#Best hard drive for parallels for mac how to#
#Best hard drive for parallels for mac mac os x#
#Best hard drive for parallels for mac mac os#

#Best hard drive for parallels for mac mac os#

Select Mac OS Extended (Journaled) as the Format and Name the new partition whatever you’d like.Ĭlick the Options… button and choose GUID Partition Table as the partition scheme and click OK. Open the Disk Utility (command+space and type the name of the application) and click on your NEW external SSD and choose the Partition tab, and choose 1 Partition from the drop-down menu.

#Best hard drive for parallels for mac how to#

Learn how to set up Time Machine with Apple Support. If you don’t want to end up with a totally “clean” new Mac OS X/macOS install, use this time to make a full Time Machine backup that can be restored into the newly install copy of Mac OS X/macOS once it’s completed. The full installer is several Gigabytes in size, and will take some time to download it has everything necessary to make a completely fresh installation of Mac OS. Go to the product page for the OS version you’re using and click Download, then Continue to download the full Installer. To begin, download the OS X or macOS version you’re using, to do that head to the App Store (command+space and type “app store” to find the application). All you need to do is connect the drive and boot from it (remember, the drive will always need to stay connected, since your Mac will be running from this drive!). LaCie now makes ready-to-go Thunderbolt ($196 at time of writing) and USB 3 ($140 at time of writing) external SSD drives that can be easily connected to your Mac. My mid-2011 model only had Thunderbolt support, so Thunderbolt it was. Firewire 800 is also an option for older iMacs, although I haven’t extensively researched it. Either of these is more than enough to take full advantage of an SSD. Thunderbolt can transfer at 5Gb/s and USB 3 at 2.5Gb/s. Realizing that opening up an iMac is an absolute nightmare I started looking for external options, and Thunderbolt presented itself as the best possible option for my model. I wanted to move my system device to an SSD to improve that performance. It can easily take 4 minutes to fully boot to a useful state.

#Best hard drive for parallels for mac mac os x#

Nevertheless, Mac OS X or macOS running on an HDD iMac is SLOW.

Most of my real work takes places online or on remove servers the OS isn’t a factor that I take into consideration. I have a mid-2011 iMac I use at my office to keep my workspace clean and straightforward. Just follow the instructions as below, using the new installer version. Update October 2, 2016: Lots of folks have reported that this works with El Capitan and I’ve used it with macOS Sierra as well. It’s possible for that Mac to boot in under 30 seconds and to jump generations ahead for under $200.

If you have an iMac with Thunderbolt or USB 3 but without an SSD you can boot from a full-speed external SSD without opening the case.