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MCE Optibay Alternative CHEAP

emir said:
I have 15" Mid 2010 Macbook Pro and i am thinking of buying this as caddy;
http://www.ebay.com/itm/221002963557

will it fit? I can only see 2 screw holes to secure the caddy and can't see any screws to hold HDD in caddy.

I will put ssd to harddrive bay and put the current stock hdd to optibay the do the fusion drive hack.

will this caddy do it, or should i go for this one;
http://www.ebay.com/itm/290774353299
Click to expand...

I think the first one will be better. I bought gears like the second one. The external case works fine but with a low quality material and cheap looking, so for me it is not worth well. Saving the money for a real external blu-ray drive may be a better idea.
Besides, if you can afford it, take a second SSD instead of the old hard drive. The low speed and vibration in the optibay will be a little annoying.
 
ouankou said:
I think the first one will be better. I bought gears like the second one. The external case works fine but with a low quality material and cheap looking, so for me it is not worth well. Saving the money for a real external blu-ray drive may be a better idea.
Besides, if you can afford it, take a second SSD instead of the old hard drive. The low speed and vibration in the optibay will be a little annoying.
Click to expand...

Another ssd would double the cost and i think it wouldn't be worth it considering i'll get a new laptop anyways in 2-2.5 (maybe 3 tops) years.

If hdd performs like it is now i am fine with it. Does it perform worse in the optibay? i don't have any vibrations or anything right now?
 
emir said:
Another ssd would double the cost and i think it wouldn't be worth it considering i'll get a new laptop anyways in 2-2.5 (maybe 3 tops) years.

If hdd performs like it is now i am fine with it. Does it perform worse in the optibay? i don't have any vibrations or anything right now?
Click to expand...

The performance is fine.
I bought a new 7200rpm 750g WD hard drive and put it into optibay. It's running with a low but normal vibration. I cannot say it has any problem, it just isn't as quiet and fast as SSD. If you are fine with the old drive, keeping it is also a good idea.
Anyway, I still think the external case is not so useful.
 
I haven't kept in with this thread in quite a while and haven't found my answer in a search - I bought a Nimitz caddy for my early 13" macbook pro. I have a 500gb Western Digital drive in it and it mostly works fine. But one weird thing I have noticed is that it will spin down and then immediately spin back up. Sometimes while it is in use.

Has anybody else experienced this?

I want to find out if it's the caddy or the drive - or because of the port on the laptop.

I'm basically trying to decide if I need to go for the data doubler or stick with what I have.
 
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Nails1 said:
I haven't kept in with this thread in quite a while and haven't found my answer in a search - I bought a Nimitz caddy for my early 13" macbook pro. I have a 500gb Western Digital drive in it and it mostly works fine. But one weird thing I have noticed is that it will spin down and then immediately spin back up. Sometimes while it is in use.

Has anybody else experienced this?

I want to find out if it's the caddy or the drive - or because of the port on the laptop.

I'm basically trying to decide if I need to go for the data doubler or stick with what I have.
Click to expand...

Anybody with some input? I'd appreciate it.
 
Samsung 830

So I installed a second samsung 830 512 SSD on the optibay and it's giving me an error saying it cannot be formatted. it shows up under disk utility, any suggestions?
 
Exactly what I wanted to know...

MacModMachine said:
hey,

the 500gb you would normally want in the hdd bay...but it is not my boot drive thus must be in the optibay,

the mac wont boot from the optibay "automatically"...unless there is somthing i am doing wrong.

maybe someone can help me with this solution
Click to expand...

You answered the question I was googling for. Thanks. Every figure out if it's possible to boot from the optical drive?
 
Can someone tell me whats the difference between these optibays? I see some for $10-$15 on ebay/amazons etc.. but then I see some links on here where they are $45.

What's the deal? Do they ebay ones not work? Looking to put one in my 2011 macbook pro. Looking for some advice.
 
The one I got on eBay worked fine.

The difference is build quality (slightly) and branding. For me, the cheaper one worked perfectly, so I felt no need to pay more for anything "better" or with a "recognizable brand name." It's just a metal sled with some plastic on it.
 
Fofer said:
The one I got on eBay worked fine.

The difference is build quality (slightly) and branding. For me, the cheaper one worked perfectly, so I felt no need to pay more for anything "better" or with a "recognizable brand name." It's just a metal sled with some plastic on it.
Click to expand...

Well my thoughts exactly, I just wanted to make sure. It's not something you see on a daily basis anyways once its in the system.

EDIT: Just ordered one on ebay.. $13, we'll see what comes.
 
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So the ebay one came in last week and I installed it. No issues, fit perfectly.

Not sure why some guys are saying that the ebay one misses 1 of the screw down holes and that its only 2 instead of the 3 like the optical bay.

But if you look closely when you remove the optical bay you remove that 3rd latch that you can then screw onto the ebay HDD caddy and you get to fasten it down at all 3 points just like the optical bay.

overall A+ product.
 
My friend gave me one of these but I am worried about issues with HDD spin up in the caddy. Is this an issue everyone deals with? I just want the HDD to be there for storage when I need it, not constantly spinning, draining battery.

Thanks for any enlightenment.
 
schizbomb said:
My friend gave me one of these but I am worried about issues with HDD spin up in the caddy. Is this an issue everyone deals with? I just want the HDD to be there for storage when I need it, not constantly spinning, draining battery.

Thanks for any enlightenment.
Click to expand...

I run an SSD in the caddy and HDD in the normal bay but I also have "put hard disks to sleep when possible" selected and the HDD does just that, unless I am accessing the media on it it spins down and battery life goes up beyond standard (I can achieve 7-8hrs)
 
My first post, but I'm a long-time lurker (years). :)
I have a early 2009 15", I've replaced both the HD and optical with SSDs. I have a Samsung 840 Pro in the main bay and a OCZ Agility 4 in the optibay. I used this cheap optical bay caddy from Amazon.
My problem is that when I put the MBP to sleep, after waking up, I get a popup msg that the SSD in the optical bay was not ejected properly and it no longer appears on the desktop or Disk Utility. The only way I can get it back is by rebooting. I also tried the same thing when booting from the optibay SSD and it takes a longer time to wake up and then beachballs forever.
Is it a problem with the optibay adapter? I'm still within the return period. I'm going to try to switch SSDs next, but would prefer not to settle for SSD+HD (except maybe DIY Fusion).
 
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