2010 MBP HD and opti bay speeds

[adam9c1]

Are both bats sata2?

Can I run two SSD drives or does opti bay need to use a platter drive?

I'd like to use a 240 ssd and a 60 or 90.

 

[teezy]

Not sure about the SATA2 thing but if I had to guess, the 2010 is completely SATA2. Don't know for sure though.

You can use an SSD in the optibay but I don't think you can use it as your main drive.

 

[adam9c1]

Can anyone confirm running two SSD drives in a 2010 Mbp?

 

[BrettApple]

Yes. Both drive bays are SATA II. Source: I had one. I used an OWC SSD in the optical bay and got close to 300 MB/s read and write. And a 1TB HDD in the main HDD bay for storage. But you can use dual SSDs if you want. It'll max out a little under 300 MB/s. Probably 250-275 with any SSD.

 

[DoghouseMike]

Anyone else wanna chip in? I've got the parts on their way, and if I can get away with leaving the old fashioned mechanical drive where it is, I will. The bit that concerns me is system profiler saying:
" Link Speed: 3 Gigabit

Negotiated Link Speed: 1.5 Gigabit"

when looking at the optical drive. (The HDD bay is 3 gigabit all the way)
I assume the negotiated speed is either:
- decided by the drive (so will change if I install an SSD/optibay in there)
- changeable through software/firmware
- not changeable (in which case it'd be optimal to have the SSD in the hard drive bay, and the hard drive in the optical bay)

Make sense?

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Anyone else wanna chip in? I've got the parts on their way, and if I can get away with leaving the old fashioned mechanical drive where it is, I will. The bit that concerns me is system profiler saying:
" Link Speed: 3 Gigabit

Negotiated Link Speed: 1.5 Gigabit"

when looking at the optical drive. (The HDD bay is 3 gigabit all the way)
I assume the negotiated speed is either:
- decided by the drive (so will change if I install an SSD/optibay in there)
- changeable through software/firmware
- not changeable (in which case it'd be optimal to have the SSD in the hard drive bay, and the hard drive in the optical bay)

Make sense?

Yes you will be optimal to have the SSD in the HDD bay and the HDD in the optical drive bay. This changed with the 2011 MBP's when they all went to sata 3.

 

[BrettApple]

In my 2008 MacBook and 2010 MacBook Pro I went with the SSD in the optical bay since it was the same speed as the HDD bay and the SSD created less heat and did not need the SMS protection so that's where it went. By keeping the HDD in the HDD bay you keep the ability to have the SMS protect your HDD from bumps and drops along with more vibration dampening through the rubber grommets.

If you put the HDD in the optical bay you loose the SMS feature. Maybe not a huge deal, but it's worth noting. I played with moving them around and decided that was best for my use case.

Of course, different models may have different abilities. Such as SATA III in the 2011 models where some were only SATA II in the optical bay from what I heard back then.

As for your 1.5 Gigabit link speed, that's determined by the drive and the controller. A lot of HDDs that were in the 2006-2012 MBPs were only SATA I for whatever reason. By putting in a SATA II or III drive it should show the proper link speed of 3 Gigabit (2008-2010) or 6 Gigabit (2011/12). Unless you're using a 2008/9 MacBook/Pro using the Nvidia controller with certain SandForce equipped SSDs, but that's another story. Those were SATA III drives that would only negotiate at SATA I. Something to be aware of depending on your MBP.

Also, if your optical drive is in there right now, those are all 1.5 Gigabit drives. Just how they are. The new drive should work at 3 Gigabit.

 

[teezy]

Ah so 2011/12 are SATA III. Good to know. OP you'll notice a huge jump in I/O speed with the SSD in play whichever way you go anyway, for sure.

 

[DoghouseMike]

Cheers guys. I've got as far as installing the SSD (in place of the HD) and holy Glob that's made things a bunch faster. Optibay type thing tonight!
I did them one at a time because I was short on time and if anything was gonna go wrong, I wanted to know which thing had gone wrong