2011/2012 Macbook Pro Dual Drive (SSD+HDD/SSD+SSD) Setup Suggestions

[jon08]

I have not heard of any problems about Bootcamp & OS X being on the same SSD, that's why I'm asking...hmm

As for my Bootcamp partition - I will be using it exclusively for some gaming, so 50-60GB should suffice for me, I guess. And since my OS X partition on the SSD will be pretty much the OS and apps, I believe it shouldn't take up more than 20-30GB, which still leaves me with about 30-40GB free space. And btw, I've installed both Win 7 Ultimate 32-bit and 64-bit before, and neither of them takes up 30GB - yes, the 64-bit takes up almost twice the amount of space of 32-bit, but that's still about 15-16GB on its own, none more.

Will my gaming benefit with a 64-bit version? (I'll be using 8GB RAM.)

What should I do with my "home" folder then? Should I keep it on the HDD in the optibay along with Downloads and everything else?

Thanks!

 

[Satnam1989]

I have not heard of any problems about Bootcamp & OS X being on the same SSD, that's why I'm asking...hmm

As for my Bootcamp partition - I will be using it exclusively for some gaming, so 50-60GB should suffice for me, I guess. And since my OS X partition on the SSD will be pretty much the OS and apps, I believe it shouldn't take up more than 20-30GB, which still leaves me with about 30-40GB free space. And btw, I've installed both Win 7 Ultimate 32-bit and 64-bit before, and neither of them takes up 30GB - yes, the 64-bit takes up almost twice the amount of space of 32-bit, but that's still about 15-16GB on its own, none more.

Will my gaming benefit with a 64-bit version? (I'll be using 8GB RAM.)

What should I do with my "home" folder then? Should I keep it on the HDD in the optibay along with Downloads and everything else?

Thanks!

I would leave the home folder on your SSD, but as for your applications that are going to save files(ex Skype, Torrent downloader, Safari, Chrome, Firefox), just manually set them to download to a "Downloads" folder on the HDD.......
.......or what you can do is Move the Downloads folder to anywhere on the HDD, make alias of it, Place it where the original Downloads folder on the SSD was and rename it to be exact "Downloads" then applications should be able to save in Downloads folder without any issues(this suggestion is untested for this purpose but I do this with my Dropbox Folder which is stored on my Bootcamp partition, this way I don't have double copies)....because I have plenty of space I didn't have to adjust that part....Manaually moved music, files i don't use often and my bit torrent program is set to download to a folder on my HDD

You can set iTunes to save downloaded applications/songs/files to a folder on HDD via its settings/preferences.


Definitely 64Bit Windows 7! no doubt about that. gaming will be better! rest is yours to discover my friend. let me know how things work out for ya!

Do note everyone has their best opinion, but what I tell you is what works 100% and works for me, I try to simplify everything i use to the max.

 

[jon08]

Thanks for your input.

How can I make a bootable USB drive for Win 7 64-bit? I wish to do it while in OS X because I currently only have 32-bit Win 7 and from what I read you cannot make a 64-bit USB partition while in 32-bit Windows.

 

[Satnam1989]

Thanks for your input.

How can I make a bootable USB drive for Win 7 64-bit? I wish to do it while in OS X because I currently only have 32-bit Win 7 and from what I read you cannot make a 64-bit USB partition while in 32-bit Windows.

I hav no clue what you mean because never in my life I hav used 32bit at least I do not recall.....in order to make a 64Bit bootable you need Win7 64bit.iso....you can download a program that is made my microsoft which allows you to make a bootable win7 disc for free on a windows computer.....

 

[JasonH42]

So what's the consensus on Bootcamp & OS X on the same SSD? I'll be placing a 120GB OWC Mercury Extreme PRO 6G into my MBP next week and was planning to have both Bootcamp and OS X on it, but now I really don't know if it's ok to have both on the same SSD or not??

@Satnam: in one of your posts you mentioned something like transferring music and other data to the SSD first and only then transferring it to the HDD in the optibay? Why?

I'm planning to put a HDD in the optibay also and was going to simply transfer all my music, pics, movies and other data from my external HDD to the HDD in the optibay -- would that not work?

It's absolutely fine. I've done this with SSD on three MBPs now, no issues at all.

