Swap HDD for SSD and ODD for HDD?

w00t951 · Jul 31, 2011

The title's confusing. Anyway.

The new 2011 MacBook Pros have two SATA connectors inside(one for the HDD and the other for the ODD). Most machines ship with a 3GB/s connector for the ODD and a 6GB/s connector for the HDD.

I was wondering if it would be possible to swap the current 6GB/s HDD slot for an SSD and put the HDD in place of the ODD in the 3GB/s connection.

I'm guessing it'll work, but I just want some guarantees before I spend money or anything. Thanks!

JronMasteR · Jul 31, 2011

Works flawlessly for me. I have done that in May this year and had no issues so far. There are several optibay adaptors available, some are cheeper than others. All of them seem to work.

dsio · Jul 31, 2011

I'm about to do just that, Vertex 3 240GB in HDD bay, 1TB Spinpoint M8 in Optibay

ahdickter · Jul 31, 2011

You should have no problem, as long as you get a quality SSD. I personally recommend a Crucial M4 (with fimware v2). Works well and the trim hack still works in lion.

maflynn · Jul 31, 2011

I pulled the optical drive and added an optibay and its been working flawlessly.

I opted for a second SSD since I wanted to avoid using a HD for various reasons.

BAC5.2 · Jul 31, 2011

How do you guys handle the twin drives?

SSD for the OS and applications, and the HDD where you store all files and things?

Isn't that inconvenient? Maybe not. I had dual drives in my old desktop, but I used one for daily use and the other for bulk storage. Maybe I was doing it wrong.

I might look into something like this, but I still use the ODD occasionally and the prices of larger SSD drives are a little too high for my liking.

I think I'll order the Seagate Momentus XT as a stop gap until full sized (512Gb+) SSD's don't cost $1500.

Awperator · Jul 31, 2011

BAC5.2 said:
How do you guys handle the twin drives?

SSD for the OS and applications, and the HDD where you store all files and things?

Isn't that inconvenient? Maybe not. I had dual drives in my old desktop, but I used one for daily use and the other for bulk storage. Maybe I was doing it wrong.

I might look into something like this, but I still use the ODD occasionally and the prices of larger SSD drives are a little too high for my liking.

I think I'll order the Seagate Momentus XT as a stop gap until full sized (512Gb+) SSD's don't cost $1500.

That's how I do mine. I have the OS and my parallels images on the SSD, while my documents, movies, music, photos, etc are on the HDD. I aliased those folders so everything was working.
I used this post on reddit to help me, namely this part:

Symlink Instructions: The best way (that I know of) to efficiently create a working symbolic link is by using the terminal. Here is a list of what each of these four commands do:
Copy all files in your 'documents' folder into a new 'Documents' folder onto Macintosh Data HD (note, the * is used to indicate a space)
Modify the old Documents folder to allow it to be removed (usually Mac OS X prohibits this)
Remove the old Documents folder
Create a symbolic link where the old Documents folder used to be, that points to the newly copied Documents folder on Macintosh Data HD
cp -Rp ~/Documents /Volumes/MacintoshDataHD
chmod -R -N ~/Documents
rm -rf ~/Documents
ln -s /Volumes/MacintoshDataHD/Documents ~/Documents

dsio · Jul 31, 2011

If you have 240GB + 1TB, you mount the 1TB in ~/Movies and ~/Music and leave everything else on the SSD.

Scippy · Jul 31, 2011

How much of a battery life loss do you get when you do this?

BAC5.2 · Jul 31, 2011

dsio said:
If you have 240GB + 1TB, you mount the 1TB in ~/Movies and ~/Music and leave everything else on the SSD.

I bet I could make due with that arrangement. Especially if I could get an enclosure for my stock SuperDrive so that I could still use it if absolutely necessary.

What do 240Gb SSD's go for these days? Isn't having two drives going to kill battery life?

dsio · Jul 31, 2011

BAC5.2 said:
I bet I could make due with that arrangement. Especially if I could get an enclosure for my stock SuperDrive so that I could still use it if absolutely necessary.

