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Dual Disks, iMac style in MBP - technically hard?

Santabean2000

Santabean2000

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Nov 20, 2007
1,889
2,053
Alo,

SSD + HDD in MBP.

I know it has been discussed previously in terms of desire to see it happen. But my question is how hard would it be for Apple to accomplish this?

The optical drive takes up a lot of space, and also connects through Sata, right?

OptiBay and others have hack solutions, do surely Apple could make an elegant one for us.

The mini has dual disks. The iMac also has dual disks.

Any reasons as to why we're still waiting to see this in a MBP?
 
Erm, Apple still deems an optical drive as remaining a relevant, if bitterly slow, technology? :D :D

It wouldn't be hard for them to do, but I don't think you may see this as an actual option anytime soon because they can fit "3 platters" (Hard Drive, SSD, Optical Drive) into the iMac, whereas there are only two in the MBP. And a "3 platter" solution in a laptop is not nearly as practical as you think. I had a Dell Latitude C840 and that had to be the biggest, most ungainly laptop I have ever used and weighed well over 8lbs.
 
Schtumple said:
I'm sure we could see an SSD that's smaller than a 2.5" drive, but maybe not for a while. I'd love it if Apple put in one of those Hybrid drives though, just for an extra speed boost.
Click to expand...

There are already SSD's smaller than 2.5". The MB Air uses a drive that is 1.8", and Intel's line has a 1.8" SSD option called the X-18M. It runs with the same read/write speeds as the bigger model.

Link to spec sheet
 
bamf said:
There are already SSD's smaller than 2.5". The MB Air uses a drive that is 1.8", and Intel's line has a 1.8" SSD option called the X-18M. It runs with the same read/write speeds as the bigger model.

Link to spec sheet
Click to expand...

Yeah that's the drives I was referring to, but I think we won't see it because SSDs are still monstrously expensive for how little they hold, maybe in the next year or 2 we'll see it, it would be nice if OSX and applications were on the SSD and everything else left to the hard drive, like it's done on the iMac.
 
bamf said:
There are already SSD's smaller than 2.5". The MB Air uses a drive that is 1.8", and Intel's line has a 1.8" SSD option called the X-18M. It runs with the same read/write speeds as the bigger model.

Link to spec sheet
Click to expand...

Yeah that's the drives I was referring to, I think it's more a space issue and price issue, the iMac is pretty huge in comparison to the MBP, I think we're far more likely to see an option to have the superdrive replaced with an SSD like the Optibay, with some kind of proper cover for the CD hole.
 
Make the MBP little thicker and that could be done. There are 7mm drives available, for example Hitachi Travelstar Z7K320 and Seagate Pulsar SSDs. Unibody MBPs can take 12.5mm drives so 2x7mm shouldn't be that hard to achieve.
 
Hellhammer said:
Make the MBP little thicker and that could be done. There are 7mm drives available, for example Hitachi Travelstar Z7K320 and Seagate Pulsar SSDs. Unibody MBPs can take 12.5mm drives so 2x7mm shouldn't be that hard to achieve.
Click to expand...
but but but Steve Jobs told me that thick is worse and so is heavier!

PS Hitachi developed an ODD/SSD Hybrid called the HyDrive, currently in 32 and 64GB sizes next year it will be 128 and 256GB sizes

PPS And then there is the SATADIMM...
 
There isn't enough room. I would consider the OptiBay quite elegant and not very hackish at all, to be honest.
 
We won't see this for a while. Dual drives in a Laptop is still a "Novelty" to most of the buying population. The "Elite" (thats us) are the majority of people who are interested in this.

By the time this becomes more maintstream... SSD prices start to come down to a more approachable range for the general consumer....... well by then the Drives will probably start looking smaller anyway.
 
CaoCao said:
but but but Steve Jobs told me that thick is worse and so is heavier!
Click to expand...

1.5mm is nothing. Besides, who knows that the current MBP can't fit 14mm? I approached this from a theoretical angle. I didn't say I can see Apple doing so as the Seagate SSD is SLC, meaning that it costs honey. Hybrid drive is the way to go, or a pure SSD
 
Hellhammer said:
1.5mm is nothing. Besides, who knows that the current MBP can't fit 14mm? I approached this from a theoretical angle. I didn't say I can see Apple doing so as the Seagate SSD is SLC, meaning that it costs honey. Hybrid drive is the way to go, or a pure SSD
Click to expand...

or Apple could with the HyDrive,
 
DataDDIYkitSSD.jpg


http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/DDMBSSD060/
 
Another thought is the battery drain, the moment you power up a CD the battery on my MBP visibly drops, surely having 2 drives isn't going to kill battery life if under lots of use.
 
I don't know why it hasn't happened earlier, Apple is usually one of the first to drop a legacy system, especially when they stand to gain from online media sales. I'd like a dual HDD configuration and I can use an external optical drive.
 
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