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tofagerl

macrumors 6502a
May 16, 2006
983
428
You shouldn't expect more than a few minutes to be honest. Hard drives aren't so big a power suck.
 

MacModMachine

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Apr 3, 2009
2,476
392
Canada
You shouldn't expect more than a few minutes to be honest. Hard drives aren't so big a power suck.

you would be very surprised :D

2 of the X18's draw less power under load and idle then 1 500gb 5400 rpm,

thats straight from a power meter.


i tested it inside and out, hdd's take alot of power, there are alot of intel articles stating that the intel's power specs are wrong, they are indeed right in the respect that they are +/- %5 tolerences, bang on.

5400rpm in my tests consumed 4x more power to operate then a single ssd, although the ssd offered me significantly longer run times because it completed tasks much quicker.

keep in mind, there is only stop and go commands for ssd's at the moment, once a more wide set of commands are standard for the ssd, we could see operating times jump by powering down nand banks in the ssd and only powering ones that are being used, and a more aggressive power management.
 

MikeSantor

macrumors regular
Jun 9, 2009
182
0
Chicago, Dirty South.
So With my 09 13" MBP with No other programs running and both the Intel SSD and Hitachi drive running I have an estimated time of 5:58.

With the Hitachi drive Unmounted Im getting an estimated 6:32.
 

tofagerl

macrumors 6502a
May 16, 2006
983
428
you would be very surprised :D

2 of the X18's draw less power under load and idle then 1 500gb 5400 rpm,

thats straight from a power meter.


i tested it inside and out, hdd's take alot of power, there are alot of intel articles stating that the intel's power specs are wrong, they are indeed right in the respect that they are +/- %5 tolerences, bang on.

5400rpm in my tests consumed 4x more power to operate then a single ssd, although the ssd offered me significantly longer run times because it completed tasks much quicker.

keep in mind, there is only stop and go commands for ssd's at the moment, once a more wide set of commands are standard for the ssd, we could see operating times jump by powering down nand banks in the ssd and only powering ones that are being used, and a more aggressive power management.
I was referring to dismounting the drive, not SSDs.
 

MikeSantor

macrumors regular
Jun 9, 2009
182
0
Chicago, Dirty South.
So this is confusing me.

Im using the method of mounting and unmounting my HDD that has all my movies and music on it.

I set up Transmission (torrent program) to download all the files onto the HDD. But as soon as its done downloading it moves over to the "download" folder on the SSD. What setting am I missing? Why would it pull it from the HDD to the SSD?
 

shaunymac

macrumors 6502
Feb 5, 2008
386
91
I'm not exactly sure why you guys are trying to put you're startup drive in the SuperDrive's former spot. To me, this is asking for problems. I haven't had any issues with my ssd in the original HD spot and a HD in the SuperDrive spot. My sleeps, wakes, shutsdown, etc. and calibrates fine. I actually calibrated mine last night.

As far as the power draw of the HD versus SSD, I beg to differ with some of you from my expierence. Before my SSD, I got 30-45 min and now I get around 1:30. No joke! This totally blew me away. This is on my 2 year old original battery. This is also why I began unmounting my 2nd HD when not in use. I do everything I can to conserve energy on the go.

Maybe this will help out some. In short, I would leave the SSD in the original spot so your mac acts normal.
 

occamsrazor

macrumors 6502
Feb 25, 2007
419
16
https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/8684655/

Look at this caddy. The link is a few post before this. From the same user...
I ordered and I'm waiting for the same caddy and will mod it as shown on those pictures. That is the cheapest that is shipped worldwide.

That one seems to be shipped from Hong Kong (although they do ship to UK). Does anyone know somewhere IN the UK that sells similar? Thank...
 

orthorim

Suspended
Feb 27, 2008
733
350
I'm not exactly sure why you guys are trying to put you're startup drive in the SuperDrive's former spot. To me, this is asking for problems. I haven't had any issues with my ssd in the original HD spot and a HD in the SuperDrive spot. My sleeps, wakes, shutsdown, etc. and calibrates fine. I actually calibrated mine last night.

As far as the power draw of the HD versus SSD, I beg to differ with some of you from my expierence. Before my SSD, I got 30-45 min and now I get around 1:30. No joke! This totally blew me away. This is on my 2 year old original battery. This is also why I began unmounting my 2nd HD when not in use. I do everything I can to conserve energy on the go.

