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Dual Hard Disk MBP 2011 Ultimo 15" woes

Ishayu

Ishayu

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 18, 2012
222
612
Denmark
I have a very annoying problem with dual hard disk. I've got 512GB SSD and one 750GB HDD (that came with the laptop 2 years ago). I've recently tried to do a dual hard disk setup as I decided I no longer needed the DVD drive except so rarely that having it as a USB peripheral would do just fine.

On the one hand, my MBP can't figure out how to power manage whichever disk is in the DVD bay. If the harddrive is in there, it's spun up 24/7 whether I need it to or not, and it's quite noisy to be honest but also drains a significant amount of battery life because it's a constantly spinning harddrive. Generally, it costs me about 20% of my battery life over a full cycle.

So I tried swapping them. Clearly, the SSD will use less battery from being on all the time so that's better. But I still want my OS on the SSD. So that means my primary disk needs to be the one inside the caddy.

I can't do that. If I try to install OS X on the disk while it's in the DVD bay, I will end up with the forbidden sign when I try to boot from it. However, even more funny, I can install it on the DVD bay disk, then swap the disks around, then boot from it perfectly fine when it's back "where it belongs".

I can use the DVD bay disk for file storage, though. That's not a problem.

Can anybody tell me how to do one of two things:
Either make the disk in the DVD bay actually be power managed
OR allow me to boot from the disk in the DVD bay

Thanks!
 
If you search the forums there is a thread here in the MBP forum about the HD not spinning down.
I can't remember if there is a solution, but it's worth a peruse.

Barney
 
Tried to search for "Harddisk not spinning down". Can't find it. :(

I should add that if I install OS X on the harddisk and put it in the main bay it DOES spin down.

EDIT: But if it's in the DVD bay, even if I make all partitions on it passive it won't spin down. o_O
 
So I googled the problem and some recommended unmounting the disk to make it spin down and remounting it when I needed it.

Not optimal, but alright.

So I went into the terminal and typed
diskutil unmountDisk disk1

It unmounted the volumes but the disk is still spinning. :(
 
That's just a small application that calls the command I just listed. It doesn't work.

Thanks, though. :)
 
It contains this script:

set answer to the button returned of (display dialog "Disk1 ?" with icon caution buttons {"Cancel", "Eject", "Mount"})

if answer = "Eject" then
do shell script "hdiutil eject disk1"
else if answer = "Mount" then
do shell script "diskutil mountDisk disk1"
end if

So it calls "hdiutil eject disk1" which is actually the exact same as diskutil unmountDisk disk1 according to Apple's documentation. So yes.

I'm glad it works for you though, but sadly I still need help. :(
 
Ishayu said:
Can anybody tell me how to do one of two things:
Either make the disk in the DVD bay actually be power managed
OR allow me to boot from the disk in the DVD bay

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, 2011 MBP's have known issues with SATA III 6gbps drives in the optical drive bay. You will need to have your SSD in the main drive bay. The original HDD should work fine in the optibay. As far as power management in optibay goes, good luck. I'm not up on those issues.
 
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