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anybody replace optical drive with a hard drive?
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The bottom one is using the correct slimline plug watergun. But I think those bays are meant for specific laptops. I have a feeling it might not fit into a macbook or macbook pro.
Thanks. I got email from newmodeus saying that the SATA plug is slimline version. The bay is universal 12.7mm high drive. Superdrive is 12.7mm too, right? Also, the front plate is removable. But, we will never know for sure until someone really tries it on MacBook, won't we? Here are some more pics to compare this bay and Superdrive.
The universal drive bay
Superdrive
The universal drive bay
Superdrive
The SuperDrive in the MacBook (13-inch, Aluminum, Late 2008) is 9.5mm. NewMode Electronics doesn't manufacture an enclosure which would be compatible (size) with said portable. I've sent an e-mail to MCE Technologies to see whether they'll be offering a version for these newer models.
That would be a first for Apple, because until now Apple always used standard 12,7 mm drives in theyr notebooks. I am willing to bet that it will fit. Also because the connection is standard slimline sata to regular sata. Was thinking about gettong one because I alzo have the pata version. But using a little cable is cheaper though.
Ah, thank you for the info. You just saved me $42...Well, hopefully MCE will make 1 very soon.
i posted this already, but here is the reply from mce again:
Thank you for your inquiry. Although it has not been determined whether MCE Technologies will be offering an OptiBay Hard Drive solution for the newly announced MacBook or MacBook Pro systems, this is actively being pursued by MCE engineers and staff. However a timetable for making this determination has not been specified.
MCE Technologies will make an announcement regarding this on our website and the major Mac news sites when it has been determined if and when this solution will be offered.
The OptiBay Hard Drive responds to the hard drive spin down commands one can set in the Energy Saver control panel.
Best Regards,
Customer Service
MCE Technologies
www.mcetech.com
I don't want a optibay! If you look at the ones from newmode, the are practically the same except for the little plastic cover. I am a 100% sure it will work in the macbook pro, but for the macbook? The hard drive is 9,5 mm but the battery is much thicker than the hard drive, so why would they be using a custom 9,5 mm dvd drive if 12,5 mm drive's also fit in there? Custom is expensive, mass production is cheap!
I wonder if MCE will come with a new optibay and wich price it will have. It should not be too expensive though. The only thing it has to do is change the connector of the power signal. The data doesn't have to be transferd from ata to sata. The power is pretty much standard. Only 5 volts with two ground signals. Anyway even its costs me $20,- for me the cable is THE way to go, for only 5,95 with some modding it's perfect!
I wonder if MCE will come with a new optibay and wich price it will have. It should not be too expensive though. The only thing it has to do is change the connector of the power signal. The data doesn't have to be transferd from ata to sata. The power is pretty much standard. Only 5 volts with two ground signals. Anyway even its costs me $20,- for me the cable is THE way to go, for only 5,95 with some modding it's perfect!
Since the battery life on these new MacBooks is so horrible, how about replacing the SupderDrive with a battery? I know Dell and Lenovo have batteries about the same size as a optical drive, for their own corporate models. If one of them has compabtible specs, it can in theory be connected in parallel for more time on the road, right?
A second battery mod would be perfect. Battery life > legacy optical drive that gets used one time a year.
A second battery mod would be perfect. Battery life > legacy optical drive that gets used one time a year.
I don't think that would would work. You have a power signal, but how in earth you want to put in a battery that second battery? It has to have the same shape, it has to be recognized by the macbook/macbook pro and you probably have to a lot of soldering to it. I still haven't got my macbook pro yet, (probably Monday or Tuesday) so I;m wondering how easy it is to take the bottom of and put a spare battery in that you could take with you?
Two ssd's use les power than a hard drive and superdrive together so my battery life should improve. Not that I need it, most trips I would make on the battery would take 45 minutes, and sometimes 2 to 3 hours. I also still haven't heard from the shop who should deliver me the cables. Probably will give them a call on Monday.
All previous versions of the MacBook and MacBook Pro (15" only) use a 9.5mm optical drive.
Yep, you're right! I did some more google research on this and it does show that the macbook and macbook pro use a 9,5 mm optical drive. I have still one newmode caddy with the pata interface, wich I measured the height of the chip. It is clear that the old macbook (pro)'s could work with the ones from newmode. You just have to take the chip out of the enclosure. That has even more advantages, that is saves more weight.
Anyway I was in the understanding that apple used 12,7 mm drives, my apologies.
Anyway I was in the understanding that apple used 12,7 mm drives, my apologies.
Hi everyone,
Well the main reason i decided to buy the new macbook pro over the older one was largely the fact that the new one had a sata optical drive, and therefore more easily able to accept a two hard drive setup. So once i got it home i immediately took i apart to access the challenges of installing a second hard drive. My ultimate goal is to have a 1TB raid with two 500gb 2.5in drives. So this is meant to be a little build post of my experience.
