There should be a way to split the SATA connector to connect 2 drives right?
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There should be a way to split the SATA connector to connect 2 drives right?
You'd need to split data and power – I don't see this working. AFAIK you can't split a SATA connector/cable, as each one is assigned to a SATA port (1 device per port).
i bought my optibay from newmodeus, they are really fast for sending out the product
and the quality is great
and the quality is great
Power you could theoretically split with the right cables in the mix. The data connection isn't so easy ;-)
Success - but smaller freezings sometime
I have successfully installed the newmodeus (arrived to the UK in 4 days) pata-sata internal bay onto my 4.1 non-unibody macbook pro (2008 august, the latest version with the nicer keyboard
I am having very frequent freezes which I haven't had before, it is like you are in the middle of typing and the cursor keeps repeating itself, then it stop and everything works as before - it is very aaaaannnnnnnnoying...(just like that)
Anyone has encountered the same problem as me after replacing the optical bay to a harddrive ?
I am using 2 x hitachi 7k500 drive and the boot drive remained in it's original position.
PS. I love that I don't have to use an external drive to use time machine
I have successfully installed the newmodeus (arrived to the UK in 4 days) pata-sata internal bay onto my 4.1 non-unibody macbook pro (2008 august, the latest version with the nicer keyboard
I am having very frequent freezes which I haven't had before, it is like you are in the middle of typing and the cursor keeps repeating itself, then it stop and everything works as before - it is very aaaaannnnnnnnoying...(just like that)
Anyone has encountered the same problem as me after replacing the optical bay to a harddrive ?
I am using 2 x hitachi 7k500 drive and the boot drive remained in it's original position.
PS. I love that I don't have to use an external drive to use time machine
Also got my optibay from newmodus. Very fast, and I am very pleased with the quality. I expected some plastic piece of junk.
I have a question...What is the first Macbook Pro to have a SATA II controller? I didn't realize until I threw my in SSD into my Macbook Pro 3,1 A1226 that I only had a SATA I controller, and am thus limited to 1.5Gbps link speeds.
I have a question...What is the first Macbook Pro to have a SATA II controller? I didn't realize until I threw my in SSD into my Macbook Pro 3,1 A1226 that I only had a SATA I controller, and am thus limited to 1.5Gbps link speeds.
That is nothing to do with the newmodeus drive as far as i know. i put my intel 160gb g2 ssd in there and it connected at 3gbit. i put it in the place where the hdd was as well, also 3gbit. but suprisingly the stock hdd? 1.5gbit no matter where i place it :S
I'm not sure what you mean. But to clarify, I put my SSD in the hard drive bay, and my old drive in the optibay. And I have a Santa Rosa MBP, not a newer one.
So I'm considering upgrading Macbook Pro's, and I'm wondering what generation I have to look for to get a SATAII controller so I can take full advantage of this SSD i bought.
just to clear out a few things:
You cannot split a SATA connector.
SATA specifications don't allow this design.
2 things are required to "split" SATA:
A/ The SATA controller needs to be Port multiplier compliant and no intel chip is currently compliant (AMD does it though)
B/ you need to Port multiplier add-on card to do the split.
You cannot split a SATA connector.
SATA specifications don't allow this design.
2 things are required to "split" SATA:
A/ The SATA controller needs to be Port multiplier compliant and no intel chip is currently compliant (AMD does it though)
B/ you need to Port multiplier add-on card to do the split.
I remember that Apple did disable SATAII speed in the first unibody but I'm sure they removed that limitation with software update later.
My collegue has an intel SSD in his 2010 MBP and the speed is clearly SATAII.
I can't see Apple spending time and money disabling SATAII bandwidth on the secondary SATA port.
windows would not boot from a USB disk. this is due to windows internal controls that don't "trust" USB disk. It's a not mac problem. I did install windows XP once on a usb disk but I had to tweak the windows installation CD first (make an disk image, modify files, re-burn the disk...)
but that was 3 years ago and I didn't keep the link. google it, you should find some forums that will help.
