Setting the default boot to an ExpressCard device

I just received an ExpressCard SSD and was wondering if it is possible to set the default boot device on a MacBook Pro to this device instead of the operating systems on the HDD.

I plan to clone my HDD Mac OS X partition (except for my user files) onto the SSD using SuperDuper so that I can boot off the SSD (which is supposed to be a lot faster on the SSD) and then access my user files on the HDD. I guess that I should move the pagefile over to the HDD as well.

It would be great if the SSD were the default boot device as that would mean that I don't have to bring up the boot menu every time. Has anyone out there tried this?

 

Did you check System Pref > Start Up disk?
It should be in there. I know you can set it as a boot disk, I was looking into getting a expresscard SSD before.

 

Very cool. Thanks.

My searching led me to the FileMate ExpressCard and it's the only one that I know of that is bootable. I've formatted the disk and can see it now. I just don't know if I have the time to do a clone this afternoon. But if not this afternoon, then tonight. The startup thing can't see the SSD as a bootable device yet (makes sense) but I'm hoping it will after the clone.

 

I actually use CarbonCopy; not SuperDuper and it's in image mode so I can't copy my HDD to the SSD as it's too big. It looks like I will have to install Mac OS X from scratch which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

 

I have read about concerns about how much heat SSDs in the expresscard put out. I ejected and turned the power off on mine and left it in the slot for quite a while. It came out rather warm. I think that this means that the expresscard is in a warm place in the computer. On my 17 inch, it's under the left speaker which gets warm when the video card is doing a lot of work. In this case, I had an attached monitor which always gets the video card warm.

I may have to give SuperDuper a try tonight as I think that it has a mode where you can exclude directories and I need that to work.

 

I copied my music folder to an external disk so that I would have enough space to use CarbonCopyCloner and cloned the disk to the SSD. And it booted!

I ran a few tests and bootup takes half the time on the SSD. Firefox comes up in one bounce. It's very nice!

I need to setup my user account data files on the HDD and then move the page file over and then I should be good to go.

 

Reset my account so that it's on the HDD now. I have the SSD set as the default boot disk and the system is very sweet for performance. Now I know what it feels like to have an SSD system.

 

Hi mmoy,
thanks for commenting your trys.
I seaching for the same experiment.
Can you tell me if the heat problem occur to you too?
Do you recognize a lower battery lifetime?

 

I have not noticed a heat issue but I seldom tax the CPU. I do do some video editing but the heat isn't excessive. I am not sure on battery life. I run off AC most of the time. When I go mobile, I usually take my Bluetooth keyboard, trackpad and mouse. I get roughly two hours on battery with this setup. Battery life is about 2.5 hours if I'm not using the Bluetooth stuff (this was before the ExpressCard SSD).

I am so impressed with the performance of this that I might just go with the SSD option when I replace my current machine (I expect my current machine to be good for another five years). The headache is the cost of the 250 GB drive that Apple sells internally. If you want to experiment on the cheap, the ExpressCard SSD is the way to go.