Mac + SSD question for someone smarter than me.

[Deleted]

Ok so I'm very likely about to buy the new upgraded 15" MPB (what I need for work). I'm looking into running windows on it for gaming and so forth that I would only do when I'm at home. My question is whether or not I could install Windows and WoW on an external SSD for improved performance, or if that would be unhelpful and not as beneficial as just partitioning the 7200rpm 500GB internal HD and running WoW that way. Thanks for any advice on the best ways to improve performance.

What improved performance? The hassle is twelve fold of what-ever performance gain you would have, let alone what performance difference you will notice. How I know? I've had it setup like that with an internal SSD. Oh boy, was that a useless way of spending time.

If you want a SSD, just go for a dual drive MBP, a SSD for OS X and the normal software and a HD for your storage.

[Deleted]

I would upgrade the MBPs HDD to SSD and use parallels to emulate windows.

[Rampant Rabbit]

Even if it were only for WoW and not any other games, it just runs better on Windows. Not to mention addons and game peripherals are far more compatible.

Got any proof on that statement? I see no reason why WoW on Windows would have an advantage over people that play WoW on Mac.

Also, afaik addons have nothing to do with what OS you're on.

[Nexxia]

Well, you came looking for mac advice and someone more intelligent than you. Maybe you came to the wrong place. FYI im on a mac, if you have a new model you should run it natively in OSX with no troubles. I wouldnt bother with what your talking about unless youre really bored and want a hassle.

[Deleted]

Got any proof on that statement? I see no reason why WoW on Windows would have an advantage over people that play WoW on Mac.

Theres plenty of evidence of the driver & OpenGL implementation being inferior to that of Windows, even Linux. DirectX has far more support from AMD/NVIDIA than OpenGL, Apple has shown little concern in this area - thus resulting in better optimized drivers and better performance on Windows. Mac OS also often displays signs of requiring more processor workload for the same (game) tasks; and in a Processor intensive game like WoW that has notable negative consequences.

[Deleted]

Theres plenty of evidence of the driver & OpenGL implementation being inferior to that of Windows, even Linux. DirectX has far more support from AMD/NVIDIA than OpenGL, Apple has shown little concern in this area - thus resulting in better optimized drivers and better performance on Windows. Mac OS also often displays signs of requiring more processor workload for the same (game) tasks; and in a Processor intensive game like WoW that has notable negative consequences.

While true; Apple is actually starting to take note and working (And have since a week released better driver(I jumped from 1~ hour on battery with WoW on to 2.5~ hours with battery with WoW on.)) on better drivers for OS X for Open GL. Note that 'gaming' on Mac is only starting to break open, so that explains a good few of the draw backs for now.

Apparently Lion will have far better Open GL/video drivers as well.

[Ramb505]

Got any proof on that statement? I see no reason why WoW on Windows would have an advantage over people that play WoW on Mac.

Also, afaik addons have nothing to do with what OS you're on.

Well I have tried both wow on Bootcamp and it's performance is FAR better then on mac.

[Joontje]

Okay, in response to the original question from the TS:

An external SSD completely destroys the purpose of an SSD, for a Mac an external drive would have to be USB which has such a low throughput that you wouldnt notice any diffrence if it was either a normal HDD or an SSD.
Secondly, there is a component known as an 'Optibay' with which you can replace your optical drive for an extra drive slot in which you can place your old HDD, a bigger HDD or an SSD (what do you really use an optical drive for these days..)
Bootcamp can be used to dual boot windows and OSX from either or both of the disks.

I'd advise to get an SSD, in the 120GB+ range and use a HDD for storage or games, dual boot Windows / OSX from the SSD with bootcamp and voila!

And if its only for WoW, just keep using OSX, you don't need windows just to run WoW.

[Cfyhx]

Don't use external devices for gaming. The SSD may be fast, but the connection most likely isn't.

[macgamer]

You wouldn't want to use an SSD either way, since Lion isn't yet supporting TRIM with any SSDs other than those shipping with the MBPs. They're supposed to be supporting TRIM for other SSDs in a future update.

As for performance, several people have already posted about WoW running better in Windows bootcamp, but I find that it runs perfectly in OS X using the OpenGL command(s) in WoW. I'm using a 2008 unibody MBP and it is considerably underpowered compared to the 2011 MBPs just released. I'd highly recommend running it in OS X, just do yourself a favor and search Google for the OpenGL commands to run from WoW's UI and you'll be fine. If you're installing Windows on Boot Camp or using Fusion anyway, it'll work great over both too.

Just note, there have been a ton of complaints with the 2011 MBPs having excessive thermal compound applied, so you'll likely run into overheating issues if you're running WoW or other games at high settings. You're best bet is to head over to iFixit (dot com) and check out how to redo the compound yourself if you do end up purchasing. Good luck with it and enjoy!

