ATTENTION Current Mac mini/A+ users: Boot Mavericks from an SD card, load a RAMdisk, dismount your internal SATA drives, and pour a drink for the musicians walking out of your speakers!

[Booster MPS]

Great, something new for me to try... I appreciate the creativity it took to come up with this idea and the time you spent doing it. I have a question though, how did you make a RAMDisk?

 

I was wondering the same thing since i have not seen instructions for a mini

[Booster MPS]

OK, so you got me. This is real. This is VERY real. Last night I took a sip from the glass by finding a 2 GB SD card that I had and used that with my Mac Mini. I copied over some music from my external USB 3 hard drive and then un mounted the USB drive and disconnected the cable. Playing A+ from my Mini drive with the music on the SD card took the experience to another level in a very exciting way.

 

I am very eager to try SuperDad’s suggestion of a SD card with Mavericks (although my Mini is still running Mountain Lion) and booting from the SD card with Audirvana +, music, and the OS all on the same card (or with the music on a RAM disk). I have a question:

 

After doing some internet research on making a bootable copy of Mavericks on an SC card, I could not find a clear step by step walkthrough on the process. I understand Mavericks to be an upgrade, not a complete new OS and the apple page says that OS 10.6.8 is a requirement. Will I need that version of the OS on the SD card first? Lastly it would be appreciated if someone could point to a trusted step by step walkthrough on installing a bootable OS on an SD card from the web it would be appreciated. I want to get it right the first time without too much of an issue. Many thanks!

[Booster MPS]

SuperDad - thanks so much for the expansive and detailed reply. I think with the information that you provided I have what I need to make a go of this with no show stoppers. Like you I only have 8 GB of RAM and will probably go with a larger SD card to have some more perm storage for music like Jud. Run the OS on the SD and A+ RAM Disk. Thanks again.

[Booster MPS]

Hi everyone

 

I use a MB Pro with a 512Gb SSD and A+, together with a WD 3Tb external HD storing my music. I have just tried loading a file onto an SD card and playing A+ Playlist mode from the SD card- and it definitely sounds better!!

 

But why? I use Memory Play, so the file is uploaded onto the MBP RAM before playing. But the fact that it is uploaded from an SD card rather than an external hard drive clearly matters!

 

Philip

 

I attribute the benefits to removing the usb cable which carries noise from the SMPS powering the drive.

[Booster MPS]

I am sitting at a dinner catching up on this thread but completely captivated by what I heard earlier. I will be social again in a moment.

 

Yes! Superdad you are spot on in your analysis. I echo that an sd boot w audirvana on the sd card is superior and provides an immediacy to the music that is unique. I do agree that performance does suffer. For those that walk this path expect your performance to be slow but it is absolutely worth it to experiment and try this. I understand the value of a RAM disk but I question if it's worth it. The most significant value here seems to be from dropping the USB interface and unmounting the main drive in the mini. There is more noise than I anticipated caused by these interfaces.

[Booster MPS]

Still on cell phone Alex so this will be short.

 

By slow I only mean speed and performance of apps opening and copying data.

 

Re the drive yes my main library is on a USB 3 drive and files were copied from there to my sd card. The USB drive is unplugged and the smps is unplugged.

 

Re my DAC I suppose I should update my profile. I now have a Benchmark DAC2. Cannot wait to do some listening tomorrow.

[Booster MPS]

Daudio I would suggest you take it around the block for a spin. You don't need to go full on OS on a sd card but just try playing your music from the card and disconnecting any external drives. I found that disconnecting a smps did reveal another layer of benefit. It's worth your time to do some comparisons.

[Booster MPS]

Wondering if moving boot/OS off SD card to SSD might help sonically, while (1) storing music on SD card and (2) playing music files and running app from RAMdisks.

 

I do think there is value to be found in that configuration. As I now notice how slow the Apple OS seems on an SD card i imagine that it would be a very slow boot process. I have yet to reboot my Mini pointing to the SD card.

[Booster MPS]

Good points for sure! I just have to get my business moving better (too much time on testing and CA forum!), and also get through the holidays with kids without breaking the bank! So for now I look to others to test and report what they hear with internal SSD boot versus SD card.

 

Just catching up on this thread.

 

Sorry for missing the original question posed by Jud. Now I understand. Unfortunately no, I do not have an SSD in my Mini. My Mini is from I think the late 2012 Mini update by Apple and it was purchased in early 2013. It has the 2.5 GHz processor with the 500 Gb drive. No optical drive in this one - I use an Apple superdrive via USB when I need to rip.

 

I totally agree with both of your concerns re: booting to and SD card and the speed of the OS running from the card. Yesterday it was painfully slow opening programs and moving files around with the OS on the SD card. I have to admit that although there is a sonic benefit it does take away a lot of the benefits of computer audio to run in such a manual environment. I would agree that from what I know at this point that running from an SSD on the Mini should sound superior to a SATA interface and also give you back the performance, features and speed that you would expect from a CA system.

 

I don't think that I can live long term with my computer in this configuration. What I do think I can live with is booting from my hard drive, loading a few SD cards with my preferred music off of my USB 3 drive, and listening to A+ fetching this music from and SD card with my USB 3 drive disconnected.

 

George

[Booster MPS]

Thanks for posting the link Roch. I believe that is the type of base that Jud was referring to earlier.

[Booster MPS]

I must be a dope. I couldn't figure a way to do that. I was abie to unmount the partitions/volumes, but the eject disk command within Disk Utility for the SATA III HDD itself was greyed out. No matter, I'm happier with the new SSD drive.

 

 

Yup, you got it. If you are un-mounting it you are essentially ejecting it. Ejecting a disk image or drive will kick it out if it can physically be ejected like a CD. Un-mounting it silences the connection and shuts the drive down.

[Booster MPS]

I accept that he thinks there's an improvement when storing his app on a RAMDisk, but that isn't proof that the sound waves differ from when his app is stored on a real drive.

 

I have tried it and find myself in the camp of those that found a difference being able to unmount my internal drive, unplug my wall wart, and disconnect the external drive from the computer. I would just say, give it a try and report back here on what you find. It's worth the actual experiment to determine for yourself (sorry if I missed in a post where you gave it a try)

[Booster MPS]

Gsquared not sure of the vintage of your macbook pro but I will confirm that running the OS off of a SD card or thumb drive is extremely slow. It works but it is slow. The benefits of un-mounting the computer internal drive (unless you have an SSD) are undeniable.

[Booster MPS]

Sorry to pile on the off topic but I was a flight controller in the Booster team here at JSC in Houston. I flew between STS 76 and 84. Will circle back when I don't have a ipad in my hands.