I personally run my windows from VMware, it's a lot easier and VMware has plenty of functionalities to go back to an earlier state of windows if things go wrong or to have multiple copies of windows for different purposes (snapshot, linked Virtual machine, cloning...). Unless you consider playing video games, performance is not a problem at all. I frequently run mac os plus win 7 and win XP at the same time, although I did have one VM onto my main disk and the other VM on a firewire disk as virtual machines do a lot of I/O on the disks.
latest PATA BUS specs are rated at 133 Mb/s max.
your SSD will look like a Ferrari 612 Scaglietti that lost half its cylinders
short answer= NO
long answer:
the intel SATA controller is not port multiplier compliant. And even if it was, the bay would need a Port multiplier chip, which itself require a power source. To make things worse, 2 1.8" HDD would probably not fit in the bay
Sorry!
Just thought I'd post my experience after I came across this forum after reading an article on Lifehacker and then Googling for more info.
I deliberated about which route to take, order from newmodeus.com, ayagroup.com or eBay, either way I figured I'd have to wait a couple of weeks for it to be delivered to the UK, in the end I chose newmodeus.com after reading the positive comments in this post and I'm very glad I did.
Placed my order around 9pm UK time on Monday 24th, chose FedEx priority delivery, order was dispatched same day and turned up on my doorstep on Wednesday 26th! That's fantastic service and makes me wish I ordered sooner.
Didn't have to pay any additional customs charges so total cost to me worked out to be about £43.
Fitting the bay in my 17" Core i7 Macbook Pro was easy enough if a little nerve-racking lol, but I followed the instructions in the Lifehacker article and was booting from the SSD in no time, overall I'm very happy with it!
I deliberated about which route to take, order from newmodeus.com, ayagroup.com or eBay, either way I figured I'd have to wait a couple of weeks for it to be delivered to the UK, in the end I chose newmodeus.com after reading the positive comments in this post and I'm very glad I did.
Placed my order around 9pm UK time on Monday 24th, chose FedEx priority delivery, order was dispatched same day and turned up on my doorstep on Wednesday 26th! That's fantastic service and makes me wish I ordered sooner.
Didn't have to pay any additional customs charges so total cost to me worked out to be about £43.
Fitting the bay in my 17" Core i7 Macbook Pro was easy enough if a little nerve-racking lol, but I followed the instructions in the Lifehacker article and was booting from the SSD in no time, overall I'm very happy with it!
Just thought I'd post my experience after I came across this forum after reading an article on Lifehacker and then Googling for more info.
I deliberated about which route to take, order from newmodeus.com, ayagroup.com or eBay, either way I figured I'd have to wait a couple of weeks for it to be delivered to the UK, in the end I chose newmodeus.com after reading the positive comments in this post and I'm very glad I did.
Placed my order around 9pm UK time on Monday 24th, chose FedEx priority delivery, order was dispatched same day and turned up on my doorstep on Wednesday 26th! That's fantastic service and makes me wish I ordered sooner.
Didn't have to pay any additional customs charges so total cost to me worked out to be about £43.
Fitting the bay in my 17" Core i7 Macbook Pro was easy enough if a little nerve-racking lol, but I followed the instructions in the Lifehacker article and was booting from the SSD in no time, overall I'm very happy with it!
I'm getting an 2010 MBP next month. Can you put mac os X (installed on the 2nd disk) in sleep/hibernate and resume without any problem?
I know the answer to this may seem simple, but I am completely oblivious to where to start with it.
What's the best way to partition my HDD once my MBP gets here, and so that I can run Windows on it?
I'll have the OSX on the SSD, however, I probably will be rarely using Windows, so I want to have it on the HDD. Is that possible?
What's the best way to partition my HDD once my MBP gets here, and so that I can run Windows on it?
I'll have the OSX on the SSD, however, I probably will be rarely using Windows, so I want to have it on the HDD. Is that possible?
Yup that is completely possible, just click (in your dock) Applications > Utilities > Bootcamp Assistant
Bootcamp Assistant will allow you to partition the HDD or whichever drive you want, in whatever size you want, and it will do it in the correct windows formatting.
I would set up the windows, before you install your Optibay, as its pretty much impossible to do without an internal CD drive (my mistake, although I just wanted Windows out of hobby).
I'd rather suggest you install windows in a virtual machine. I use vmware (as I sometimes copy/move a VM to a windows machine, but there are other alternatives, I think)
it's hassle free and you will like the few options offered by vmware over a regular install, notably the ability to create snapshots of windows.
