Seagate's Momentus XT hybrid drive is already on the market.

A new Apple patent published Thursday by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (via Patently Apple) reveals plans for a new type of hybrid drive that combines the benefits of both platter-based and flash storage. A hybrid drive isn’t a new concept; I recently upgraded my 2009 Mac mini with a 500 GB version from Seagate. But Apple’s patent application reveals some innovative ideas about how to use a flash/spinning drive combo.

Smarter data insurance

The key new element in Apple’s patent application has to do with a system for detecting environmental conditions in a computer’s surroundings, and then changing which portion of the drive it writes to based on those conditions. That would allow it to temporarily store information on the flash portion of the drive, if conditions detected are determined to potentially pose a high risk for data written to the platter drive. Hard disk drives are much more sensitive to shock, changes in orientation, ambient temperature or magnetic signals, so this could in theory protect valuable data from being lost due to drive errors.

Fast, capacious and cheap

Meanwhile, the platter-based drive can operate in normal conditions, providing lots more storage per dollar for customers. Flash-based storage will continue to drop in price, but it still has a long way to go before it can compete in terms of per GB cost with platter-based drives. Capacities in Mac computers using hybrid drives could theoretically far outstrip those currently available from flash drives, while also offering some of their performance benefits. Hybrid drives can keep often-accessed data on the flash portion of the drive, to make operations like booting, shutting down and opening applications consistently speedy.

Intel is deploying its Smart Response hybrid drive technology in some gaming laptops later this year, and should expand it to more mainstream computers throughout 2012. It’s a technology that companies are beginning to see the value of, since it can bridge the gap between platter drives and SSDs, which have yet to really become available in storage capacities high enough at prices low enough to justify mass-market usage for mobile PCs.

Desktops likely targets

Apple’s targets with this tech, if it ever does put this patent into practice, will likely be its desktop iMac and Mac mini line. That’s because the space requirements for the drives will make them unable to fit within the case of a MacBook Air. I also believe that, as reports have suggested, Apple is planning to move to ultraportable form factors across its line of notebook offerings. If that happens, SSD will probably also be the storage option of choice in those machines, with Thunderbolt serving as a means to connect to larger external drives when they’re needed.

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RAM

This is the easiest place you can make an improvement with almost any Mac. iMacs have a user-accessible memory slot located on the bottom edge of the display, between the built-in speakers. It’s as simple as removing three screws, and then replacing the computer’s existing memory with large capacity, compatible RAM units. MacBooks and MacBook Pros are also easily upgradeable when it comes to memory, and require only the removal of the bottom case or a memory area cover, depending on your model.

Remember to make absolutely sure that the RAM you’re buying is compatible with your computer. You can do this by finding out which Mac you have, by doing the following:

1. Go to the Apple menu in the top left corner of the menu bar.
2. Click on “About This Mac.”
3. Click on the “More Info…” button.
4. Take note of the Model Identifier in the Hardware Overview that opens. It should say something like “iMac12,2″ or “MacBook3,1.”
5. Go to EveryMac.com and enter that identifier to get the complete specs for your machine, including what type of RAM it uses and the maximum amount it can support.

If you’d rather make it easier on yourself, you can go to OWC and browse for your model in the Memory section of their online store. Note that this does require that you at least know when you bought the computer, but you can find that out using the method described above.

Note that some Mac mini models and MacBook Airs make upgrading the RAM yourself very difficult or impossible, in which case you might want to consult with an authorized Mac service provider.

Hard Drive

RAM is easier to upgrade, but for Lion, a hard drive change could make the biggest difference. They can be a bit trickier to upgrade, and nearly impossible if you have an iMac, but for most Mac notebooks, the process isn’t very challenging. If you’re unsure how to change your hard drive, check the official Apple manual for your computer, which you can identify using the method described above.

There are a few options available to you here. Like Dave Greenbaum, you could choose to go with a solid-state drive. This is the best possible option, but it’s also the priciest, and you get relatively little storage space for your money.

