Macbook Pro 2 Hard Drives question

[Ruahrc]

I had a quick question for those of you with 2 hard disks in your MBP...

Does the 2nd hard disk automatically mount upon system boot? Can you unmount it, or since it's internally connected via SATA is it permanently mounted? What about ejecting it?

I'm wondering if you are able to spin down the 2nd hard disk if you don't need it on order to save some battery power or if it is forced to spin continuously because it is internally connected via SATA. Would be pretty sweet if you could unmount/eject it (also maybe have it not automatically mount upon system boot) and that way save on battery life. Then when you needed to access the storage or needed the 2nd disk, you could just spin it up and access it. Also if you have a SSD and an HD in your computer, keeping the HD spun down most of the time would help retain most of the physical durability of a solid state system.

Ruahrc

 

[Ploki]

you can unmount any disk that is not a system disk, regardless of connection type, be it SATA, eSata, USB, fw.. whatever.
where are you planning to put another HDD in a mbp?
i mean, unless you are throwing out the optical drive...
hard-drives that are not used are automatically put to sleep.

however, yeah, if you boot from example an ExpressCard SSD drive you could have the internal HDD set to off.
its a unix system, i bet my ass it can be forced not to mount automatically...

 

[Ruahrc]

Yes the point would be to replace the optical drive with a 2nd HD. I think I might want to try doing this later on as historically I have barely used my optical drive, but having a 2nd internal HD would be neat for example to use as a scratch disk when doing Photoshop. I plan on installing an SSD in this new MBP relatively soon, then maybe later on swapping the optical drive for a high capacity mechanical HD, maybe like 750GB or 1TB when they come out.

Ruahrc

 

[Ploki]

great idea.
add another ExpressCard SSD and you have a disk system to envy..

i barely use the optical drive too.
im guessing there are premade mount "prothesis" to secure it into such a big slot available to buy somewhere...
you will just have to be careful with the heat in the beginning, i meant.. monitor it properly, just in case.

 

[Capt Crunch]

If you ejected the drive... how would you remount it?

 

[Bill Gates]

If you ejected the drive... how would you remount it?

Disk Utility.

 

[Ploki]

disk utility

edit: beat me to it.

 

[PkennethV]

Kind of a tad off of the OP's question, but are you guys referring to adding a 2nd Drive to the Unibody MBP or the "Classic"/"Multibody" MBP? I didn't know it was possible yet with the unibodies, but it would be a pleasant surprise

 

[Bill Gates]

Kind of a tad off of the OP's question, but are you guys referring to adding a 2nd Drive to the Unibody MBP or the "Classic"/"Multibody" MBP? I didn't know it was possible yet with the unibodies, but it would be a pleasant surprise

It's possible with both the old and new models, with an adapter from the same company, MCE. Other companies may offer a similar solution.

 

[Ploki]

the optical drive is just thick enough to throw it out and put a hardrive in there.
actually, i think its space for two, but mbp only has 2 sata connections