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MCE Optibay Alternative CHEAP

exe163 said:
Can some one post some pictures of their USB optical drive alternative?
Click to expand...

I used the unneeded faceplate that came with the optibay caddy I ordered, to conceal the superdrive's innards. Glued myself a little handle on there and currently use a short piece of clear tape as a very simple hinge on one side. This way, my drive is at least protected from dust a little bit, it is much quieter in operation and it looks at least somewhat nicer than if I had simply left the front completely open. If I could find a way to use something a bit more durable as a hinge and maybe could install it on the inside somehow, I'd be completely satisfied. Well either that, or to actually find or build a fitting faceplate with a slot in it.

4dc3e9a1052e095e4378697fe062807b.png


EDIT: Short video of my DIY faceplate in action :D
 
In choosing the location of SSD and HDD, what about the issue of speed. Both SATA controllers in my 2009 MBP 17 unibody are SATAII, but my MCE optibay says speed of 1.5 (meaning SATAI). Is the connection then overall 1.5 rather than the 3.0 capable by the controller; and if so, do I sacrifice speed of the system by having my SSD with the OS in the optibay rather than the HDD bay? I run an OCZ vertex and have a WD 1TB in the HDD bay, but may forgo the SFS protection if it means quicker speed (and the ability to hibernate). This would mean squeezing the 12.5 HDD into the optibay too :(.


(This was brought up before without an answer. Couldn't re-find the post with the search function though...)
 
thadoggfather said:
Sabrent enclosure that was $13 from ayagroup (2 USBs - one for data, one for power). Slid the SuperDrive in there.

jgi2jo.jpg
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Hey, did you need to install any drivers to get that thing working? I have the same one and it doesn't seem to be working with my drive.
 
thadoggfather said:
Sabrent enclosure that was $13 from ayagroup (2 USBs - one for data, one for power). Slid the SuperDrive in there.

jgi2jo.jpg
Click to expand...

I don't know where to start about this enclosure! My MBP doesn't recognize it, strange but true. I slid the mini cd into my old mbp without thinking abt the consequences. It is now stuck in there! Should go to an Apple store I guess!

Like the guy above asked you, did you have to install any drivers? Does this look right? http://list.driverguide.com/list/MAC/company2446/index.html

Thanks...
 
Hey folks, I'm looking to do this with my new MBP (15" i7, arriving tomorrow!). What capacity SSD would you recommend for me, just for having OSX and my most used apps (Firefox, Thunderbird, iTunes, Photoshop, Lightroom) installed on it? Any specific SSDs you'd recommend? Has anyone tried this with an SLC SSD, like the Intel X25-E? I figure if I'm going to get an SSD, I should get something blazingly fast.

Also, is there any way to fit 3.5" drives in the optical bay? Or 12.5mm z-height drives? I heard somewhere that 12.5mm drives fit in the unibodies...
 
LoneWolf121188 said:
Hey folks, I'm looking to do this with my new MBP (15" i7, arriving tomorrow!). What capacity SSD would you recommend for me, just for having OSX and my most used apps (Firefox, Thunderbird, iTunes, Photoshop, Lightroom) installed on it? Any specific SSDs you'd recommend? Has anyone tried this with an SLC SSD, like the Intel X25-E? I figure if I'm going to get an SSD, I should get something blazingly fast.

Also, is there any way to fit 3.5" drives in the optical bay? Or 12.5mm z-height drives? I heard somewhere that 12.5mm drives fit in the unibodies...
Click to expand...

OWC Mercury Extreme is the bee's knees right now. The fastest, and shows zero degradation on speed over time. 120GB might be a bit tight. 240 might be a bit expensive.

I have an 80GB X-25M. Good performance but next time I'd get the 160. 80GB sounds like a lot for an OS + Apps but there are many things that like to install themselves in the system drive. The way I deal with it I move them to the HD and symlink the directories. But - I'd rather not do it. It complicates the system. If you have 160GB+ you don't need to do that. You also get better battery life by running the SSD alone.

I am using about 60GB total by being very frugal with the SSD.

If I had not linked anything off and left all apps on the system drive, I'd probably use around 100GB.

Edit: In hindsight I think the perfect setup would be: Leave everything on the SSD, except media (movies, music, and pictures). The documents folder, your work files, etc should all be on the SSD for both performance and battery life.
 
Don Nguyen said:
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?
Click to expand...

great thread here guys, wanted to mention that. Looking to get a MBP and an intel 80gb ssd for main boot drive for OSX and probably using the oem HDD in the ODD. I have the same question above, and I believe it was answered, I want to make sure.