 

[dusk007]

as for your applications that are going to save files(ex Skype, Torrent downloader, Safari, Chrome, Firefox), just manually set them to download to a "Downloads" folder on the HDD.......
.......or what you can do is Move the Downloads folder to anywhere on the HDD, make alias of it, Place it where the original Downloads folder on the SSD was and rename it to be exact "Downloads" then applications should be able to save in Downloads folder without any issues

This is entirely unnecessary. You can write as much as you want to the SSD. It is faster and save battery life. No consumer will manage to wear out the nand cells on his/her SSD in any meaningful timeframe.
Anandtech did a quite useful calcluation which effectively says that you need to be an extremely active user writing a dozen of GB per day to your drive to manage. The small stuff like downloads, caches don't matter at all.
That might have been a problem with early ssd controller which wrote a lot more data than necessary. It is nothing a consumer needs to worry about anymore. Chances are the controller chip or an entire nand die will die just so much sooner than the nand cells reaching their max erase cycles.

 

[miker2209]

When I decided to install both the SSD and the HDD on my MBP 13", the thing that really worried me was the SMS. I never considered testing it until you said it was possible...and IT IS. I played a video from my HDD in OptiBay, while it was playing i shook it and there was that sweet "CLICK" thanks man.

And heres something i'd like to share with you guys if any of you wants to try it out, it's disabling Safe sleep.
Basically everytime you put your MBP to sleep it stores all the data in your RAM to your Hard Drive incase of a power failure or you run out of battery so you won't lose any of the work you were working on. Disabling this DOESN'T effect the normal sleeping behavior when you close the lid. And it actually free up a substantial of memory.

Instructions to disable Safe Sleep
Using the Terminal program, run the following two commands:
$ sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0
$ sudo nvram "use-nvramrc?"=false

To free up the hard disk space used by the sleep image file:
$ sudo rm /private/var/vm/sleepimage

To re-enable Safe Sleep
$ sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 3
$ sudo nvram "use-nvramrc?"=true
*

 

[miker2209]

- I recommend at least 150GB put aside for Bootcamp Windows 7 for anyone who is a casual to moderate user/has the need to use Win 7.....Better to have more space because later on it will be a mess to remove HDD, reinsert Optical Drive to do the windows 7 set-up cause its a whole new ball game if you want to install Win7 bootcamp via External DVD Drive and I'm saying this because those of you that can do it in seconds please do consider other peoples knowledge base as we are all good at some things but not others

If by any time i needed to reinstall win7 on my HDD that is in OptiBay, am i to simply remove everything put everything in its place. Am i still able to install windows on my HDD, which now does not have any OS on it? Or do i have to install MAC OS on the HDD and then install windows via Bootcamp?

 

[Satnam1989]

If by any time i needed to reinstall win7 on my HDD that is in OptiBay, am i to simply remove everything put everything in its place. Am i still able to install windows on my HDD, which now does not have any OS on it? Or do i have to install MAC OS on the HDD and then install windows via Bootcamp?

Miker2209 I would love to help you with that one but I am honestly clueless, if you read from many of my detailed replies this is my first Mac/OSX laptop so i cannot say anything about that, I jus did the setup, been great for me. I did the setup with a good thought in mind that Ill never redo windows again

but yes in order to reinstall windows you will definitely have to re-insert your optical bay drive as its difficult unless you are pretty good with computers to use programs like reFIT if I'm correct to boot from a external dvd drive.....otherwise you jus gotta reset up the factory setup and start from there.

Im sure you have a windows 7 drivers disk already made, it is possible you can start the installation of windows 7 without having osx lion I think but if you ever have to reinstall and you find your self that you cannot do direct install without creating a partition via Bootcamp then jus do what you gotta do and that is install OSX lion and create desirable size partition for Win7 via bootcamp and start from that cycle all over again Maybe someone else can answer this question better then me but i wish you luck buddy! hope you enjoy your dual drive setup.


As for the guy above who said things about NAND cells dying, well I'm sure you can find a explanation for all the SSD's that one day go to sleep just fine but never wake up? yes its just the controller most of the time, but still when some of us that don't have the extra money and want to protect and play it safer then safe, you might as well take the initiative to do things like downloading and such onto your HDD, at least you know your playings your cards tightly rather then making a mess and then later wondering if you did something wrong or was it the drive..cause we all don't pop open the hood and start inspecting lol...anyway who ever reads my thread you are most welcome to read all my replies as they explain one thing or another, if it doesn't help you, then you are always welcome to ask or look around on the forum or even else where if you don't like my tips/suggestions.

