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How do I position my drives?!? (Optibay/SSD)

Best drive positioning?

  • SSD in HDD's spot, HDD in Optibay

    Votes: 16 59.3%

  • HDD left in place, SSD in Optibay

    Votes: 11 40.7%
  • Total voters
    27
murdercitydevil

murdercitydevil

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Feb 23, 2010
1,561
0
california
I have a 2010 MBP (both HDD and ODD are SATA 2) so in terms of speed it doesn't matter where I put my SSD. I've been trying to figure out what the best location is for the SSD. On the one hand, I've heard that having the HDD in the optibay is bad because of vibration, noise, lack of SMS, etc. This seems pretty straightforward. Then on the other hand, I've read that having the SSD in the optibay can cause boot issues or problems with sleep due to how it is powered up/down.

Can someone please confirm the following -

1. Does the Optibay fit the stock Apple HDD snugly? Is there any wiggle room at all?

2. How necessary REALLY is the SMS? My SMS seems to literally go off every time I pick up my MBP and move it somewhere, making me think that it's overcompensating quite a bit. I find it hard to believe that regular movement like this is going to cause any problems. Obviously, dropping the MBP or whatnot is a different story, but that's neither here nor there.

3. Noise/vibration - is it super noticable? If I do put the HDD in the optibay, I plan on configuring it so that it's accessed as little as possible and sleeping when not in use. The HDD is going to be used only for backups and media storage, so it doesn't need to be accessed very much at all.

4. Any other factors that dictate the best way to position my drives? From what I've read, both sides pose good arguments and there appear to be just as many people with one setup as the other; hence, I'm still undecided.

My SSD is arriving tomorrow, whereas I have no idea when the Optibay is being delivered. I'm itching to install the SSD right away in the HDD's spot and do a fresh Lion install :D

Thanks in advance!
 
1. A well designed optibay should fit well, since it has the same dimensions as your superdrive. I don't think there would be wriggly room.

2. SMS is fairly important. It prepares the HDD for impact and protects your data in event of a crash.

3. Shouldn't be noticeable, unless its a 7200RPM drive.

I would leave the HDD in the HDD bay. iirc, the HDD bay is padded for shock absorption.
edt: also, if you need to take your mac to an apple store for repairs, you just need to replace the optibay+ssd with the superdrive.
 
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I agree with all three points. I personally have the SSD in the Main bay to take advantage of the SATA3 speeds and the HDD in the optibay. I do move the compter from time to time from the desk to the other room downstairs, ext and have not had any issues yet.

Joel95 said:
1. A well designed optibay should fit well, since it has the same dimensions as your superdrive. I don't think there would be wriggly room.

2. SMS is fairly important. It prepares the HDD for impact and protects your data in event of a crash.

3. Shouldn't be noticeable, unless its a 7200RPM drive.

I would leave the HDD in the HDD bay. iirc, the HDD bay is padded for shock absorption.
edt: also, if you need to take your mac to an apple store for repairs, you just need to replace the optibay+ssd with the superdrive.
Click to expand...
 
Leave the HDD in its primary bay, using it in the ODD bay wont protect it from sudden drops (which could in turn destroy your drive):

Yes, there is a sensor built into the system for a drive in the HDD bay which sensing a sudden change and will park the heads so the don't crash into the platter of the hard drive upon impact. This is for the HDD bay only, not the optical drive bay. Many hard drives also have this technology built directly into the drive. You can get your hard drive info from system profiler then google it to get the info for your hard drive from the manufacturer's website.
Click to expand...

https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=12816927#post12816927
 
Ok, I understand the reasoning behind leaving the HDD where it is. But can anyone comment on the claims that putting the SSD in the optibay causes problems with boot/sleep? Or is this a false notion?

Also, if I put the SSD in the HDD's spot while I wait for my Optibay to arrive, and later switch it to the Optibay, would that cause any issues? Like I said in my OP, only the SSD will house an OS, so there shouldn't be any booting issues.
 
Does the hard drive bay have a SATA 6.0 Gb/s connection whereas the optibay only have a SATA 3.0 Gb/s connection. Meaning if you want to get the full R/W speed out of the SSD it needs to be in the hard drive bay.
 
murdercitydevil said:
Ok, I understand the reasoning behind leaving the HDD where it is. But can anyone comment on the claims that putting the SSD in the optibay causes problems with boot/sleep? Or is this a false notion?