If you plan to use windows to play video games, then you should install windows via boot camp.
To further reiterate (now with pictures for the stupid!)
Most single internal SATA ports can handle more than one single drive. This has been the basis of the spec from the start BUT it does not mean that you can just plug 2 drives into the one port.
If you want to run 2x internal drives off of the one port you will need to add a port multiplier. These port multipliers designate what order the drives are on the said channel. Similar to how on the older IDE drives you could have a master and a slave, only in this case its master1, master2 etc.
These commonly look something like this..
Note that this model is a PCI version. They can be found that run via internal power supply..
but as you can see they are not exactly small, so will basically loose the extra drive space needed for the second drive, maybe even both drives.
The other options are ones that done need internal power such as eSATA..
But these dont actually allow your to host drives internally, so kind of defeat the point. They are just a way of making your internal drive external. This method would also involve cutting and modding your macbooks external shell. Which could be cool but then again could also look like crap and ruin the macbook completely.
The last option is to go down the path of external eSATA port multipliers.
These can connect via USB or Express port as shown in the pictures (there are firewire versions available too).
A great idea if you want something that can connect more than one drive to a USB port if you are short on ports free (aka Macbook Air) but this comes at the cost of the 400Mbps max throughput of the USB2 interface.
So hopefully that has cleared some things up for people that are asking about port multipliers.
Generally though its best to stick with 1 drive per port. That way you can get the maximum from your drives without saturating the 3.0Gbps Max "theoretical" throughput of the SATA2 standard.
if the computer has an esata port, it will still not support port multiplier as the Intel sata controller doesn't support port multiplier (that is a requirement). AMD does, though.
Using a PC card is the only option for the mac book pro, because the card will have its own sata controller. But it's still not port multiplier, the card will have or or 2 esata port but they have their own channel to the controller.
But you will not be able to boot from it (at least that was the case with the 2009 MBP model and before) as the BIOS would not recognize it.
In theory, it's possible to make a PC card with a PM compiant SATA controller in case you want to connect a disk storage tower (like the Edgestore DAS801t) of 5 disks (PM only support a max of 5 disks) But there are reports of compatibility issues with PM card and controllers. It's often down to the Chipset itself.
Using a PC card is the only option for the mac book pro, because the card will have its own sata controller. But it's still not port multiplier, the card will have or or 2 esata port but they have their own channel to the controller.
But you will not be able to boot from it (at least that was the case with the 2009 MBP model and before) as the BIOS would not recognize it.
In theory, it's possible to make a PC card with a PM compiant SATA controller in case you want to connect a disk storage tower (like the Edgestore DAS801t) of 5 disks (PM only support a max of 5 disks) But there are reports of compatibility issues with PM card and controllers. It's often down to the Chipset itself.
Is this the right adaptor for the last non unibody 15" macbook pro
http://newmodeus.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2_27&products_id=219
And i take it the largest drive i can place is a 9.5MM so it would be a 640GB?
http://newmodeus.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2_27&products_id=219
And i take it the largest drive i can place is a 9.5MM so it would be a 640GB?
If you have a unibody MacBook Pro this is the caddy you need:
Optical Bay HDD Caddy to replace "Slot-Loading Optical",9.5,SATA
http://newmodeus.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=259
Use Coupon Code "FB072808" for 5% off.
P.S. I tried the cheap eBay caddy and wouldn't recommend it. You get what you pay for.
Optical Bay HDD Caddy to replace "Slot-Loading Optical",9.5,SATA
http://newmodeus.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=259
Use Coupon Code "FB072808" for 5% off.
P.S. I tried the cheap eBay caddy and wouldn't recommend it. You get what you pay for.
Thanks it helped me a lot. I agree the ebay stuff I got feels like cheap plastic (probably is) and with dirt all over it. I am going to order one of these now. I wonder how do you secure the drive to the MBP? Is there's some built in screw holes or does it just "fit" in the gap?
While we are at it, I still have some questions. Where can I get a cage for the optical driver similar to that of Optibay's? Is it better to put SSD in cage and HDD in regular or vice versa? Does it cause problem, as I heard from before, to install Snow with optical drive via USB instead of internal?