 

[jon08]

Sb told me that Bootcamp installer will also install Windows from ISO image, so I wouldn't need Superdrive for that... will Bootcamp also install Windows on a HDD in Optibay in such manner?

 

[Satnam1989]

Sb told me that Bootcamp installer will also install Windows from ISO image, so I wouldn't need Superdrive for that... will Bootcamp also install Windows on a HDD in Optibay in such manner?

in order to install bootcamp last i checked it requires optical bay drive....

 

[jon08]

@Satnam: here's what it says on Apple's website: "Support for the Windows 7 ISO installer - Install Windows with an installation disc you provide or, on Mac computers that do not have an optical drive, with a USB flash drive that contains a Windows 7 ISO image downloaded from Microsoft. The Boot Camp Assistant will offer to create this image on supported computers."

Btw, how can I format the HDD in Optibay to NFTS? I can only format it to exFAT or MS-DOS FAT in Disk Utility (and obviously Mac OS X Journaled and them ..)....

EDIT: ok, I formatted it to Mac OS X (Journaled), since Paragon NTFS should apparently take care of my HDD in optibay also.

 

[Satnam1989]

@Satnam: here's what it says on Apple's website: "Support for the Windows 7 ISO installer - Install Windows with an installation disc you provide or, on Mac computers that do not have an optical drive, with a USB flash drive that contains a Windows 7 ISO image downloaded from Microsoft. The Boot Camp Assistant will offer to create this image on supported computers."

Btw, how can I format the HDD in Optibay to NFTS? I can only format it to exFAT or MS-DOS FAT in Disk Utility (and obviously Mac OS X Journaled and them ..)....

EDIT: ok, I formatted it to Mac OS X (Journaled), since Paragon NTFS should apparently take care of my HDD in optibay also.

Hey, My storage drive that i share between my Win7 and OSX is formatted to NTFS and I have Macdrive8 installed in Win7.....since OSX is used the most it made sense to format it HFS+Journaled rather then NTFS.....which isn't a problem for windows at all since it can access HFS+ natively thanks to MacDrive8 as for bootcamp, you will have to try it, since I did my setup while back when I had the optical bay drive inside.....

 

[jon08]

I see, thanks.

I've mounted an SSD into the main bay now and a Hitachi 750GB 7200rpm into the Data Doubler (Optibay). I'd like to ask you a couple of things:

1) It seems that I'm getting random spin ups on my Hitachi HDD - for example, I'm away from my MBP and it spins down, but then after a couple of mins it all of a sudden starts spinning again - waking up from sleep. Any ideas why? (I currently have it set up to spin down after 1 min with that sudo command).

2) Could you please describe what kind of noise you hear from your 500GB drive in Optibay?

My 7200rpm Hitachi seems ok, except for the constant "whoosh" part, which I can hear when it's running - it's like the fans sound... Apart from that, I can hear occasional head-parking (click sounds), but other than that it's fine. No vibrations or whirring sounds.

Though right now I'm sort of considering trying to put the stock Toshiba 500GB (5400rpm) drive in the Optibay to see if there would be noticeable difference in the whoosh sound it produces. I remember when this stock drive was still in the MBP (before I replaced it with the SSD) and it was pretty quiet. Would it be the same in Optibay?

 

[Danno21]

I have my HDD in the optibay and it still makes those noises you've described. It always makes a hard single "tick" when I restart from Windows as well for some reason. Never does it when I restart from Mac OS.

I put my HDD in the optibay since I have a SATA 3 SSD and wanted the 500mb+ read/write without the risk of the SSD having conflicts in the optibay.

 

[jon08]

So you put the stock HDD (Toshiba 500GB 5400rpm) into the optibay? Is the whoosh sound barely audible, or is it pretty loud?

 

[jon08]

Btw, about redirecting folders..

If I wanted to redirect, say, the Downloads folder and move it to HDD, how would I go about doing that? Is it ok to create a Downloads folder on the HDD in optibay, then copy all the Downloads data from SSD to the Downloads folder on HDD and then create an alias of it on the HDD - and finally move that alias to SSD?