So the optibay HDD can be used to boot Windows via bootcamp? Like holding the option key on power? I understand OSX cannot boot on the optibay drive, but windows is able to? If so, perfect. This is my biggest concern, I'll only use bootcamp for gaming and want it available without needing to partition the SSD. Thanks!
 
aznguyen316 said:
great thread here guys, wanted to mention that. Looking to get a MBP and an intel 80gb ssd for main boot drive for OSX and probably using the oem HDD in the ODD. I have the same question above, and I believe it was answered, I want to make sure.

So the optibay HDD can be used to boot Windows via bootcamp? Like holding the option key on power? I understand OSX cannot boot on the optibay drive, but windows is able to? If so, perfect. This is my biggest concern, I'll only use bootcamp for gaming and want it available without needing to partition the SSD. Thanks!
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sure you can,

i run osx and windows 7 on there own separate drives, bootcamp can boot the second drive....im working on the steps to do that in the first post guide.

i will also put in the steps for proper hibernation/deep sleep with raid 0 drives or boot drives in the optibay.

thanks!
 
^ excellent! so there are issues with sleep/hibernation if you have a boot drive in the optibay? Does this mean even a Windows boot drive but not for OSX?
 

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kkiran said:
I don't know where to start about this enclosure! My MBP doesn't recognize it, strange but true. I slid the mini cd into my old mbp without thinking abt the consequences. It is now stuck in there! Should go to an Apple store I guess!

Like the guy above asked you, did you have to install any drivers? Does this look right? http://list.driverguide.com/list/MAC/company2446/index.html

Thanks...
Click to expand...

I did not have to install any drivers. just slid the SuperDrive into there, connected to the two USB's and it worked.

try popping a disc in there and see if it comes up. Should recognize it, if not no idea sorry...
 
I just installed an OCZ Vertex 2 120GB in my MBP today without a hitch. I also installed Windows 7 x64 on it with Boot Camp, no problems there either (Win 7 actually seems to start up faster than OSX!). I'm going to symlink a whole bunch of stuff over to my 500GB Seagate 7200.4 when my Optibay arrives in the next few days. Let me know if anyone has any questions...this was actually really straightforward!
 
My solution to mid-2010 MBP 15"

I bought a caddy off ebay here:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=190391556837

In case that link changes, it was entitled "2nd Hard Drive Caddy For LENOVO Thinkpad T400 R400", it was selling for $4.59 with $8.99 shipping from the user rexchg. It took 13 days to ship to the US.

The enclosure itself is mostly plastic with some thin metal plates which are attached by standard x screws and which you can remove. The caddy doesn't fit since it's clearly not designed to fit snugly in a MBP. I had to cut off a half centimeter or so off of the end and then sand down part of the plastic casing elsewhere (2 1/4 centimeter nubs) in order to get everything to fit. So if you want to go this route you'll need some sort of utensil for cutting hard plastic / thin metal and some sandpaper. Since my cutting was rather imprecise I needed to tape down the caddy with some electrical tape to prevent it from wiggling around, but it's a pretty good fit otherwise, and I'm not too worried about it moving around.

Honestly if you wanted, you could probably just cut open the caddy enough to get at the circuit board and tape everything up with that.

My 2 cents.
 
so I was wondering is there any easy and elegant solution to cover the superdrive hole once you have put the optibay in? like does anybody sell an alu stick of those dimensions or something like that?
 
neonsuperfuture said:
so I was wondering is there any easy and elegant solution to cover the superdrive hole once you have put the optibay in? like does anybody sell an alu stick of those dimensions or something like that?
Click to expand...

Wouldn't that necessarily look a bit tacky though ?:eek:

I doubt there's an elegant solution out there, even though I too would very much like there to be one. :)
 
Ended up just buying caddy + enclosure for the ODD for ~$40.00 shipped via ebay. Couldn't justify the $28 for just caddy + shipping so I went ahead and got the enclosure which didn't really add to shipping which looked nice.
 
neonsuperfuture said:
so I was wondering is there any easy and elegant solution to cover the superdrive hole once you have put the optibay in? like does anybody sell an alu stick of those dimensions or something like that?
Click to expand...

i just bought a makerbot....i dont know if you have heard of them....but there 3D format printers.

i want to machine a nice plastic plug for it soon.
 
great, I'm still waiting for the caddy to be delivered from china.. I'll keep in touch however. can you use only cad or any vector would be good? like let's say illustrator.. let me know and thank you :)
 
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