Another option is to supplement your existing HDD by installing a separate, smaller capacity SSD as your startup volume. If you have a MacBook Pro, this isn’t too difficult to do. Weldon Dodd provided an excellent walkthrough of how he achieved this with his own computer. Lion requires a minimum of 8 GB of free space on your drive, but a 40 GB drive that you can get for around $100 is probably as small as you should go, even if you don’t plan on keeping anything else on there.

Finally, you can also get the best of both worlds in a single drive, using a hybrid drive. Seagate makes a hybrid drive that provides 500 GB of storage, along with a 4 GB flash storage module. It manages to achieve a 32 MB cache with a 7200 RPM drive speed, and provides much better performance than a traditional drive, in my experience, plus it’s way cheaper than a standalone SSD. Boot times, app launch times, and wake from sleep times all drastically improved after I installed this in my MacBook Pro.

The most expensive of the above-mentioned options probably won’t cost you more than $500, and that’s only if you opt for a relatively capacious SSD. Noticeable improvements shouldn’t cost you more than $100, which is a great deal shy of the $1000+ you’d spend on a brand new Mac. Any other suggestions for DIY improvements that could make transitioning to Lion that much more satisfying?

* Ed. Please remember that DIY modifications to Apple equipment is done at your own risk, and voids your AppleCare warranty.

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For my test, I turned to reputable Mac upgrade retailer Other World Computing, and installed their Mercury Extreme Pro 115 GB drive. I installed a fresh copy of 10.6.6 (the most current version when my test began in February) with all applicable updates, and then used the Migration Assistant to import my system from a Western Digital Scorpio Blue 320 GB HD.

Initial impressions were spectacular. A cold boot of my MacBook to the login screen took an average of 19.5 seconds, and to get from login to a full Finder “ready to work” state took an average of only 8.2 additional seconds. Launching Safari was nearly instant, and Microsoft Word 2011 took an average of 2.4 seconds to load. Battery life was difficult to test, but my average use time from a full charge was 4-5 hours, using a two-month old official Apple replacement battery.

After a month, I cloned the SSD back to my original Western Digital HDD and the boot and Finder load took more than twice as long. On average cold boot time was 46 seconds with a variance of about 10 percent, and the time from login to full Finder was 38 seconds. Safari launched in 3.5 seconds, and Word in 7.2 seconds. Battery life was back to about 2 hours. I could only tolerate using the original drive for about a week and decided to switch back to the SSD. I retested the SSD (without cloning back from the Western Digital) and results were identical to my tests at the time of initial install.

After I had been using the SSD for over three months, I repeated my original tests, and the results were exactly the same, showing no degradation of speed. That could be due in part to OWC’s wear-management technology, so your mileage with other brand drives might vary.

For those of us using older MacBooks (especially the discontinued “Blackbook”) who aren’t keen on retiring our devices, I strongly recommend a SSD. With RAM maxing out at an anemic 2 GB on these models, an SSD provides an amazing speed enhancement. Although my MacBook is nearly five years old, its fast boot and application launch time, as well as its significant longer battery life made me fall in love with it all over again. A new MacBook might be great, but this one gets the job done nicely, and for only a couple hundred dollars, I’ve got what feels like a brand new Mac in my bag.

Disclosure: While the product was initially provided free from OWC, at the end of the review period, Dave had a need for speed and purchased the used drive.

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Lion is a significant change for OS X, both from a development back-end perspective, and for end-users, too. In fact, it may represent the most significant update of any point release since the introduction of Mac OS 10.0. And as the saying goes, you can’t make an omelet without cracking a few eggs.

