Can you fit 2 SSD drives into the spare optical bay?

[statistical]

If you can do you need a special adapter? Where do you get them?

Thanks

[strausd]

If you can do you need a special adapter? Where do you get them?

Thanks

Physically yes, but you will need to purchase some other cables and probably a PCIe card.

[alphaod]

You can fit like 8 in there; you just need a proper RAID card that gives you a lot of internal ports.

This is that adapter you would want:
http://www.maxupgrades.com/istore/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&product_id=190&CFID=759922&CFTOKEN=54078811

[sboerup]

Besides the RAID card, how do they get powered? Just buy additional power extensions from newegg or something and run them off the optical feeds?

[alphaod]

Besides the RAID card, how do they get powered? Just buy additional power extensions from newegg or something and run them off the optical feeds?

SSDs are very low power, so you can feed them all off the one remaining feed on the optical drive with a couple adapters.

[nanofrog]

Besides the RAID card, how do they get powered? Just buy additional power extensions from newegg or something and run them off the optical feeds?
How to get power:
SATA Backplane Extension Cable (http://www.cooldrives.com/sainexca22ex.html)
SATA Power Cable (http://www.cooldrives.com/seatasapoca6.html)

You'll need to cut off the Molex end, and splice the power cables together (follow the wire colors and locations) using solder + heatshrink tubing, crimp connectors, or wire nuts (any of these will work; cleanest = solder + heatshrink tubing IMO).

No matter the splicing method however, it gets power without sacrificing the DATA line on the original cable to the optical bay (you'll need this, assuming you want it on the SATA controller built into the system = ICH10), and won't void the warranty. :)

You'd need a PCIe SATA card to get the second disk a SATA port (most are BIOS based, so would only work with OS X via drivers if they exist). The only OS X bootable card I'm aware of is an eSATA model from Highpoint.

[deconstruct60]

SSDs are very low power, so you can feed them all off the one remaining feed on the optical drive with a couple adapters.

Should always measure what you are inserting into a machine.
While probably would not use this Crucial drive because it is SATA III the write power is 3.1W

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148357&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-RSSDailyDeals-_-na-_-na&AID=10521304&PID=3160356&SID=

While this spinning hard drives R/W power is 10.7W

http://www.storagereview.com/western_digital_caviar_black_review_2tb

So 4x the SSD would be higher than the hard drive.

The SSD power is lower, but with newer drives doing parallel writes (interleved erasers ), faster dual core controllers , etc. Many of the designs are not attempting to cut the maximum amount of power drive. Just be 1/2 or a 1/3 less than a hard drive is "good enough" if that buys them better performance. The target market is not just laptops where saving battery life is something to charge extra for. When it is performance and the device is going into a 3.5" (or larger) slot anyway there is no reason to chop power to eek out a couple more minutes of battery life. The machine is not running on battery in the first place.

Probably have head room. ( curiously power ratings on DVD/Blu-ray drives often isn't listed) but it isn't something to leep into blind . Should be making a power tradeoff when choosing which four .

[sboerup]

Found this, I think it should work. Get 2 and use the already existing SATA power from the 2 optical drive bays.

http://www.cooldrives.com/sapoyca15sap.html

I've seen the twin SATA with a MOLEX end, but I'm pretty sure the 2009/2010 power feeds to the optical bays are SATA, correct? I'd rather not splice a darn thing on my mac, so I might just pick up those cables.

[strausd]

You can fit like 8 in there; you just need a proper RAID card that gives you a lot of internal ports.

This is that adapter you would want:
http://www.maxupgrades.com/istore/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&product_id=190&CFID=759922&CFTOKEN=54078811

Dang, had no idea you could fit that many in there, thats ridiculous. Anyone here try that yet?

[milo]

While eight may fit, don't SSD drives generate some heat?

[statistical]

Thanks for all the answers and ideas, it made me think of my drive configuration a bit more.

