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1TB HDD Early 2011 MacBook Pro

I did just discover on the Internet that a new generation of Optibay, called Optibay Extreme, has been developed specifically for solving the issue of SATA3 operation on early 2011 and late 2011 MBPs…
Can anyone confirm that this new Optibay Extreme caddy solves definitely the issue, allowing to mount two SATA3 SSD units, one in the main bay, and one in this new Optibay Extreme adaptor?
 
Any SSD with a standard SATA interface should fit so I can't see why not. If I can fit the Crucial 120GB, why not the Crucial 1TB...cost notwithstanding.
 
Mikeoporto said:
Sorry to hijacked this thread, Quick question. Can we put 1tb SSD on the 2011 Macbook pro? Does anyone here have that spec?:cool:
Click to expand...

Yes, definitely in the main bay. I have had a 960 Gb Crucial M500 in 2011 MBP main bay for over a year without problems.

Since all 960Gb/1Tb SSD will be 6G they will have problems in the optical bay with a standard Optibay adapter. I don't know anything about the more recent Optibay Extreme or similar adapters which are supposed to convert the 6G device to 3G so it doesn't have the compatibility problems in the optical bay.
 
This thread has been very helpful to me. I created a username to add some details that were missing and caused me a lot of aggravation before solving them.

I have a mid-2012 MBP and had been running a Hitachi HGST HTS721010A9E630 1TB SATA 3 drive in the main bay. I bought an SSD, installed it in the main bay and moved the old HDD to the optibay with an inexpensive adapter.

The old drive booted up mounted at first and would function albeit slowly for several minutes to several hours before suddenly unmounting. It would not be recognized even after restart; it would only reappear after opening the machine up and disconnecting and reconnecting the cables.

At this point I found this thread and the problem seemed to be the same one, even though I had a mid-2012 machine that should be able to handle a SATA 3 drive in the optibay.

The next hurdle was flashing the firmware of the HDD with the Hitachi Feature Tool. I burned a disc with the iso posted earlier in the thread (through Finder) but whenever I tried rebooting to the disc I got an error that there was no bootable device found. I tried burning a disc through a Windows machine and no changes.

After some research I read of some people who had drives that for some reason prevented them from booting from bootable discs. I have no idea why this is an issue but it turned out to be the last problem I had to overcome.

At work I was able to plug the Hitachi drive into one of the SATA ports in a Mac tower that booted into the CD I made with the Feature Tool. I changed the drive speed to SATA2 and reinstalled everything in the new configuration (SSD in main bay, Hitachi in Optibay). I'm only a few hours in but the HDD is operating normally as opposed to the slow and halting operation when it was still set to SATA3.

So, if you have a mid-2012 Macbook Pro and are having similar issues it could very well be the same issue as with the 2011 MBPs. And if you can't boot your machine with the CD you may be able to resolve the problem by plugging the Hitachi drive you want to flash into another machine with multiple SATA ports.

Thus ends (I think) my long and frustrating journey to have a faster machine with 2TB of internal storage!
 
jdubus said:
So, if you have a mid-2012 Macbook Pro and are having similar issues it could very well be the same issue as with the 2011 MBPs.
Click to expand...

The problem definitely affects at least some 2012 MBPs as well, even though thread title only mentions 2011. Posts #31 and #71 in this thread for example. There are differences between 13, 15 and 17 inch versions, with 13 inch generally being better I seem to recall.
 
Hi,
Would you able to downgrade the drive with the tool?
I have burned around 10cds but I couldn't boot with it.


Thanks

Mike Boreham said:
I have made many bootable CDs with Disk Utility to update firmware on SSDs.

Really pleased this has all worked out...I have it on my shopping list to get either a 1Tb/7200, or 1.5Tb/5400, both SATA3, and downgrade to SATA 2 so it will work in the optical bay of my 2011 MBP.

Thanks for all the info in this thread.
Click to expand...
Hi,
 
Y
Majerisa said:
Hi,
Would you able to downgrade the drive with the tool?
I have burned around 10cds but I couldn't boot with it.
Click to expand...

Yes that is what the tool does, and the whole point of using it.
Difficult to say why you can't boot your CDs, but Google should provide ideas. Maybe try different brand of CD?
 
I will try with different brands...I'm getting crazy with this.
Just to be sure...when I unzip the file I can see an ISO file and another folder call _macosx which has another ISO file inside. It is the first file the one that I need to burn, isn't it?
I should be doing something wrong....

Thanks!
[doublepost=1459036176][/doublepost]
MCE Support said:
We have a web page which shows how to do this and provides the utility:

http://www.mcetech.com/optibay/sata3to2.html

Cheers

MCE Technologies
Click to expand...
Hi MCE,

I downloaded the tool from your website and followed the instructions but can't boot my computer with the CD. Any idea of why?
I have tried several times and with two different computers!

Thanks
 
Do you think HDDFT10 can work on a samsung?
Can i change the speed on a hdd with data on it (previous principal hdd)?
Can i boot HDDFT10 from an usb key?
 
808b said:
Do you think HDDFT10 can work on a samsung?
Can i change the speed on a hdd with data on it (previous principal hdd)?
Can i boot HDDFT10 from an usb key?
Click to expand...

I was only ever to boot to from a CD, as my understanding is that the Macs that will boot (at least easily) from USB are Macs not originally supplied with DVD, but I don't believe HDDFT10 will work on an Samsung drive, as to is an HGST tool for their drives.
 
angelofarina said:
I did just discover on the Internet that a new generation of Optibay, called Optibay Extreme, has been developed specifically for solving the issue of SATA3 operation on early 2011 and late 2011 MBPs…
Can anyone confirm that this new Optibay Extreme caddy solves definitely the issue, allowing to mount two SATA3 SSD units, one in the main bay, and one in this new Optibay Extreme adaptor?
Click to expand...


Wow, thanks, I had not heard of this product before! Looks like OWC gave up on development, but these guys solved it!
http://store.mcetech.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=OBSXGB-XTRM
 
Last edited:
Majerisa said:
I have burned around 10cds but I couldn't boot with it.
Click to expand...

Hi All,

I joined just to comment on this thread.
I have a MBP mid 2012 and are trying to get this CD to boot.
It does exactly the same as others have said with the "No bootable device -- insert boot disk and press any key"....
Frustrating that it wont boot.

I tried making the CD on a Macbook Pro and on a Windows 7 machine and both times the ISO file passed verification but wont boot.

Hmmmmm
 
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