Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Replacing Optical Drive with SSD and some Tweaks!

D

Dextor143

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 28, 2008
425
35
USA
Guys,
I have a mid 2007 Macbook pro 2.33 Ghz, 4GB RAM Core Duo 2 with 15inch Screen. Last year, I upgraded the HD from 120GB to 250GB (Should have gone 500GB).
However, now I am planning to make the biggest change ever, replacing Optical drive by SSD or SSD on the regular drive space and installing a 500GB HD in the optical ROM slot. I am also planning to buy the enclosure to use the optical drive through USB in future (I rarely use it nowadays)

My Questions,
1. How do I replace the optical drive? Is there a enclosure for 2007 models? I found the site for 2008 or 2009 but not for 2007.

2. Once I have installed the 120GB SSD, how can I make the setup that all my itunes, aperture, iphoto, imail, automatically save on the other drive? I currently have that setup but often times, I have to go and manually delete few folders (iMail doesnt even work, all the mails go to the main HD and I dont know how to manually change the destination folder?

3. if any of you have done that in the past? can you share your experience? my dilemma is that I cannot upgrade my RAM anymore :(. I have maxed out as my model only go up to 3GB and I have 4GB installed.

4. In short, I want all my application go to SSD and all the data go to 500GB HD that i want to install in the optical enclosure. Also, do you think I should upgrade to 500GB? I currently have 250GB and 100 GB for application and 150 GB for data through partition but my data is very much scattered. Photos on the data side and mails on the application side. I do use time machine to backup on a 500GB external HD, how can I run TM to work on my machine after the changes (very crucial Question)



I will really appreciate your help.

Thanks again.
 
Not sure how it is done with your Mac, but what I can recommend is that you chat with the tech guys at OWC, they can tell you if they have the product for it:
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/OWC/Mercury_Legacy_Pro

For the transfer of the user's data you can always use the Migration Assistant.

About the external plastic enclosures for the super drive: some use two USB ports to power and communicate with it, so think about that in case you prefer buying one that uses external power.

Also get a decent HDD for external backup and take some time to organize your data and then back it up.
 
I would recommend MCE's optibay adapter. It's $99.00. Some think it's pricey, however it does not need to modified like some of the cheaper adapters, it comes with the optical drive enclosure with the the USB, it also comes with the tools you need to remove the optical drive (small Phillips 00 I think and and Torx T6). I would recommend you put your SSD in the main bay because I don't think your MBP supports sata 3 in the optical slot. You can get the crucial SSD with the transfer kit and clone your current hard drive to the SSD and your good to go. Hope this helps answer some of your questions.
 
SayMilesAway said:
I would recommend MCE's optibay adapter. It's $99.00. Some think it's pricey, however it does not need to modified like some of the cheaper adapters, it comes with the optical drive enclosure with the the USB, it also comes with the tools you need to remove the optical drive (small Phillips 00 I think and and Torx T6). I would recommend you put your SSD in the main bay because I don't think your MBP supports sata 3 in the optical slot. You can get the crucial SSD with the transfer kit and clone your current hard drive to the SSD and your good to go. Hope this helps answer some of your questions.
Click to expand...

is that mean, I cannot replace optical drive with the regular internal HD?
 
syedrizvi21 said:
is that mean, I cannot replace optical drive with the regular internal HD?
Click to expand...


No, you can replace the optical drive with the regular HDD. I was saying it doesn't make sense to put an SSD in that drive as you will not fully benefit from the speed increase. You will fully benefit from the read/write speeds if it's in the main bay.
 
SayMilesAway said:
No, you can replace the optical drive with the regular HDD. I was saying it doesn't make sense to put an SSD in that drive as you will not fully benefit from the speed increase. You will fully benefit from the read/write speeds if it's in the main bay.
Click to expand...

ok.. thanks.

That is what my plan is ....I just dont know how to execute it.

Still trying to gather all the sources. The easiest part is to order the drive and get started but i wanted to make sure I know everything I am doing before starting.
 
Here is what I found.

Get a MCE optibay and 160GB SSD
Get a 8 or moer GB USB Disk
from utility create a startup disk to USB
now do the hardware change out
once ssd and hdd is installed do the followin
boot up with USB drive
and go to disk utility and make the SSD as bootable.

Now I want to know
how to move all the applications to SSD? from my regular HDD which is now going to be in my optical bay drive?

any help?
 
mine is not unibody. I have a 2006, 2.33 GHZ with a max 3Gb ram. it is not a unibody.

----------

i still dont know how to move the application folder.
 
you don't need the external usb 8gig key or whatever. once you do the hardware install and boot, the machine will find the drive that has a bootable OS on it. once you're up and running the OS will say "this disk is unreadable" giving you the option of ejecting or initializing or ignoring. you can select initilialize which will launch disk utility. format the ssd. if you use carbon copy cloner, you can select everything but the users folder to clone onto the ssd and it will make the drive bootable.
 
So you got what you needed as far as installation right? did OWC have anything available for your model? I have a unibody so thats where I went. As far as apps you could always just sign into the app store and re download them from your purchased tab right? I'm guessing you dont have time machine or any kind of back up device on your computer since you are asking how to back apps up. yous a big fine macbook wont you back them apps up. sorry, had to do it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back