Maybe this will help out some. In short, I would leave the SSD in the original spot so your mac acts normal.

The reason I put the SSD in the optical drive spot is that I was concerned about the hard drive's safety as there is no fall protection and not much in terms of suspension in the newmodeus caddy. I also thought the caddy might flop around a bit but it turns out it's squeezed in there so tight that it doesn't move at all.

I will report back one I had the situation that I needed hibernate - I tried a few different ways to force hibernation for testing but it didn't work. The system certainly creates the hibernation file - not sure it will start up correctly from it.
 

FarSeide

macrumors 6502a
Feb 17, 2008
865
0
Earth Lane
Instead of messing around with the left over Super Drive, I just decided to buy a modded MBA Super Drive that will work with other computers.

69 bucks shipped wasnt bad I think..
 

EspressoLove

macrumors 6502
Jun 29, 2007
423
2
Bay Area
... I tried a few different ways to force hibernation for testing but it didn't work ...

Unfortunately it seems - if you want your laptop to sleep & wake up, you'll need your HDD(bay) replaced with SSD.
OptiBay it seems is immediately powered down when sleep command issued, having no chance to get to sleep.

The reason I put the SSD in the optical drive spot is that I was concerned about the hard drive's safety ...

I guess it's given that we should expect HDDs to fail more/faster when in OptiBay. As abrupt power down might damage both your files and HDD.

That's the price (we ready to pay:() for lack of Apple's support.
 

Dragula22

macrumors member
Nov 8, 2009
36
0
I installed the 40gb kingston with the intel controller in the original HD and a 640gb in the optibay. Works so friggin beautifully that I want to cry.

I'd like to take advantage of the mount via disk utilities method to save power.
Does anyone know how to set an automatic script (to mount the hdd) such that I can say press a hot key or something (rather than opening disk util everytime)?
 

MacModMachine

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Apr 3, 2009
2,476
392
Canada
I installed the 40gb kingston with the intel controller in the original HD and a 640gb in the optibay. Works so friggin beautifully that I want to cry.

I'd like to take advantage of the mount via disk utilities method to save power.
Does anyone know how to set an automatic script (to mount the hdd) such that I can say press a hot key or something (rather than opening disk util everytime)?

those 40g kingstons are slow, they only run on 5 channels instead of 10, there not bad for an os drive, but are slower then a regular intel.
 

orthorim

Suspended
Feb 27, 2008
733
350
Unfortunately it seems - if you want your laptop to sleep & wake up, you'll need your HDD(bay) replaced with SSD.
OptiBay it seems is immediately powered down when sleep command issued, having no chance to get to sleep.

I have confirmed this in a real world test yesterday. SSD in optibay is startup disk (which I think means root volume - but I may be wrong there!), sleep image in default location.

Here is what happened:
- The system went to sleep and obviously wrote the sleep image file - it takes a while for 4GB. If it doesn't write the sleep image, sleep is instant.
- System powered off as there was no battery remaining
- Connected to power, woke it up. I got a white screen - the system was clearly attempting to load the sleep image.
- Then the white screen went away, and the system restarted.

Personally, I think this is either a bug in the firmware, or by "root volume", Apple means the HD in drive bay 0 - I believe it is the former though.

I don't think the problem comes from writing the sleep image - it comes from reading it when powered up. Evidence to that is that the image was definitely written (long time to shutdown) and that on startup, it _tried_ to load it back in.

That's because the sleep image would have to be read by the firmware - there is no operating system running yet. Also, there are no disk drivers loaded yet, and nothing to read HFS+. So there must be some part of the EFI firmware that loads the required bits and pieces to access the disks, and to read HFS+, and that seems to only do the HD bay 0 for some reason.

I wonder if starting from an external USB and having the sleep image on the external would work - my guess would be no. I think this is just a bit of a hack in the EFI firmware.
 

EspressoLove

macrumors 6502
Jun 29, 2007
423
2
Bay Area
Yes trying to sleep USB/FW connected HDD - we could learn something how it works - how we can make use of it in 2 S/H-DD setups.

I actually don't think your system successfully wrote to sleep image (have no chance to test it yet myself).

I suggest you disable safe sleep - enter in terminal
Code:
sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0
and delete sleep image (you save 4Gb by the way!)

This way you can test your setup, as now sleepimage is not being written to disk - it all remains in RAM.
 