In this case, the eggs in question might be some technologies that users aren’t quite ready to let go. Lion is demanding, especially with all the visual flourishes, like transitional animations, enabled. Apple has already said that older Intel Macs (those that don’t use the Intel Core 2 Duo processor or higher, or that have less than 2 GB of RAM installed) won’t be able to come to the party, and even those that aren’t so old (two years or more) might not be able to handle the demands without some customizations or after-market upgrades. Users won’t be able to jump right from Leopard to Lion, either, as they’ll need to have Snow Leopard and the Mac App Store (which arrived with a later Snow Leopard update) installed in order to even run the Lion upgrade software, which will be available only through digital distribution.

Don’t get me wrong, Lion should technically work for Macs that are just starting to show their age, so long as they meet the minimum requirements, but they probably won’t shine, and they won’t be as good at playing nice with the features that make Lion so desirable.

Let me say it plainly: Lion seems very much designed for use with modern processors, lots of RAM, and, most importantly, computers with SSD storage, and the presence of each of these components definitely improves the experience. The whole point of feature additions like Resume, Auto Save and Versions is that the Mac become, like the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch, a machine that can be turned on and off as desired, without undue waiting, loading or having to worry about traditional startup / shutdown procedures.

It also obviously couldn’t care less about your Mac’s optical disc drive, turning that hardware feature from a must-have to a quaint convenience thanks to the Mac App Store. The reality of solid state, disc drive-less personal computing became more tangible with the arrival of the new MacBook Air. But it’s still not the dominant model, and Lion is clearly designed for a future where it is. Luckily, you can take a shortcut to the future by replacing your existing MacBook’s optical drive with an SSD, which should help greatly improve instant-on startup times when you upgrade to Lion.

I’m glad Apple is taking a bold step forward with Lion, since hopefully it means big changes are in store for how we approach personal computing, even if it means some of my Macs won’t be able to come along for the ride. But if you’re planning to upgrade, keep in mind that more than any update since perhaps the introduction of Intel processors to Mac computers, Lion bring with it a significant adjustment period, for developers and uses alike.

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Weighing in at just over 4 GB each download, this update will likely be a major contender with Netflix for internet bandwidth.  Especially as Apple’s 54 million Mac users begin to upgrade.  While priced the same as OS X Snow Leopard, this cat is no slouch.  With over 250 new features, Mac users will be more likely to want to update sooner rather than later.

What will be interesting this time around is how one performs this download-based upgrade. While users have gotten familiar with the upgrade process of the disk-based distribution, the Mac OS X upgrade path will likely be a little different; requiring enough free hard drive space for the download, the upgrade process, and the larger OS foot print that will likely result.  At a time when Mac users are opting for the faster yet smaller SSDs, extra hard drive space, like network bandwidth will be at a premium.

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According to AnandTech, the faster drives carry the model name SM128C, which suggests Samsung is the supplier. Samsung has supplied Apple with SSDs for its other devices in the past, so it’s definitely not a stretch that the Mac-maker would use them in the Air, too.

Speed tests also show the SM128C drives are faster than the Toshiba drives, and those speeds are pretty close to the official specifications of Samsung’s 470 Series SSDs. The newer drives read at 261.1 MB/s according to AnandTech’s testing, and write at 209.6 MB/s. The Toshiba drives, by comparison, managed only 209.8 MB/s read and 175.6 MB/s write speeds in AnandTech’s tests.

It’s possible Apple’s decision to add Samsung as a supplier of SSDs for the MacBook Air stems more from necessity than from any performance gains, however. Japan-based Toshiba’s operations were affected by the earthquake and tsunami that struck the country, although Toshiba’s president said Friday that should have minimal effect on its profitability. Despite those assurances, Apple could be hedging its bets by enlisting another supply source (one that’s Korean based) for the special blade-style SSD, which is a key component of the popular MacBook Air.

For users, which manufacturers’ drive is included in their Airs may have a small but noticeable effect on performance when it comes to simple tasks like sequential read/write operations. Further performance testing is required before any conclusions can be drawn regarding more holistic, system-wide performance differences. In the end, it’s probably not enough of a difference to get too worked up about, but feel free to disagree in the comments if you’ve seen two machines with the two different SSDs in action.

