Building a Fusion Drive

[tnsmart]

I have been getting a bit impatient with the 5400 RPM 1TB drive in my mid 2012 (model 9,1) unibody MBP lately and so am considering replacing the current HDD and optical drive with a fusion drive. My plan so far is to purchase these three items:
750GB 7200RPM HDD
256 GB SSD
Mounting bracket for SSD
and to sell the current internal drive and optical drive on eBay (and maybe buy an external superdrive).

I would follow one of the many tutorials online to create the fusion drive so that it is managed by OS X.

I want to make sure that all of these items will work together and that the SSD I'm purchasing is a good one.

Also, do you think that the speed increase I see will be significant (so that I don't regret the ~$100 it'll cost (after selling the current internal parts) and the effort)?
Is there any significant decrease in battery life to worry about when running both a HDD and SSD?

Any thoughts are appreciated. Thanks!

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

I want to make sure that all of these items will work together and that the SSD I'm purchasing is a good one.

They will, and it is.

Also, do you think that the speed increase I see will be significant (so that I don't regret the ~$100 it'll cost (after selling the current internal parts) and the effort)?

It will be quite significant.

Is there any significant decrease in battery life to worry about when running both a HDD and SSD?

A minor one. Depends on how much you used the DVD drive, but not much I assume, since you are going to remove it.

You could also consider going for a large SSD. It will give you even more speed, and retain your DVD drive.

 

[tnsmart]

A minor one. Depends on how much you used the DVD drive, but not much I assume, since you are going to remove it.

You could also consider going for a large SSD. It will give you even more speed, and retain your DVD drive.

Thanks for your reply!

I almost never use the optical drive, so it wouldn't be missed much. I'm trying to minimize my expenditures and the higher capacity SSDs get pretty pricey.