[Tyrianth]

Even if it were only for WoW and not any other games, it just runs better on Windows. Not to mention addons and game peripherals are far more compatible.

Did you just say addons are more compatible on windows? Are you retarded? Addons are OS independent, go ahead and find me one addon that works for windows and not for OSX.

[ayako]

Don't use external devices for gaming. The SSD may be fast, but the connection most likely isn't.

eSATA or just routing the cable outside = same speed.

[Chickensoup23]

eSATA or just routing the cable outside = same speed.

Touche.

But your 7200 RPM HDD is still good, and WoW works great on Mac. I know, I've tried it. Does it work better on Windows? Maybe, but for now, you're fine.

[Jinto]

Can't tell the difference between WoW on OSX and Windows. I can probably set my shadow details higher on Windows. I find latency to be a bit better under OSX. I do all my work in OSX so rebooting just to play WoW would be a pretty major inconvenience.

Also OSX now supports TRIM with the latest updates. Technically it only works with Apple SSDs but the kexts can be modified for any SSD that supports TRIM.

[Deleted]

Got any proof on that statement? I see no reason why WoW on Windows would have an advantage over people that play WoW on Mac.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/2006/04/19/
Main quote from that bit of info

I honestly prefer using OS X at this point and it was sort of nice to have a game I could play that didn’t require me to go upstairs and start up my Windows box. But it runs twice as fast under Windows for fucks sake. I can’t ignore that.

Can't find anything more recent though and I can't test it myself since I don't have a mac.

[Kraszmyl]

That post from penny arcade is nearly 5 years old. opengl at this point is pretty close to dx9 , so unless the orriginal poster has a brand new dx11/sandybridge mac the osx preformance should be pretty close to windows dx9. Plus if they are installing xp under bootcamp that adds a layer which slows things down since xp isnt efi capable. I frankly dont know how bootcamp/osx/win7 all play together since win7 can handle efi and doesnt need the layer and i havent bothered trying as the female wont let me take her mbp for my crazy experiments.

To the orriginal poster. MacBooks if i recall correctly lack esata natively? Anyone who keeps track of mac hardware better than i feel free to correct me. Also pretty sure they wont let you boot off of it either if they do. So your kinda stuck there as other people have pointed out.

That being said. I have a 256g ssd + win7 on one of my laptops. The hassle and price just to make wow load faster is frankly not worth it if thats all youre getting the ssd for. I see more noticable gain in fps game load times than i do with WoW.

[Wries]

I don't think you can run Windows from an external drive. If it worked at all it would be incredibly slow.

It does work. I've played (tested) from an USB2 external and it runs, but yeah loading screen time was awful.

EDIT. I read WoW, but you clearly wrote windows. Sorry. Yeah that is a concern I got when reading these posts as well.

Thunderbolt on the other hand should in theory not bottleneck the disk speed and run WoW just fine. But someone needs to test it! Question is if you can really boot windows from a thunderbolt-connected drive.

so unless the orriginal poster has a brand new dx11/sandybridge mac the osx preformance should be pretty close to windows dx9. .

OP is going for a DX11/Sandy bridge mac.

[Deleted]

opengl at this point is pretty close to dx9

OpenGL at this point is equivalent to DX11, at least when you're using an up to date version. Mac OS has also only received small changes to its OpenGL implementation the past 6 or so years.

Furthermore you miss that saying its equivalent in capability is not enough. The code programmed and drivers that interface with it has to be efficient as well. Thats where Mac OS has problems - it uses poorly optimized drivers, hence falling behind in performance.

Even Windows, despite having the best OpenGL optimization - is more efficient with DirectX than OpenGL. Where do you think that leaves Mac OS, who of the three big operating systems is the weakest at it?

[Kraszmyl]

@ dark
I was under the impression that gl was missing some features still due to the cad companies forcing some legacy options that restricted things, but id be more than happy to be wrong about that since i miss a real alternative to d3d.

I agree with you on the poor drivers, but they are considerably better than they used to be and while i havent used one of the sandy based mbps since apple stole some amd engineers to work on the orriginal i series mbps i would assume the new ones have better driver support for them with the swap to 6 series gpus.

@wries

You can boot from an external drive into windows just fine. It comes down to the bios/efi supporting booting from an external device or in the case of esata as far as the computer is concerned generaly that is an internal device.

regardless i still stand by the statement that an ssd for just wow isnt worth the hassle.

[Deleted]

@ dark
I was under the impression that gl was missing some features still due to the cad companies forcing some legacy options that restricted things, but id be more than happy to be wrong about that since i miss a real alternative to d3d..

Possible - I don't keep that up to date with the specific capabilities of OpenGL. In any case, I'd assume it of little consequence though as many DX11 features aren't currently widely used.