Also, if I put the SSD in the HDD's spot while I wait for my Optibay to arrive, and later switch it to the Optibay, would that cause any issues? Like I said in my OP, only the SSD will house an OS, so there shouldn't be any booting issues.
Click to expand...

I don't think it should matter much. SATA ports arent reliant on 'order' like IDE was. For instance, my Mac Pro has four SATA bays. I can turn off the computer and move around the HDDs at will without affecting the computer at all, everything loads as normal.

I'm more or less positive everything will work fine for you. Otheriwse, you can always test it out and see.
 
Scippy said:
Does the hard drive bay have a SATA 6.0 Gb/s connection whereas the optibay only have a SATA 3.0 Gb/s connection. Meaning if you want to get the full R/W speed out of the SSD it needs to be in the hard drive bay.
Click to expand...

Only on a 2011 MBP. Since I have a 2010, both ports are SATA 3.0 GB/s and thus I have this predicament.

By the way, is it a new feature of Lion to let you look up tracking numbers from within an email? I just got my tracking number for the Optibay and when I hover my mouse over the number it gives me an option to Track it, when I click it, a menu pops out and shows me the Fedex information right there. I am thoroughly impressed.
 
Scippy said:
Does the hard drive bay have a SATA 6.0 Gb/s connection whereas the optibay only have a SATA 3.0 Gb/s connection. Meaning if you want to get the full R/W speed out of the SSD it needs to be in the hard drive bay.
Click to expand...

This will depend on the drive and SATA. SATA 3Gbit has a maximim theoretical throughput of 375mb/s. I don't think maximum speeds are typically achieved in SATA II, even if a drive exceeds SATA II speeds.

But I'm still wondering though, because an Intel 320 series SSD has a speed of 270mb/s, whilst an Intel 510 series has a speed of around 400mb/s. I myself am on SATA II (2010 Macbook Pro) and would prefer to saturate the SATA II bandwidth completely.
 
wikus said:
This will depend on the drive and SATA. SATA 3Gbit has a maximim theoretical throughput of 375mb/s. I don't think maximum speeds are typically achieved in SATA II, even if a drive exceeds SATA II speeds.

But I'm still wondering though, because an Intel 320 series SSD has a speed of 270mb/s, whilst an Intel 510 series has a speed of around 400mb/s. I myself am on SATA II (2010 Macbook Pro) and would prefer to saturate the SATA II bandwidth completely.
Click to expand...

Did a little research, apparently there is controller overhead, and the real world SATA II speeds are actually more or less around 270-300mb/s.

Here's a very informative thread on the whole matter.

http://forum.crucial.com/t5/Solid-State-Drives-SSD/Why-is-the-C300-SSD-SATA-3-0-or-6G/td-p/30130

If you only have SATA II, there's no point in getting anything faster than 300mb/s. Looks like I may stay with my Intel 320.
 
Well my SSD just arrived...literally 1 minute later, the Optibay arrived. I've NEVER had that happen before. So I guess I will try leaving the HDD where it is and putting the SSD in the optibay, for now. If any problems arise with sleep or booting I'll switch them back. But since no one has said anything about problems with having the boot drive in the optibay, I suppose it makes more sense to keep the HDD, as the pros outweigh the cons.
 
murdercitydevil said:
...problems with having the boot drive in the optibay, I suppose it makes more sense to keep the HDD, as the pros outweigh the cons.
Click to expand...
This is exactly what i'm worrying about and the only reason I haven't added a SSD optibay to my MBP. I want to keep my HDD in the original position and boot/apps from a 128 in optibay... but i've read so much conflicting information that I always find myself waiting for the next SSD rev.
 
ive been running the same setup you are since may with no major issues. you might find that the non os drive spins up randomly, but i haven't found/read about a fix for that.
 
Well that's good to hear. I'm going to set it so the HDD sleeps after 1 minute of inactivity, and search for any other fixes to keep it idle as much as possible.
 
So is the only reason people are saying not to put the HDD in the OptiBay is because the SMS function won't work? Because I have A Western Digital Scorpio Blue drive here and an Intel X25-M SSD. I was planning on removing the stock Hitachi drive completely, putting the SSD in the HDD space, and putting my Western Digital drive in the OptiBay. The WD drive has "Shockguard technology" (which I know isn't the same thing as SMS, but it's better than nothing) so I figure that should be okay with the setup I'm planning. Would this be a good idea or should I go with the setup the OP decided on.

I also found this interesting thread which relates: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1117836/
 
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