 

[dusk007]

As for the guy above who said things about NAND cells dying, well I'm sure you can find a explanation for all the SSD's that one day go to sleep just fine but never wake up? yes its just the controller most of the time, but still when some of us that don't have the extra money and want to protect and play it safer then safe, you might as well take the initiative to do things like downloading and such onto your HDD, at least you

Go ahead keep on to your little myths and old traditions if they give you a piece of mind. But if you think yours is the truth than back it up and read up on the subject probably and analyse the available data. If you don't do that don't spread your baseless nonsense in forums.
People reading the headlines of some tabloid online paper and spreading their hard earned wisdom around is why there are so many baseless myths that never die on the web.

The problem existed when an ssd wrote 10 times the data it was actually supposed to write on its nand when the access was mostly random. New controllers work much smarter with spare area and sophiticated data tables, they cycle data over the entire drive to wear out everythin equally (unlike some earily flash drives). Sandforce write 0.6 times and Intel 1.1 times the data it is supposed to write. Samsung & Co maybe 2 or 3 max. The less random access the lower that number usually is. Sequential is usually just 1:1. So downlaoding a big file really is kind of the best case and the random data on a consumer machine just doesn't add up to a whole lot.

Assuming you have a 128GB drive and write 10 GB of data a day. Every day through the entire time every day of the year. I guess most people manage less than 1 GB a day and only heavy users manage something like 5 on average.
Assuming 10Gb which would be some heavy downloader or heavy movie editing guy. To get your nands to 1000 write cycles you need to write 128 000 GB / 10 a day that means you will need 12800 days / 360 bank year days that is 35 years.
That was 1000 cycles. Now 25/20nm nand last 3000 cycles. 34nm much more. Even with the high write amplification of Toshiba controllers you won't wear it out in 10 years not even if you are a heavy user.
The only people with a chance are some movie editiors that copy back and forth dozens of GB a day and they will probably take the bad with the good for all the benefit it provides and considering they will buy it new before they use it 5 years probably anyway.

Next keep in mind a nand cell can only hold its charge for about 10 years in will probably die in that timeframe regardless of it's use.
Controller chips like most chips are designed to last 5+ years and usually show ever increasing failure rates past that timeframe, maybe a time at which you probably own a new notebook anyway with a new much faster much larger ssd.

It is just nonsense to worry about that. Use the ssd and enjoy that it doesn't have to waste battery on the hdd unless it is needed and that just doesn't make a sound under normal use.

 

[Satnam1989]

Go ahead keep on to your little myths and old traditions if they give you a piece of mind. But if you think yours is the truth than back it up and read up on the subject probably and analyse the available data. If you don't do that don't spread your baseless nonsense in forums.
People reading the headlines of some tabloid online paper and spreading their hard earned wisdom around is why there are so many baseless myths that never die on the web.

The problem existed when an ssd wrote 10 times the data it was actually supposed to write on its nand when the access was mostly random. New controllers work much smarter with spare area and sophiticated data tables, they cycle data over the entire drive to wear out everythin equally (unlike some earily flash drives). Sandforce write 0.6 times and Intel 1.1 times the data it is supposed to write. Samsung & Co maybe 2 or 3 max. The less random access the lower that number usually is. Sequential is usually just 1:1. So downlaoding a big file really is kind of the best case and the random data on a consumer machine just doesn't add up to a whole lot.

Assuming you have a 128GB drive and write 10 GB of data a day. Every day through the entire time every day of the year. I guess most people manage less than 1 GB a day and only heavy users manage something like 5 on average.
Assuming 10Gb which would be some heavy downloader or heavy movie editing guy. To get your nands to 1000 write cycles you need to write 128 000 GB / 10 a day that means you will need 12800 days / 360 bank year days that is 35 years.
That was 1000 cycles. Now 25/20nm nand last 3000 cycles. 34nm much more. Even with the high write amplification of Toshiba controllers you won't wear it out in 10 years not even if you are a heavy user.
The only people with a chance are some movie editiors that copy back and forth dozens of GB a day and they will probably take the bad with the good for all the benefit it provides and considering they will buy it new before they use it 5 years probably anyway.

Next keep in mind a nand cell can only hold its charge for about 10 years in will probably die in that timeframe regardless of it's use.
Controller chips like most chips are designed to last 5+ years and usually show ever increasing failure rates past that timeframe, maybe a time at which you probably own a new notebook anyway with a new much faster much larger ssd.

It is just nonsense to worry about that. Use the ssd and enjoy that it doesn't have to waste battery on the hdd unless it is needed and that just doesn't make a sound under normal use.