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Advantages of Paired Storage

I love this setup. I have the blazing fast speed of the SSD (it really does feel like getting a new computer) and I have enough room for everything I need thanks to the spacious HDD. There are some other advantages that might not be obvious at first glance, too:

• You can install an alternate system on the HDD. I have Snow Leopard installed on the SSD for everyday work and I have Lion installed on the hard drive for testing.
• You can use Boot Camp to install Windows on the HDD because it is a true internal drive. Boot Camp won’t work with an external drive, but it works great with this setup and it doesn’t use any of the space on the precious SSD.
• I have lots of room for Virtual Machines on the 500GB HDD so I can create other testing setups as needed.

Yes, I have to connect an external optical drive every time I need to install something from disc, but once I was done with the initial setup I haven’t needed it that much. It really has proved to be the perfect arrangement  for my needs. Here’s how you can do it with your own MacBook.

The tools. Click to enlgarge.

What to Order

• 115 GB SSD from Other World Computing (OWC) with mounting bracket and tools — $280
• Seagate 500 GB 7200RPM drive — about $70
• external USB enclosure for the slim optical drive — about $30
• external USB enclosure for the 2.5″-inch HDD — about $20
• blazing fast computer with lots of free space — PRICELESS!

Sizing Things Up

To get the space requirements for your SSD, select your drive and “Get Info” to see how much space is used (make sure to empty the trash first!). Now check how much space is being used by the User folder(s) on your computer. The difference between the two is all the system files and applications that you will want to put on the SSD. The Users folders themselves can go on the HDD.

As an example, I was using about 300 GB on my HDD. The Applications (including CS5 and Xcode), root Library and System folders take up about 53 GB of space. My Home folder takes up about 240 GB (and my iTunes Media is on a network share). I wanted enough room for my system files and applications on the SSD, and some room left over for a portion of my user files so that these frequently used files would benefit from the speed of the SSD.

Picking the Right SSD

Using my computer as an example, I could conceivably get by with a 60GB SSD (I have 53 GB of system and application files, as mentioned). But that’s cutting it too close for the system files (OS X needs 4-5 GB of free space just for temp files and such things). And it would mean that all user files would have to go on the HDD. On top of that, early reports indicate that SSDs benefit from extra free space to keep them running fast. In my case, that would mean at least 80 GB. I wanted to get a drive from the high-performing OWC Mercury Pro line, so I moved up to the next available size of 115GB. If you’re struggling with the decision, it’s always a good idea to buy as much storage as you can afford.

Removing the Optical Drive

I have held various certifications in Apple hardware repair starting back in 1994, but I honestly didn’t need any of that training to upgrade my mid-2009 MacBook Pro. Any uni-body MacBook or MacBook Pro is pretty easy to get into. iFixit.com is a great resource for a detailed photo walk-through of the steps to remove the optical drive from your Mac. I placed the optical drive in an external slim USB enclosure so I could continue to use it, and I also have an external Blu-ray drive for any DVDs or CDs that I might need.

I also removed my existing hard drive, placing it in an external enclosure, and installed a new 500 GB 7200RPM drive from Seagate in its place. You might choose to stick with your computer’s existing HDD, depending on your storage needs.

The bracket for your SSD. Click to enlarge.

Installing the SSD

The next step is to attach the SSD to the bracket, after which you can install the bracket itself where the optical drive used to be. As I mentioned above, I bought the SSD and the bracket in a bundle from OWC. They helpfully include the tools that you need and provide online video guides for the installation.

The inside of the MacBook with the SSD installed. Click to enlarge.

Configuring the System

Setting up your new drives in Disk Utility. Click to enlarge.

I decided to do a clean install of the system to the SSD and then copy over select files from my user folder. I booted from the OS X installation disc (I actually have an external FireWire 800 hard drive set up for this purpose – saves 20-30 minutes), formatted both drives with Disk Utility and ran the installer. When that was done, I booted to the SSD, ran the guided setup, Software Update, and installed my core applications.

