Fusion drive on a Unibody 2009 White MacBook?

[Twimfy]

Does anyone know if it's possible to replace the SuperDrive in a 2009 A1342 White Unibody Macbook with an SSD and Fusion it (without access to another Mac)?

My SuperDrive is dead and I'm not that bothered about it. I only use around 120GB of the existing 250Gb hard drive so I was thinking just a cheap say 60GB SSD would probably take quite a load off the HDD if I were to put one in.

 

[brdeveloper]

Does anyone know if it's possible to replace the SuperDrive in a 2009 A1342 White Unibody Macbook with an SSD and Fusion it (without access to another Mac)?

My SuperDrive is dead and I'm not that bothered about it. I only use around 120GB of the existing 250Gb hard drive so I was thinking just a cheap say 60GB SSD would probably take quite a load off the HDD if I were to put one in.

OWC provides a tutorial for creating a Fusion drive this with Mountain Lion, I don't know if they updated the tutorial to Mavericks. The only issue I remember is the energy management, since it will drain more battery to keep two drives always on. There are ways to circumvent this too, like decreasing the time to sleep. Sorry for not providing the link, but a Google search may do the trick... just search for fusion drive owc.

 

[logana]

Works fine - plenty or tutorials kicking about

I used a Crucial 128GB SSD in the original hard drive bay and moved the original 250GB to the optical bay using a cheap Optibay copy.

Runs as a fusion drive and never had a problem - this is on a 2010 MacBook White Unibody...

Cannot comment on battery life but SSDs don't use much power

 

[Twimfy]

Interesting. I never considered the power implications. Sadly the battery on this machine doesn't last long (about 2 hrs max).

Will look into it further. Any recommendations on adapters I can use to fit it in the SuperDrive area? I'm trying to do this as cheaply as possible.

 

[DmbShn41]

Twimfy,

Try eBay, thought I saw trays for direct replacement for optical bays. Come with cables. $30-50 was norm for prices, depending in model. Try searching for model number.

 

[Twimfy]

Twimfy,

Try eBay, thought I saw trays for direct replacement for optical bays. Come with cables. $30-50 was norm for prices, depending in model. Try searching for model number.

Do I need a different cable? It's been a while since I took out a superdrive and can't remember how it's connected. Thought it was just a standard SATA cable??

 

[DmbShn41]

The ones I saw on eBay have their own cable that connects the hd to the sata if the original optical drive, and the original cable connects to mother board.

Also, iFixIt has a kit the inludes an additional cable so you can take your internal optical drive and plug it to USB so you can still use it if needed. Better than dropping $50-80 for the external SuperDrive.

Try ifixit. They're reputable, great shipping, and reasonable costs.