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how big a HD have you got your MBP17?

C

carboncow

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 1, 2009
54
2
I run a 500GB SSD as the primary drive in my MBP17...and then a 1TB in a sled in the DVD bay. Today I found a deal on 2TB 5400rpm for $80 in a case. We broke the drive out of the case but cannot get it to work internally (odd error messages) but it works fine in 2 different exteral USB cases.

Anyone get a 2TB or 1.5TB working as the 2nd drive? If so what make/model?

We tried it in a las model year MBP17 and a 2010 MBP15

thanks.
 
Last edited:
You left out the most important details, like which model drive and the wording of the error messages?
 
chabig said:
You left out the most important details, like which model drive and the wording of the error messages?
Click to expand...

Thanks for your time...I don't have that info on hand at this time but I'm not sure it's relevant to the question because we've determined it doesn't work internally...period. Although I'd be curious to the message to if I read this post.

I know this may be helpful for troubleshooting but we've tried everything...it shows up but the don't read, format, take permissions nor pass disk verify. Put them external on the USB and it's 100% fine. It works fine with several different 1TB I have. Just figureing it has controller needs that were not around when MBP17 was made.

Have you got a 2TB (or 1.5TB) to work and if so what make/model?
 
I don't have the same machine as you do, but I have a lot of experience. I'm sure someone with your machine will pipe up. However, according to MacTracker, your machine has a 6Gb SATA interface, which should be compatible with anything you throw at it. Perhaps you need an OS update. Which version of OS X are you running? Have you installed all updates to it, including firmware updates? What if you remove the drive that's in the optical bay--does that make a difference? I'm just throwing out ideas.
 
chabig said:
I don't have the same machine as you do, but I have a lot of experience. I'm sure someone with your machine will pipe up. However, according to MacTracker, your machine has a 6Gb SATA interface, which should be compatible with anything you throw at it. Perhaps you need an OS update. Which version of OS X are you running? Have you installed all updates to it, including firmware updates? What if you remove the drive that's in the optical bay--does that make a difference?
Click to expand...

Now that would have been helpful! I've got the latest build of Yosemite.

I've got pretty solid experience too with about a dozen MBP 13-17 at our facility..most are in the 2009-2011 range. This is the first time I've seen an issue such as this and I had to get my marketing manager back up and running with his old drive so not much time and forgot to screenshot before we slapped his old 1TB back in.

Haven't seen many 2TB on the market and got this unit off of Amazon so I assume it's a Seagate inside! Read several good reviews and many were cracking it open and putting the drive on their SATA.

Is there anything with the slave drive SATA that would limit it over the primary?

EDIT: I should add that we couldn't even unmount it, partition it or reformat once on the 2nd SATA and visible on in Disk Utility! Tried two different caddys too! (different makes)
 
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carboncow said:
Now that would have been helpful! I've got the latest build of Yosemite.

I've got pretty solid experience too with about a dozen MBP 13-17 at our facility..most are in the 2009-2011 range. This is the first time I've seen an issue such as this and I had to get my marketing manager back up and running with his old drive so not much time and forgot to screenshot before we slapped his old 1TB back in.

Haven't seen many 2TB on the market and got this unit off of Amazon so I assume it's a Seagate inside! Read several good reviews and many were cracking it open and putting the drive on their SATA.

Is there anything with the slave drive SATA that would limit it over the primary?

EDIT: I should add that we couldn't even unmount it, partition it or reformat once on the 2nd SATA and visible on in Disk Utility! Tried two different caddys too! (different makes)
Click to expand...

OWC sells the same drive probably, so I'd expect it to just work. See this note from OWC. Did you put the new 2TB drive in the optical bay or the HDD bay? It might not work in the optical bay. There is a difference between the bays. Again, see the note.
 
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chabig said:
OWC sells the same drive probably, so I'd expect it to just work. See this note from OWC. Did you put the new 2TB drive in the optical bay or the HDD bay? It might not work in the optical bay. There is a difference between the bays. Again, see the note.
Click to expand...

I see this note is for SSD but I can only image the same controllers are leaking into modern/larger capacity drives thn?

It went in the optical bay. So if I'm reading that not correctly it uses a different (and slower) data rate standard. Obviously my simple mind would think that just means it's downgraded and running slower but there is obviously a more concerning compatibility issue between the SATA revision.
 
I think a hard drive would have the same issues in the optical bay as an SSD. The SATA interface hides the hardware from the controller. I too would expect the optical bay drive to just run slower, but apparently there is an issue. I would hope the new drive will run fine in the HDD bay. If the 1TB drive runs fine in the optical bay, you can keep it there.
 
chabig said:
I think a hard drive would have the same issues in the optical bay as an SSD. The SATA interface hides the hardware from the controller. I too would expect the optical bay drive to just run slower, but apparently there is an issue. I would hope the new drive will run fine in the HDD bay. If the 1TB drive runs fine in the optical bay, you can keep it there.
Click to expand...

I'd love it to be that easy a solution but we are running a 1 TB SSD in the HDD (this is quite a power unit for him!) but I'm guessing that the SSD would struggle in the slower OPTICAL, no? I guess we can only try!

Maybe you can answer this one last quetion and we can wrap this up.

Would the slower bit speed on the Optical be noticable?
 
I'm mostly just speculating based on my own experience. Maybe your best best for performance would be to put the 2 TB drive into an external Thunderbolt case.
 
chabig said:
I'm mostly just speculating based on my own experience. Maybe your best best for performance would be to put the 2 TB drive into an external Thunderbolt case.
Click to expand...

Thanks..I didn't even know those MBP had TB...but I see the specs now. Good solution. He uses it for video editing (big files) so that would be a acceptable for the need.
 
Have you tried putting the 2TB in the main bay and the other drive in the ODD bay?
ODD bay is fast enough for any hard drive
 
poiihy said:
Have you tried putting the 2TB in the main bay and the other drive in the ODD bay?
ODD bay is fast enough for any hard drive
Click to expand...

We have not yet as the primary is a large SSD and we expected slight preformance issues due to the slower SATA. We'll prob test out this week.
 
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