Handling Users and Home Folders

There are a couple of choices here. I could move my entire user folder to the HDD, but I wanted the benefits of the SSD for some frequently used files from the Home folder. I decided on a mixed solution where I could keep some user folders on the SSD (~/Applications, ~/Desktop, ~/Library in particular) and the folders with hefty storage requirements (Documents, Downloads, Movies, and Pictures) on the HDD. I kept the ~/Music folder on the SSD so that iTunes would be able to quickly load the iTunes Library file, which is the index to all of the media files and the associated metadata like ratings and play count. I had previously set the preferences in iTunes to point the iTunes Media Folder location to a network share, so all of my media files are actually on a network share. I suspect that most people would want to keep their ~/Music folder on the SSD and use the advanced preferences tab in iTunes to move the iTunes Media Folder to the hard drive.

I copied the old Documents, Downloads, Pictures and Movies folders from my original HDD (now installed in an external enclosure) to their new home on the big internal hard drive. Once I had them in place, I was ready to fix up my Home folder.

Symlinks

The trick to splitting up your Home folder so that some stays on the SSD and some points to the HDD is to use symlinks. Symlinks are a function of the UNIX underpinnings of OS X to create something like an alias, but at a low-level in the filesystem. I created links to point certain directories in my Home folder to locations on the HDD. After creating the links, those folders appear to be in the “normal” spot in my Home folder, but they don’t use any room on the SSD as they act like an alias that points to the HDD. Even thought the image below shows “Alias” as the kind for these link files, don’t make the mistake of creating an alias in the Finder. You will need to use the command line to create a symlink.

Bottom Line

This new setup has everything I need. Incredible boot times, fast application launching, and overall snappy performance. I have a triple-boot system with Snow Leopard, the developer preview of Lion, and Windows 7, with room for a few Virtual Machines too. Now that the Mac App Store is taking off, I don’t even have to hook up the optical drive very often. It’s beautiful.

If you’ve done something similar, I would love to hear about it. If you want to try this setup and have questions, I’ll try to answer in the comments below.

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For me, the Dell was the obvious choice for this project for a few reasons:

1. Boing Boing has a chart that indicates which pieces of hardware work on netbooks with OS X installed.
2. Gizmodo provides a thorough tutorial on how to set it all up.
3. I heard there was an active and helpful forum.

Here are my specs:

• Inspirion 910 Intel Atom Processor N270, 1.6Ghz, 533 Mhz 512k L2 Cache
• Obsidian black color with gloss finish
• 2GB DDR2 533 Mhz, 1 DIMM (purchased from Crucial.com)
• 8.9-inch wide-screen WSVGA TL
• Intel graphics media accelerator (GMA) 950
• 32GB solid-state drive (my first SSD!)
• Wireless 802.11g mini card
• Integrated 1.3 megapixel webcam
• 77WH 6-cell battery
• Bluetooth 2.1 module via USB I/F

The 77WH 6-cell battery was purchased through eBay. It provides both amazing battery life, and it elevates the back of the Mini which gives the keyboard a comfortable slant. I only need to charge it every couple of days.

Installing OS X took a couple hours, but that was mostly spent watching the screen. As soon as it was complete (Apple software updates, too), I installed Google Gears and offline access for Google Apps (Gmail, Calendar, Reader, and Docs). Fortunately, there were no surprises with software downloads or installations. Airport works, and downloads are fast. When I turn off Airport, the Safari 4 beta has no issues switching to offline mode. When I turn it back on, changes sync back to Google. Success!

My goal was to build a browser-focused netbook that would primarily be disconnected from the Internet. The occasional synchronization would allow me to catch up on emails and write more posts for TheAppleBlog.

Now, for the verdict.

