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Dual Hard Drive Macbook Pro Mid 2010 Question

N

Noojin

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 30, 2010
25
0
Hello everyone,

I am thinking about upgrading my macbook with a dual hard drive system. I already place my Crucial M4 SSD (256gb) in it and may replace the optical drive with the HD enclosure. I am curious for those who have a dual hard drive system, how much of a significant change was the battery life? Is it better for me to just store my music and files into the SSD and don't worry about adding the HDD?

oops I meant to say Dual Drive (SSD and HDD, not 2 HDDs) in topic.
 
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Your battery life will be effected negatively, also your machine will run slightly warmer which makes total sense given the new configuration of dual hard drives, despite one being an SSD.

I believe it to be a worth while mod as I have my own MBP 13" setup with the crucial M4 in the optical bay & OEM HDD in it's original spot.

One question I have for you provided you have a mid 2010 MBP or earlier.

How do your read & write speed of your SSD fair.

Reason I ask because mine are respectable however I feel it could be better.
 
My battery life is not affected at all.
It runs the same time as the original.

The music can be stored in either place but I prefer the SSD so iTunes can access it faster.

I store the OS and apps on SSD and all photos/movies/etc on HDD.
 
Retrostarscream said:
One question I have for you provided you have a mid 2010 MBP or earlier.

How do your read & write speed of your SSD fair.
Click to expand...

I don't exactly understand the question. Please elaborate so I can help you. Can I get this information somewhere and post for you?

I have been researching into storing movies, photos, etc. into the SSD. It seems like the internet world says it is not a good idea. Though, I have 256gb SSD and have a ton of space that I am not sure what to use for. But can someone answer why it is not a good idea to store the movies, photos, etc. into the SSD? That is something I can't find online at the moment. Will it give a shorter life?
 
Noojin said:
I don't exactly understand the question. Please elaborate so I can help you. Can I get this information somewhere and post for you?

I have been researching into storing movies, photos, etc. into the SSD. It seems like the internet world says it is not a good idea. Though, I have 256gb SSD and have a ton of space that I am not sure what to use for. But can someone answer why it is not a good idea to store the movies, photos, etc. into the SSD? That is something I can't find online at the moment. Will it give a shorter life?
Click to expand...

The only thing I can think of is because of the capacity of the SSD.
Those files begin small but when in a group they can eat up a lot of space on your SSD.
Your HD therefore is a storage place, so why would you waste precious SSD space?
 
I was just asking on the off chance you might have installed any bench marking or performance diagnostic apps on your computer that reveal the read & write speed of your SSD.

Examples of these apps are black magic disk test, xbench, geek bench, etc...

Don't trouble yourself though if you do not already have any of these kinds of apps installed & thanks for the kind gesture.
 
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I personally would not go through the hassle. Most of the stuff on the HDD would probably be not accessed that much, which is my case, so I would just go with a USB 3.0 External when you need that data. Not work the extra paind and heat.

I installed a new 750G in my 3 years old Sony, and after a fresh install on Win 8 Beta, now Win 8 Pro, i only use 78G. Took off all the music (That I rarely listen to) and all by bluray rips. SOme movies that were on my Laptop I had not watched for over a year. All now on external 1T.

Which I still rarely use!

I want a new SSD, looking at the Samsung 840 Pro 512, but based on my habits for the last 6 months, 256 is probably enough!
 
An SSD emits practically no heat at all and a 2.5" hdd is also really cool in 5400rpm. I seriously doubt anybody would notice any difference in heat with an extra ssd in the system.

@dylin I wouldn't eject it ever. Just set it to spin down after a few minutes of inactivity. I set 2 min. Default is 10.
terminal
> sudo pmset -a disksleep 2

This usually works just fine as long as spotlight doesn't cause troubles.
 
dylin said:
Sorry for bringing up an old thread, but do you ever unmount the drive thats located in the optibay?
Click to expand...