After i opened the notebook, i determined what connectors are going to be needed. The sata connector that is connected to the motherboard, i mean logicboard, is a micro sata female that holds both power and data. The sata connection on the 2.5 sata hard drives are a standard sata male. So i needed to find a micro sata male to normal sata male for data and power. I went with cables from satacables.com.
part number - MSSA-004 which is the micro sata male to standard sata data female and the Molex four pin
part number - SS-08MPS which is the standard sata power female to molex four pin
When i got the cables, i wanted to solder the four wires of the two molex connectors together to make a more manipulatable cable, and to make it a single cable.
I wanted to retain the ability to completely reverse any modification i make to the notebook, so i wanted to created a little tray for the hard drive to sit in. I wanted the tray to use the same screws as the optical drive does and be easily removable. i went to Lowes and picked up some 5" x 7" Aluminum Step Flashing, which is a thin piece of aluminum that is bendable by hand and cuttable with a decent pair of scissors, very suitable for making a hard drive tray. I formed the aluminum in the shape that i wanted and mounted it.
Now i am not completely finished with this project as u can see in the pictures, i havent completely thought out how i am going to connect the hard drive to the tray. i will probably just use some double sided tape or something, i am open to suggestions, lol.
I havnt gotten the second hard drive just yet, but when i do i plan on doing some benchmarks to record the difference it made.
Oh and by the way, it only takes about 2-3 minutes to do the full swap, so if i ever need to take it in to Apple, its not all that big of an inconvenience. And another thing, i wanted to minimize the vibration of the hard drive, so i used some soft rubber and taped it in between the tray and the posts to minimize it, and i dont know if it made a difference or not, but i cant feel the second hard drive any more than the apple one. And another thing, it fits, but just barely, all the panels are still perfectly aligned. Oh and one more critical thing to think about, the hard drive fits, but when u add the standard sata cables, it becomes a very close fit. I had to carefully bend the sata cable as far as it would go in order for it to fit.
Well the main reason i decided to buy the new macbook pro over the older one was largely the fact that the new one had a sata optical drive, and therefore more easily able to accept a two hard drive setup. So once i got it home i immediately took i apart to access the challenges of installing a second hard drive. My ultimate goal is to have a 1TB raid with two 500gb 2.5in drives. So this is meant to be a little build post of my experience.
After i opened the notebook, i determined what connectors are going to be needed. The sata connector that is connected to the motherboard, i mean logicboard, is a micro sata female that holds both power and data. The sata connection on the 2.5 sata hard drives are a standard sata male. So i needed to find a micro sata male to normal sata male for data and power. I went with cables from satacables.com.
part number - MSSA-004 which is the micro sata male to standard sata data female and the Molex four pin
part number - SS-08MPS which is the standard sata power female to molex four pin
When i got the cables, i wanted to solder the four wires of the two molex connectors together to make a more manipulatable cable, and to make it a single cable.
I wanted to retain the ability to completely reverse any modification i make to the notebook, so i wanted to created a little tray for the hard drive to sit in. I wanted the tray to use the same screws as the optical drive does and be easily removable. i went to Lowes and picked up some 5" x 7" Aluminum Step Flashing, which is a thin piece of aluminum that is bendable by hand and cuttable with a decent pair of scissors, very suitable for making a hard drive tray. I formed the aluminum in the shape that i wanted and mounted it.
Now i am not completely finished with this project as u can see in the pictures, i havent completely thought out how i am going to connect the hard drive to the tray. i will probably just use some double sided tape or something, i am open to suggestions, lol.
I havnt gotten the second hard drive just yet, but when i do i plan on doing some benchmarks to record the difference it made.
Oh and by the way, it only takes about 2-3 minutes to do the full swap, so if i ever need to take it in to Apple, its not all that big of an inconvenience. And another thing, i wanted to minimize the vibration of the hard drive, so i used some soft rubber and taped it in between the tray and the posts to minimize it, and i dont know if it made a difference or not, but i cant feel the second hard drive any more than the apple one. And another thing, it fits, but just barely, all the panels are still perfectly aligned. Oh and one more critical thing to think about, the hard drive fits, but when u add the standard sata cables, it becomes a very close fit. I had to carefully bend the sata cable as far as it would go in order for it to fit.
Thanks for the write-up and photo's! Looks good!
Just wondering why you blurred the HD label?
No the connector on the optical drive is actually slimline sata, and 1,8 drives use micro sata. Micro sata is again different from slimline sata or regular sata.
See also these pictures:
I'm glad to see someone got it to work. Now I at least know that the mod is quite easy and that it works. Altough I'm kind of dissapointed I wasn't the first!