EspressoLove

macrumors 6502
Jun 29, 2007
423
2
Bay Area
BTW two best isolation testing scenarios would be :

1) have just one bootable disk (SSD or even better HDD - it audible!) in OptiBay
2) a USB/FW connected disk.

So the test would be to put them to sleep (issue command form menu, or press ⌥⌘⏏) and try to wake up.

also setting hibernatemode to 0 (instead of 3 - write to disk and keep in RAM) could help to isolate things.
 

Dragula22

macrumors member
Nov 8, 2009
36
0
those 40g kingstons are slow, they only run on 5 channels instead of 10, there not bad for an os drive, but are slower then a regular intel.

Yeah, with 40gb there's not much else to put aside from OS/Apps/Music. So long as you're not sequential writing a lot--and this is usually the case, the kingston's random read/write speeds are pretty much on par with the intel ssd.

I put all my big videos in the 640gb. Works very well. I only time machine the 40gb, which is nice and small.
 

Lounge Deluxe

macrumors regular
Jun 1, 2009
152
20
Amsterdam
Instead of messing around with the left over Super Drive, I just decided to buy a modded MBA Super Drive that will work with other computers.

69 bucks shipped wasnt bad I think..

Was this a one time offer? I'm looking for a pre-modded MBA Super Drive too, but can't find one on eBay.
 

orthorim

Suspended
Feb 27, 2008
733
350
I know I can just disable hibernate. The system certainly wrote a 4GB sleep image - I had deleted it before to make sure.

I assume the image is valid - writing it is not the tricky part after all. So I think it's just a firmware bug.
 

McCarron

macrumors 6502
Feb 17, 2006
256
11
Those interested in MacBook Air Superdrives I have found two ways to make it work on any Mac without modifying the hardware of the device. I am currently writing up something to detail this, but until then the easy way is to simply start your Mac up by holding down Option. This will trigger the drive to power itself up for the boot selector screen. Then just start up the Mac OS and you have a functioning Superdrive. This worked on most machines I've tested so far.

The other way is more detailed and I'm still testing it. Basically involves hacking/editing Apple's kext driver to make your machine to be a supported machine. Requires some hex editing until I can create a program to Edit the driver for you. I'll probably write up the details I have so far tomorrow for those interested.
 

DarwinOSX

macrumors 68000
Nov 3, 2009
1,637
185
Verizon wanted a hell of a lot more than the Verizon logo on the phone.

You can but its $175 and I think AT&T wants the iPhone back. AT&T should really stop being so cocky Verizon's service blows theirs out of the water and I think Apple's sorry they didnt allow a small verizon logo on the phone and I think Verizon is sorry they didnt cave to apple's demands.
 

Greg K

macrumors newbie
Nov 28, 2009
20
0
I took a look inside my 15.4" Macbook Pro 3,1 (santa rosa - summer 2007) to confirm if I had a PATA or SATA connection to my optical drive. Once I'd got the keyboard lifted from the base, there was one screw securing the drive that I couldn't remove. It appears to be smaller than other screws, I was using a PH000 head (I'm in the UK so might be a european/UK size) to undo most of the cross head (phillips) screws but this would not fit.

Picture attached - what size screw drivers are you guys using to undo this? :confused:

macbook.jpg
 

MacModMachine

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Apr 3, 2009
2,476
392
Canada
I took a look inside my 15.4" Macbook Pro 3,1 (santa rosa - summer 2007) to confirm if I had a PATA or SATA connection to my optical drive. Once I'd got the keyboard lifted from the base, there was one screw securing the drive that I couldn't remove. It appears to be smaller than other screws, I was using a PH000 head (I'm in the UK so might be a european/UK size) to undo most of the cross head (phillips) screws but this would not fit.

Picture attached - what size screw drivers are you guys using to undo this? :confused:

macbook.jpg

its hard for me to see that, but it looks like either a torx 7 or 8 ,

a higher res pic would be better.
 

MikeyTree

macrumors 6502
Jan 5, 2007
295
0
I set up Transmission (torrent program) to download all the files onto the HDD. But as soon as its done downloading it moves over to the "download" folder on the SSD. What setting am I missing?
You're missing the preferences for Transmission. In the "transfers" tab of Transmission's preferences, you'll notice that there are two different settings: one for "default location", where completed files are kept, and one for where you "keep incomplete files."
 
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