SSD Drive Upgrade

[ssc456]

Hey guys,

I've got a new laptop, i5 processor 6Gb RAM 750Gb HDD and it runs fine and does everything I want but I've just starting dabbling with a VM and running Mountain Lion on it.

Works great by the way!

Only problem is I wanted Mountain Lion for just dabbling in developing IOS Apps, if I get serious then I will opt to buying a MacBook or iMac but for now the VM does me.

The only problem I have is the VM can be rather slow, I've given in 4Gb RAM and "4 processors" and I've noticed that if I look at my process manager in Windows 8 by HArdrive activity is maxed out, could upgrading to an SSD speed up the performance of the VM?

If so can anyone recommend an SSD? only looking for 200 ish Gb.

Thanks

 

[BK_123]

I was able to find a 250GB Samsung 840 Series 250GB Solid State Hard Drive 2.5" Basic Kit - Retail. With £15 Cash back!!! | MZ-7TD250BW

 

[ssc456]

Thanks!

I know it should speed general performance up, but do you think it will have a big impact on a virtual machine?

 

[BK_123]

All good. To be honest I am not sure, You can only try and see what happens, I'd imagine it wouldn't but I am not completely sure.

 

[Celegorm]

I'd imagine it would increase the the performance of the VM but I'm amazed that it's having issues as it is... I've run multiple VMs before at once and never had an issue on a standard hard drive and I doubt that Mac is that intensive.

Does your BIOS have any virtualization settings that might be disabled? It's a long shot that I doubt would change this but still worth looking into.

As for SSDs themselves, I had and loved a Crucial M4 (filled it up too quickly though ) and replaced that with a Samsung 840 like what BK linked. Both are great. I just ordered a new 840 to put in my new laptop whenever that makes it to me.

 

[ssc456]

I'll take a look in the bios tonight when I get home, see if there is anything I can see.

It can run fine but its things like switching from a Youtube video in my windows 8 (can't watch it on MAc as can't get the graphics to run smoothly?) To XCode on the Mac then it can literally take 30 seconds or so for either the VM or my web browser to become responsive again?

As I say Task Manager suggests Memory and CPU are fine but HDD activity is at 100%?

I am a cheap a55 so I might try and install Mac straight to my HDD first as if I can get this working i'm confident this will improve the speed but I've not had any experious installing Mac on a windows built laptop?

Anyone have any experience they could share?

 

[ssc456]

Just a thought guys, started to browse another thread on the "Maxed out RAM" and found this. . . .

A sure fire way to know if you have maxed out your RAM is if your system starts swapping out parts of memory to disk. This will result in a very laggy system with lots of disk activity.

I'll be completely honest I've no experience in swapping parts of memory to disc?

Could it be i'm trying to give the VM too much RAM?

I've got 6Gb in my Laptop and i'm giving my VM 4 leaving my Laptop 2, maybe I should change the ratio a little to 3.5 and 2.5 or 3 and 3?

I'll toy around with that as well tonight!

 

[setishock]

Go with 3 and 3. Windows in it's latest forms uses a lot of ram.

 

[Celegorm]

Just a thought guys, started to browse another thread on the "Maxed out RAM" and found this. . . .



I'll be completely honest I've no experience in swapping parts of memory to disc?

Could it be i'm trying to give the VM too much RAM?

I've got 6Gb in my Laptop and i'm giving my VM 4 leaving my Laptop 2, maybe I should change the ratio a little to 3.5 and 2.5 or 3 and 3?

I'll toy around with that as well tonight!

My rule of thumb is always no more than half of my RAM would go to a VM - when I was running multiple VMs, I'd make sure the sum total of RAM given to other machines was no more than half of what I had. So you could be right in that as well. Another easy way to tell is to open task manager. Windows will see that you have 6GB of RAM available so it's going to report on how of your overall RAM is being used. Since 2/3rds are being given to your VM, it's probably safe to assume if task manager reports physical memory usage above 33% you're using up everything left to windows.

 

[ssc456]

Well it seems to be running a lot better now, I've bought it down to 3.5 for the VM and 2.5 for Windows.

I still may consider an SSD just for the general performance increase.

Thanks for the help!

Now just to figure out how to expand my "Dynamically sized hard drive".
I guessed it would increase as I need the space but i'm trying to download a 7Gb file with 4Gb left and the download wont even start!

The fun continues . . . .

If I've got a second partition and I decide to try and install OS X on it what are the chances of losing the ability to boot into my Windows 8 install?