Accordance on External SSD Drive

[Paul Meiklejohn]

I run Acordance on my desktop and laptop.  Accordance on my laptop which is SSD (2.7 GHz - 8GB RAM)  is significantly faster and more stable.  On my desktp (3.1 GHz - 8GB RAM) HDD, Accordance takes noticably longer to load, is more prone to hanging or crashing. Both machines are the latest retina models.

 

Becuase of the noticable differences, I'm considering buying an external SSD to store and run Accordance for my iMac.  Can anybody help with the following:

1. Is it even possible to keep the programme and modules on a seperate SSD? If so, will it make any real difference?

2. Would there be any advantage in simply moving data over to my external thunderbolt hard drive (HDD)?

3. Helen has been indicating that a full Cocoa version will be released in the near future.  Will that speed things up or just make things more stable.

 

It should be said that nearly all other apps run smoothly and on my desktop.

 

Thanks.

[Fabian]

If I understand Joel right of of post he made last fall (sorry the search function in this forum software is only cruel and I didn't find it) will full cocoa and 64bit speed up Accordance. Like a supercharger and Nitroinjection?

 

I guess this will be happen in May or June, with 11.2?

 

Greetings

 

Fabian

Edited April 15, 2016 by Fabian

[Michel Gilbert]

Hi Paul,

Although it wasn’t my original intention, a few days ago I actually had such a setup. I had decided that if I could get my new Samsung Evo 850 500 GB ssd installed internally on my old MacBook, and it it really sped things up, I would use it much more.

I had been successful the day before using Disk Utility to Restore the internal drive to an external hdd. I tried the same thing with the ssd, but it wouldn’t boot. But I did try what you are asking about - I booted onto the hdd, and then went into the ssd and ran Accordance. It was amazing how much faster it loaded. I tried a few other programs and they loaded faster too. I can’t even imagine how much faster Acc would load on your iMac, which I assume is at least SATA II compared to my SATA I.

I’m really a complete novice in the Mac and Acc world. I don’t know how you could duplicate what I did. I’m assuming you have a large hdd and don’t want to spend the money on the same sized ssd, and I don't know how to shrink a partition on a Mac hdd, unless it’s the same as in Windows and Linux and you just use something like gParted and Clonezilla.

Based on my research, I’m probably going to replace my hdd in my old MacBook with a hybrid drive. Then I’ll get the benefit of faster loading times, a modest increase in speed if I get a 7200 rpm drive vs my 5400, and the benefit of a fresh install, which always seems to speed things up (and of which most of us in the Windows world are very familiar with).

On a final note, and fwiw, if Acc offered a Linux version, or their own Distro with Acc on it, everyone could have Acc on a thumb drive, micro sd, or external ssd.

Regards,

Michel

Edited April 15, 2016 by Michel Gilbert

[Λύχνις Δαν]

Hi Paul,

 

Honestly the best thing to do is to get an SSD as the primary drive. A mounting kit suitable for the Mac in question (I assume the desktop is a Mac) and install the SSD in the Mac as the primary drive are likely available unless it's really really new - though Apple would presumably have one. It costs a bunch to have Apple do it but it's not especially hard if you are ok with taking the covers off yourself - though a few special tools might be required. There are likely online tutorials for most models - though as yours is really recent then warranty would be an issue. Whichever way that happens then put the HDD in an external case as a USB drive. I've done this operation on a friends machine (fully explained in some webpage he found) and he loved the speed up. He did a fresh install rather than copy the images across using a replicator but I've also done the replication thing on my Windows laptop and that was fine too.

 

Then it won't just be Accordance which will improve but many more apps + the OS.

 

On the failing on the desktop more frequently thing. Unless the failures stem from disk corruptions or controller faults I doubt the disk would be at fault. It would however certainly influence performance. As to installation being supported on non-system disks, I don't see why that wouldn't work but I've not had multiple drives with which to test it out. This suggests it should work post install : http://accordancefiles2.com/helpfiles/OSX11/content/topics/09_haat/moving_and_renaming_files.htm. I don't know if the install flow itself supports a different initial placement. Cannot remember what I did when I installed from scratch last time.

 

I don't know if Cocoa will speed things up or not. The main benefit will be a better fit into the OSX ecosystem, which ought to be a big functional and maintenance win.

 

Thunderbolt hmmm.... this is not a thing I've tried but if the drive speed is similar to the internal drive then all you change by doing this is the connection speed to the disk. While TB is rated faster than SATA III I doubt given a normal application profile for something like Accordance that you would notice any difference. What I see on the web suggests SATA <-> TB protocol translation is going to impact you too unless you have a native TB drive.

 

Thx

D

[Paul Meiklejohn]

Michel and Daniel, 

Thank you both for your very detailed answers.  I'll digest what you've both written over the weekend and see where I go from there.  

Just a few additional things to throw into the ring.  The iMac is only a few months old, so I would be reluctant to mess around with the internal drive so not to infringe upon the warranty.  Secondly, The 24" Retina display is one of the few iMacs  that you can't upgrade the RAM on.  (Something that I wasn't made aware of at the time of purchase), so I'm limited to some kind of external solution or just to leave things as they are until Accordance stabilises a bit.

 

Thanks again for taking the time to answer.

 

Paul 

[Mark Allison]

http://deals.kinja.com/uh-holy-crap-this-960gb-ssd-is-down-to-188-1771057167

[Λύχνις Δαν]

< 20 cents a GB - nice !

[Paul Meiklejohn]

Update: I should have done this before now, but I just opened Accordance in Safe Mode (Alt-Start accordance), deselected a few items, re-saved my start up session; and so far so good.  Things are noticeably faster and more stable.  (Naturally, the initial start up is slower than my laptop, but that's to be expected on a HDD).  It's certainly running full library searches, cross references and dictionary links at lightning speed again.  Welcome back Accordance!

I'll keep you posted if things change.

Thanks again.

Edited April 16, 2016 by Paul Meiklejohn