Don’t buy a Dell Mini 9 even if you want to use Windows or Ubuntu. Although surprisingly useful and fun to show off (techie people will most likely be impressed when they see a real dock on a Dell), the keyboard is an absolute deal-breaker — OK, not just a deal-breaker, a nightmare. I constantly make typos. Using quotation marks, something I occasionally do while writing, is a challenging task considering the quotation key’s random placement near the space bar. Perhaps with more practice I will learn to be efficient with such a minuscule keyboard, but so far, it doesn’t appear that way.

This was a fun experiment (and an extremely expensive blog post). I feel like it bumped me up a notch or two in terms of Apple user cred. However, if you have the desire to go through with this, just keep in mind that it’s a toy and not a serious business tool.

My recommendation: Check out the HP Mini series since the keyboards are only 7 percent smaller than a full-size. Personally, I’d like to save up for a Macbook Air to experience the ultra-light, ultra-thin Apple. In fact, someone nearby has one on the train, and I’m jealous.

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Transcend Solid State Device

Without any doubt, this is the ExpressCard device which caught my eye first. It consists of a high capacity, solid state device which inserts into your laptop, giving you an easy way to add some SSD storage. Initially the price of these was prohibitively high, but SSD is becoming evermore appealing as the costs are pushed lower. It comes in three different varieties:

• 32GB SSD $126.21
• 16GB SSD $44.68
• 8GB SSD $28.68

The major use heralded for the card is to enable Vista ReadyBoost — something obviously not appropriate for a MacBook Pro user. However, other tasks which benefit from high speed storage (a Photoshop scratch disk for instance) could see the benefit of the card. Whether it provides a huge advantage over a high capacity USB thumb drive is debatable though, and the ExpressCard price still carries a slight premium.

Macally 5-in-1 ExpressCard Media Reader

Something I was always used to on a Windows desktop was a media card reader. After having a MacBook for a few years, I’ve now become accustomed to just plugging a camera in via USB. That said, I would certainly find an ExpressCard memory card reader particularly useful.

A few readers have received fairly poor reviews, but the Macally offering seems better than most. It is able to convert ExpressCard to Memory Stick, Memory Stick PRO, Secure Digital card, MultiMedia card and xD-Picture Card. It does have some limits on capacity, however:

• Memory Stick – up to 128MB
• Memory Stick PRO – up to 2GB
• Secure Digital – up to 2GB
• Multi Media Card – up to 512MB
• xD-Picture Card – up to 1GB

This limitation could render the product unsuitable for many professional photographers, or those wanting to use it as a way to plug in fast solid state storage. For basic use, however, it is perfect — and priced at around $20.

SIIG FireWire 800

Sure the MacBook Pro comes with a Firewire 800 port as standard, but more ports could always be welcome. This adaptor provides two FireWire 800 (one 9-pin & one 6-pin) ports for multiple device connections and works with DV camcorders, FireWire hard disks, digital cameras, scanners, CD-RW/DVD drives, video game systems, and other audio/video devices.

The main problem with this idea is that Firewire devices already support ‘daisy chaining’. This is likely to reduce the need for additional ports directly in your laptop, though it is still common to have Firewire devices without an in-built second port. The SIIG Firewire 800 card is priced at around $85 — a comparable price to most FW800 hubs.

Note: I’m aware the above picture is for a different version of the device — the ExpressCard/54

Sonnet FireWire + USB 2.0

The ExpressCard card from Sonnet provides a simple way to add a USB 2.0 port and two Firewire 400 ports to a MacBook Pro. This is particularly appropriate and topical with all the dispute surrounding Apple dropping in-built Firewire 400 ports. With this card, it’s easy to connect to any of your old Firewire devices and also provides an additional USB port.

The card is priced at a reasonable $50 — not bad for reclaiming Firewire 400 support.

Any others?

I haven’t touched on one of the other major uses for ExpressCard expansion, that of adding a wireless modem to your MacBook. These allow you to connect a laptop to a 3G or EDGE data network, and they’ll be covered thoroughly in a future article.

Are there any other gadgets you find useful to fill your ExpressCard slot? I’m intrigued to know if I missed anything useful.

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