Anyhow congrats on you're new 1 TB macbook pro!I was planning on using two Mtron pro's, but after looking at the aps I use, I decided it would be better to take two mtron mobi's that have a higher capacity for a lower price. It would still mean (effectively) a 64 GB ssd with a 200 MB/s read/write. That's fast enough for me and has all the storage I need. Perhaps a expresscard ssd where I can sync all my important data on. Afteral raid 0 on a notebook isn't to very save!
What you could do is put a female molex on one end of the power cable. Those are quite easy to put on. Just use a pair of tweezers, and on the one leading to the hard drive a male molex to your sata power connector. That was the way I was planning on making it work.
Edit: don't you have more room if you where to put you HD like this?
Yeah I know it's a bad photoshop, but you get the idea. You have more room for the data cable, that would be long enough to strertch there, the only thing you would need is a longer power cable.
I saw in the pictures you used aluminium as a support for your hard disk. That is something I didn't come up with. Great idea. I'll probably use it too. Two small blocks of foam on it on either side of the hard disk and your hard disk is held in place and it keeps vibrations low (if you are using a regular hard disk)
I also wonder, most peope here will go for a 1 TB notebook? Or a ssd with a regular hard disk?
I don't suppose anyone out here is crazy enough to put two ssd's in?!!
I said I'll go for two mtron mobi's, and that will probably going to happen because they are quite cheap, fast, and have descent storage.
If I had the money though, I would have gone for two intel X25-E disks.
Costs me about twice as much! Read 250 MB/s write 160 MB/s with a lousy 32 GB, for only €700 around here!
You get a mtron mobi 32 GB 100 MB/s read/write for only €300, two of those and you have 200 MB/s read/write for €600.
Gives me a lot more storage at a cheaper price point and is almost as quick in theoretical speed. In the real world two mobi's will kick the ass of one intel X25-E, because Intel isn't quite honest about there speeds, in contrary to Mtron who is always quite accurate.
Anyhow, you will see my pictures coming by here pretty soon as well, as the ones from philletourneau, beacuse I will be sending him the cables.
@mrvegasrx7, where did you buy your cables? Not @ picco I presume? Because normally they are quite fast with they deliveries, but now it just doesn't cut it.
well if you where using raid 0 on a desktop at least is going nowhere. A notebook is on the move most of the time. Meaning that a notebook is getting to endure a lot more movement than a desktop if you where using regular hard disks. With regular hard disks this risk is pretty big. Meaning total loss of all your data. With ssd's the chances are a lot slimmer, mainly because they aren't sensitive for shocks, but they are sensitive for static electricity for one.
Or you spill a fluid over you ssd, anyway, in a notebook your chances of damage to a drive are much bigger than they would be on a desktop. On a desktop it makes sense to make back-ups when you are using raid 0, on a notebook with raid 0 it is critical. Better to be safe than sorry!
Or you spill a fluid over you ssd, anyway, in a notebook your chances of damage to a drive are much bigger than they would be on a desktop. On a desktop it makes sense to make back-ups when you are using raid 0, on a notebook with raid 0 it is critical. Better to be safe than sorry!
Great work
Very nice install! Thanks for the photos mrvegasrx7, you beat the rest of us to it.
The aluminum flashing is a great idea. About fastening the drive to it, did you consider making more holes for screws? I'm not sure if your drive has holes underneath or not. If it doesn't, I might try cutting tabs in the plate and bending them up to cradle the drive. You could drill holes in them and even screw them to the drive.
I'm going to try a solution that will also dissipate heat as much as possible. Rubber sticky pads will help with that, but if I use the metals tabs to screw the drive in, I might try to find rubber washers to reduce vibration.
I don't know about you, but I found the space where the optical drive is to be very easy to work with, there's no cables in the way, lots of room to work.
I'll have my 128gb Samsung SSD in 5 days, and once I get the cables from sergev I'll be ready to go!
Phil.
Very nice install! Thanks for the photos mrvegasrx7, you beat the rest of us to it.
The aluminum flashing is a great idea. About fastening the drive to it, did you consider making more holes for screws? I'm not sure if your drive has holes underneath or not. If it doesn't, I might try cutting tabs in the plate and bending them up to cradle the drive. You could drill holes in them and even screw them to the drive.
I'm going to try a solution that will also dissipate heat as much as possible. Rubber sticky pads will help with that, but if I use the metals tabs to screw the drive in, I might try to find rubber washers to reduce vibration.
I don't know about you, but I found the space where the optical drive is to be very easy to work with, there's no cables in the way, lots of room to work.
I'll have my 128gb Samsung SSD in 5 days, and once I get the cables from sergev I'll be ready to go!
Phil.