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Help with second HDD in optibay on new MBP

J

jhall527

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 7, 2008
60
0
Columbus, Ohio
I have a MBP on the way with an 128 gb SSD. I have a large iTunes library that I am interested in keeping on my notebook so I was interested in placing an HDD in the optibay. My question is, will the 160gb HDD from my 2007 MBP function well (I was considering the OWC data doubler) as a second HDD? Also, are there any significant cons to having a second hard drive (other than obvious lack of optical drive)?

Any input would be greatly appreciated!
 
jhall527 said:
I have a MBP on the way with an 128 gb SSD. I have a large iTunes library that I am interested in keeping on my notebook so I was interested in placing an HDD in the optibay. My question is, will the 160gb HDD from my 2007 MBP function well (I was considering the OWC data doubler) as a second HDD? Also, are there any significant cons to having a second hard drive (other than obvious lack of optical drive)?

Any input would be greatly appreciated!
Click to expand...

Any SATA drive will work fine in the data doubler, items close to the data doubler can be had for about $20 from ebay from smk312(seller) and it works great. Also as long as you keep only music on there you can still retain quite a bit of battery life.
 
Yeah, it will be almost exclusively for music and video files so its great to know my battery won't take too big of a hit. Thanks for the quick response!
 
I recently threw a 500gb HDD in a data doubler from iFixIt (don't buy from them even though it's cheaper, only one screw holds it in place on a uni-body 13") and the only issue I could tell was the battery drained a little quicker. Battery drain will depend on the drive and how much you use it.
 
skidmarc said:
I recently threw a 500gb HDD in a data doubler from iFixIt (don't buy from them even though it's cheaper, only one screw holds it in place on a uni-body 13") and the only issue I could tell was the battery drained a little quicker. Battery drain will depend on the drive and how much you use it.
Click to expand...

Will the drive just show up on the desktop like the original hard drive? And if so, is there a way to power it down or put it to sleep if I'm not using it in order to preserve the battery?
 
jhall527 said:
Will the drive just show up on the desktop like the original hard drive? And if so, is there a way to power it down or put it to sleep if I'm not using it in order to preserve the battery?
Click to expand...

You can adjust settings to make it sleep and it will show up if you want it to.
 
jhall527 said:
Will the drive just show up on the desktop like the original hard drive? And if so, is there a way to power it down or put it to sleep if I'm not using it in order to preserve the battery?
Click to expand...

The drive will show up as a device in the finder window/panel, once you have formatted it (I believe, maybe before formatting). Go to disk utility and create partitions as needed and format the drive, name it whatever you want.

As far as putting the drive to sleep, I really don't know, the battery drain hasn't affected me that much and being new to Macs (only about 6 months) I really don't know everything the system is capable of at this point. I just apply what I have learned through years of winPC experience to Macs but it's mostly hardware.

The other thing about me is that I'm not afraid to crash and burn (not technically) a system in order to learn processes.
 
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