Why aren't you working for some company? You seem to have a whole collection of knowledge, maybe you know better then the engineers that design the drives and pass it onto final phase so they can be manufactured dude.

Its great they can last 5+ years, But you know what buddy my job isn't to tell someone to push their limits, If i see a safer way for someone to do something and get the most of it without falling into issues, then thats what I'm gonna share, It has nothing to do with letting posts like mine run around forums for years. This is how I handle safe, Also Im not forcing anyone to do what I did, It clearly states in the first few lines of my first post that you may not be able to do the way I have it setup and also I mentioned that You may do a different setup that works for you. Sure you want to push your limits to the sky but my friend I Just bought my first ever mac, first ever SSD drive so I'm gonna be careful with it because it costed me a fortune. Maybe your made of money more then I am and yes everyone is different so everyone uses things differently.

Im not sure where you got your data from about LIGHT and HEAVY users buddy but My laptop is on 15hours of the day and in that time I watch video lecture notes from my Drive, type documents, surf the web(youtube,Facebook, news etc) and my disk read/write reports about 3GB read/5GB write on average day and I don't do any video editing, playing games Absolutely nothing for the past 3 months as I'm studying for a board exam. Now you tell me where the heck you getting 1GB from.

Truth is without research one shouldn't be the judge and its technology we can never trust it, with every new milestone it reaches, consumers have to reach up to it slowly so they don't face any sort of disappointment especially the ones that don't have the extra money to fork out incase a problem arises.

You shouldn't criticize me for sharing something that will help people avoid issues as not all drives are equally reliable. Sure if you have something nice to add then break it down for others, provide your drive info, how long have you had it for, any issues that came up etc etc.

----------

Btw, about redirecting folders..

If I wanted to redirect, say, the Downloads folder and move it to HDD, how would I go about doing that? Is it ok to create a Downloads folder on the HDD in optibay, then copy all the Downloads data from SSD to the Downloads folder on HDD and then create an alias of it on the HDD - and finally move that alias to SSD?

Yup thats what I do, just make Alias to my SSD from my HDD and it works great you can do that with every/any folder you wish

 

[mickpearcey]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

Lol, Satnam... You get offended way too easily! Dusk007 clearly has more experience than someone who just got their first ever Mac and SSD.

Although... Thanks for the read.

 

[Satnam1989]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

Lol, Satnam... You get offended way too easily! Dusk007 clearly has more experience than someone who just got their first ever Mac and SSD.

Although... Thanks for the read.

lol im not offended, but ya really I can google my way through and write up a amazing report, thing is I'm jus sharing my experience since lots of people tend to have the same questions and I my self had those too before I did the setup, searching all over the net for a whole week before I put my setup together. I don't mind what he suggests but I don't see the need to point fingers....If he has something knowledgable to share do so. Everyones free to express their opinion, I did, he did and i bet sometime down the line some new genius is gonna outpost his "experience" on my thread.

If anyone has tips, suggestions that are better/alternative to mine I would love to hear and add them to my first post as long as they provide some sort of improvement.

 

[Satnam1989]

updated with battery tips, should help you get 5-7hours of battery life on 15" MBP 2011 models can't speak for 13" or 17" but all in all should improve...

 

[miker2209]

updated with battery tips, should help you get 5-7hours of battery life on 15" MBP 2011 models can't speak for 13" or 17" but all in all should improve...

Hey bro, does the SMS work on the 15" 2011 as well?

 

[Satnam1989]

Hey bro, does the SMS work on the 15" 2011 as well?

I have a 2011 Early Macbook Pro 15 model Purchased in October and its working 100% so I'm sure all Late 2011 it will work as well.

As for Earlier then September/October I can't speak for them But others have stated it works....two reason I say i can't speak for them is cause apple made slight changes over the year even before Late 2011 models came out and that one noticeable change is can see is the dual 6Gb/s SATA III ports rather then a 6Gb/s SATA III in main bay and 3Gb/s SATA II Optical Bay port. second is people are complete f*gs and tend to pick out the smallest words to start a stupid talk over so to avoid that Im just not gonna state what I haven't tested or know

You can easily test it, Once you have ur HDD in just don't do anything to turn SMS off and put ur laptop in a free fall state/shake it lightly!(be careful) and to see it in action make sure u are playing some sort of audio or video file and u will know its working when that file pauses for a moment.

 

[miker2209]

Should be stickied