SSD external drives for photos and backupUSB3 external for sure

 

[honestone]

I have a late 2012 Mac Mini, and I was able to successfully install a Samsung 840 Pro 256 gig SSD inside it. The process was not that complicated, and I am quite pleased. But glad you are pleased with having an external SSD. I suspect you are booting your Mac Mini from it. Just out of curiosity, what Mac OS are you running?

 

[christopher knight]

Hi
Yes booting from Ssd
High Sierra 10.13.3

 

[honestone]

I found that booting my machine (either of my Macs) with High Sierra, and with either of my external SSDs connected (both of them have bootable backups, via SuperDuper!), it was a slow process. But when I do not have either external SSD connected, the boot up process is much better (although still not as fast as with Sierra).