What do 240Gb SSD's go for these days? Isn't having two drives going to kill battery life?

240GB Vertex 3 OEM is ~450 online in the USA, 1TB M8 is $90 or so, battery life won't be too bad, the vertex 3 is a bit heavier, but the 1TB drive is not bad, you'll lose a little battery, but the advantage is huge. I probably won't even need music mounted on the 1TB, just movies, as I've only got 30GB on my laptop. 240GB is a fair bit for an SSD.

BAC5.2 · Jul 31, 2011

Also too much money. Can't even begin to justify that amount right now.

I'll just get the Seagate Hybrid and wait for the price of SSD's to drop.

Eradik · Jul 31, 2011

BAC5.2 said:
Also too much money. Can't even begin to justify that amount right now.

I'll just get the Seagate Hybrid and wait for the price of SSD's to drop.

That's what I did. Loving the hybrid so far, I highly recommend it while prices for SSDs come down.

orfeas0 · Jul 31, 2011

I'm about to buy a macbook (either air or pro). If I get the pro, I'm gonna put an ssd and was thinking about optibay too. But I read that an HDD in the optibay doesn't have the Sudden Motion Sensor, which means it will easily break if moved/shaken or something.
So can I have an SSD in the optibay and boot from it, and the HDD in its default place for data etc?

orfeas0 · Aug 1, 2011

orfeas0 said:
I'm about to buy a macbook (either air or pro). If I get the pro, I'm gonna put an ssd and was thinking about optibay too. But I read that an HDD in the optibay doesn't have the Sudden Motion Sensor, which means it will easily break if moved/shaken or something.
So can I have an SSD in the optibay and boot from it, and the HDD in its default place for data etc?

bump.
tl-tr: What's the best option, hdd+optibay ssd(for boot) or ssd(for boot)+optibay hdd ?

dsio · Aug 1, 2011

orfeas0 said:
I'm about to buy a macbook (either air or pro). If I get the pro, I'm gonna put an ssd and was thinking about optibay too. But I read that an HDD in the optibay doesn't have the Sudden Motion Sensor, which means it will easily break if moved/shaken or something.
So can I have an SSD in the optibay and boot from it, and the HDD in its default place for data etc?

Ask yourself how many years laptop computers have existed, and been thrown around before sudden motion sensors existed. How many people do you know in your life that have dropped a laptop and found that their hard disk was the component that was damaged.

Its a fix for a problem that doesn't really exist.

orfeas0 · Aug 1, 2011

dsio said:
Ask yourself how many years laptop computers have existed, and been thrown around before sudden motion sensors existed. How many people do you know in your life that have dropped a laptop and found that their hard disk was the component that was damaged.

Its a fix for a problem that doesn't really exist.

I didn't know that!
But to be honest, if the HDD is in the optibay only for data, it won't be on 100% of the time. So even if I drop it, I will probably only be using the ssd (can't drop a macbook while watching a movie, right?)
+the magnetic charger helps with drops

Thanks for the info. But I think I'll go with the air since it's 100euros more but has an 128gb ssd which is 200euros to buy.

BAC5.2 · Aug 1, 2011

orfeas0 said:
Thanks for the info. But I think I'll go with the air since it's 100euros more but has an 128gb ssd which is 200euros to buy.

I wouldn't make my decision based on that, but if that's what you want then go for it!

blackbinary · Aug 1, 2011

I'd like to point out the SSD in the Air is only Sata 2, so your not even getting very good speeds.

Your much better off buying a sata 3 SSD to take full advantage of the sata 3 speeds (which means roughly double performance).

dsio · Aug 1, 2011

blackbinary said:
I'd like to point out the SSD in the Air is only Sata 2, so your not even getting very good speeds.

Your much better off buying a sata 3 SSD to take full advantage of the sata 3 speeds (which means roughly double performance).

Reports are the SSD in the 13 airs are not much above SATA 1 speed at best, 180MB/s sequential is pretty weak for 2011.

Swap HDD for SSD and ODD for HDD?

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