Can't understand Optibay SSDs and how they work

[andy8]

I came across a ssd hard disk from OptiBay which replaces the optical disk space in Macbook Pro with the SSD drive. Then the mac is able to boot with two internal hard disks. I don't understand which will be the primary disk and which one is secondary. Plus, how is the speed advantage observed with two different kinds of hardware (hard disks) in one machine - I mean one HDD and one SSD ?

 

[maflynn]

The optibay allows a hard drive or SSD to fit into the bay that the optical drive resides. You of course then have to remove the optical drive so you can use it, but it allows to drives in the laptop

 

[andy8]

The optibay allows a hard drive or SSD to fit into the bay that the optical drive resides. You of course then have to remove the optical drive so you can use it, but it allows to drives in the laptop

Hi Maflynn,

I understand the point that Optibay allows a hard drive or SSD to fit into the bay that the optical drive. But what I don't is which one will be considered as a primary hard drive - assuming I have one HDD(which came preinstalled) and one SSD(which I would likely install in my Optical Drive space) ?

 

[iNewbie]

I came across a ssd hard disk from OptiBay which replaces the optical disk space in Macbook Pro with the SSD drive. Then the mac is able to boot with two internal hard disks. I don't understand which will be the primary disk and which one is secondary. Plus, how is the speed advantage observed with two different kinds of hardware (hard disks) in one machine - I mean one HDD and one SSD ?

I have a 2010 MBP. I removed the optical and used a bracket from macsales.com to hold the original HD in that spot. Then I put a SSD in for by boot disk. I do think now that you can boot from either.. didn't know that at the time.

So now I have a MBP with a 240GB SSD and a 500 GB HD. Did this over a year ago. Love it! I finally broke down and bought an external DVD/Blu-Ray reader just for convenience. I only need it for ripping my dvd's etc... I've been using a different Mac and just got tired of that.

 

[andy8]

I have a 2010 MBP. I removed the optical and used a bracket from macsales.com to hold the original HD in that spot. Then I put a SSD in for by boot disk. I do think now that you can boot from either.. didn't know that at the time.

So now I have a MBP with a 240GB SSD and a 500 GB HD. Did this over a year ago. Love it! I finally broke down and bought an external DVD/Blu-Ray reader just for convenience. I only need it for ripping my dvd's etc... I've been using a different Mac and just got tired of that.

Does that mean, I would have to choose which drive I want to boot from ?
So I can't use both the drive's at the same time ?

 

[playsontheleft]

Does that mean, I would have to choose which drive I want to boot from ?
So I can't use both the drive's at the same time ?

You can - you specify one disk as your boot disc and the other as your data storage disk. It's like having an external hard drive but inside your computer and always connected.You boot from one drive (the SSD) but can access both whole booted.

 

[andy8]

You can - you specify one disk as your boot disc and the other as your data storage disk. It's like having an external hard drive but inside your computer and always connected.You boot from one drive (the SSD) but can access both whole booted.

Thanks, that makes sense.