I'm thinking of 2 SSDs one for OSX and one for Windows, the four main drives for data. I'm mainly going to be running VMWare with a number of Windows Server 2008 virtuals.

The SSD for OS and applications.

The first HD partitioned for OSX and Windows data swap files etc, the other three drives to be used for the main drives of the VMs. I was not thinking of raiding these as I think I could better performance with a virtual on each drive rather than three virtuals running off a single striped drive.

The question is how do I connect all the drives so that the first SSD boots OSX, the second boots Windows and the rest are just available. I know I will need an extra PCI SATA card but which would be the best drive(s) to connect to it.

Comments appreciated - I know how I would do this for a PC as it would have a case with space for 10 drives and 8-10 SATA connectors, but I'm new to MACs.

[nanofrog]

Thanks for all the answers and ideas, it made me think of my drive configuration a bit more.

I'm thinking of 2 SSDs one for OSX and one for Windows, the four main drives for data. I'm mainly going to be running VMWare with a number of Windows Server 2008 virtuals.

The SSD for OS and applications.

The first HD partitioned for OSX and Windows data swap files etc, the other three drives to be used for the main drives of the VMs. I was not thinking of raiding these as I think I could better performance with a virtual on each drive rather than three virtuals running off a single striped drive.

The question is how do I connect all the drives so that the first SSD boots OSX, the second boots Windows and the rest are just available. I know I will need an extra PCI SATA card but which would be the best drive(s) to connect to it.

Comments appreciated - I know how I would do this for a PC as it would have a case with space for 10 drives and 8-10 SATA connectors, but I'm new to MACs.
Take a look here (http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=10816394&postcount=6). ;)

[alphaod]

While eight may fit, don't SSD drives generate some heat?

No, not really.

[deconstruct60]

I know I will need an extra PCI SATA card but which would be the best drive(s) to connect to it.


Not necessarily. Assuming that the Windows SSD is so that you can boot up the Mac in Windows only mode occasionally. (*** will come back to that)


Remove internal DVD burner and put into external enclosure ( http://eshop.macsales.com/Search/Search.cfm?Ntk=Primary&Ns=P_Popularity%7c1&Ne=5000&N=6430&Ntt=external+optical
USB/Firewire )

Optical Bay 1 Partitioned Swap drive ( 3.5" to 5.25" adapter bracket)
Optical Bay 2 Mac OS + Apps SDD ( 2.5" to 5.25" adapter bracket)
Drive Sled 1 Windows SDD ( 2.5" to 5.25" adapter bracket)
Drive Slid 2 HD
Drive Sled 3 HD
Drive Sled 4 HD

You can software RAID sleds 2-4 via raid 0 or 1 as to whether looking for speed or safety. If don't RAID then probably shouldn't bump into too many bandwidth problems. ( Not all of these drives are active at the same time. )

Have seen reports that the boot process ignores windows system disks on Optical bay 1 and 2 so that's why the windows one is in Sled 1. Still should be able to boot off of DVD if occasionally have to. If have to send Mac in for service can pull drive from OD bay 1 and put the DVD back in and move the Mac SSD drive to sled 1 ( and pull the windows one... a Mac repair isn't going to need that one present. )


If only doing windows ocassionally also could partition one of the VMWare image storage disks so that had space for Windows. Then don't really need not for often used SSD drive. ( 2.0TB drive with 500MB carved out for Windows is plenty. Especially if it isn't going to be used all that often.).
Just slice it with a set of VMWare images not as likely to run under windows and you'll be fine. [ Assumption here is that going to spend 80+% time in Mac OS X and using VMWare Fusion 95+% time to run all of the VM images. ]


If you need RAID 5 or 6 you'll need a RAID card. Likewise if RAID 0 several sleds and have a SSD then can get to point overwhelm internal SATA controller.

[CaoCao]

if you can fit eight in one does that mean you could have a total of 20 drives? The speed of 1+0 of 20 OWC SSDs is just... I need new pants :p