I personally don't leave it unmounted. I leave it running all the time. Though, the above post, what dusk said, sounds like a great idea. My battery life though is much lower than the average macbook pro (compared to the stats in coconut battery). I may ask for a replacement of the battery from the applestore before my apple care protection ends.
 
yusukeaoki said:
My battery life is not affected at all.
It runs the same time as the original.

The music can be stored in either place but I prefer the SSD so iTunes can access it faster.

I store the OS and apps on SSD and all photos/movies/etc on HDD.
Click to expand...

Weird regarding iTunes, I find if there ever is a lag it's only for a few seconds after leaving the laptop for ages and having the HDD spin down. Otherwise it's the same speed as the SSD. Definitely worth putting music on the HDD if SSD space is at a premium
 
TheRdungeon said:
Weird regarding iTunes, I find if there ever is a lag it's only for a few seconds after leaving the laptop for ages and having the HDD spin down. Otherwise it's the same speed as the SSD. Definitely worth putting music on the HDD if SSD space is at a premium
Click to expand...

I had couple issues with music being in HDD
(ie iTunes could not locate music, booting took way longer, etc)
I still have 72GB left on my SSD so its not a big deal for me.
 
I just spoke to OWC about the same upgrade. The addition of the SSD should decrease the battery life a little because the current setup never uses the DVD. with the DVD gone and the addition of an SSD. the consumption is higher.

Does anyone know if there is an advantage to putting the SSD in the spot of the current HD and either putting the mechanical drive in the DVD bay or removing it all together?

Also, OWC recommended that running the dual drive is better when the mechanical is 5400rpm. mine is a 7200 and apparently that uses more energy.
 
In the 2010 you can in theory put the ssd any place you want. It is better to put the HDD into the main bay as there it is better mounted (rubber), less noisy and SMS protected.

5400rpm makes more sense but 7200rpm works just the same.
The heat really isn't much of a problem. If one drive is an SSD it is just dumb to have a 7200rpm drive as the second data drive. 5400rpm is less noisy, less heat and power consumption and equally fast in the sequential reads speeds that matter for a data drive that mostly stores big files. A bigger 1TB 5400rpm is simply a better buy than a smaller 750GB 7200rpm.

If you have all the constantly in use stuff on the SSD, the HDD can spin down and stays spun down most of the time. When the HDD is spun down it consumes like 0.1W which is nothing. Spun down is almost like it isn't in there for battery life.
 
I have a Samsung 830 256GB SSD in the main drive of my 2012 regular MBP, and a WD 750GB Scorpio Black hard drive (7200rpm) in the super drive bay.

Combined both in to a Fusion drive with OSX Maintain Lion USB stick.

So far, works great. The fusion drive takes out the management of shifting files between the two drives. Also did not notice any overall battery decreases. I get over 7hrs normal use on WIFI with brightness around 50%.

You can hear the HD in the superdrive bay in a silent environment, (like low level fan spinning), but it don't bother me at all.
 
Does the Fusion drive extend the capacity or does it keep some redundant which would reduce overall capacity. I read it is file level tiering and not caching but still I would guess unless it keeps redundancy it will need lots of swapping.
If a 256GB SSD and a 750GB HDD end up only getting one a 750GB fusion drive it isn't so great.

Also does the HDD still spin down properly or are there problems. If done right it should sleep almost all the time. If done wrong it could wake up for all kinds of spotlight, file searching and what not issues.
 
Are people in need of that much space on the go? It makes a little more sense when opting for the smaller capacity SSDs for the OS.

I did some reading last night along with some replies from another thread. Fact seems as follows:

1- SSD on it's own consumes more (as many of you are saying) but the difference is negligible.

2- Running both at worst declines the battery by no more than 15min. The purchase of an SSD shouldn't be intended as an energy saver, because it isn't.

3- SSD is better in the spot of the HD, simply to take advantage of Sata3 connector.

4- The HD in optibay seems to make some noise, many are able to tolerate...for some it was simply too much.

What is your take on: If i am just replacing the HD with SDD, should I keep or remove the DVD? I never use it anyway. The main SSD will be 512 (Crucial M4 or Samsung 830), Should I hunt for a cheaper 256gb and Put it in optibay instead?
 
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