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MCE Optibay Alternative CHEAP
- Thread starter MacModMachine
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im not sure about the accessibility that there is with the newer unibodies, but i guess you will find out. im doing mine on an original CD MBP 15".
Access went from horrific to great. My SR MBP 15" was a huge pain in the ass to replace the hard disk, you had to take half the machine apart for that. I did it a few times back then because the machine also easily overheated which killed my drive two times.
The unibody, you pop off the back cover, and there's the hard disk - just swap it out, easy as apple pie. They even made the inside look really nice and clean
I am waiting for the Intel X-25m G2 to become available again. It's been recalled for a firmware issue.
Access went from horrific to great. My SR MBP 15" was a huge pain in the ass to replace the hard disk, you had to take half the machine apart for that. I did it a few times back then because the machine also easily overheated which killed my drive two times.
The unibody, you pop off the back cover, and there's the hard disk - just swap it out, easy as apple pie. They even made the inside look really nice and clean
I am waiting for the Intel X-25m G2 to become available again. It's been recalled for a firmware issue.
sorry, mybad, i was referring to accessibility to the optical drive slot. should have clarified that a bit.
it was for gan6660
my superdrive is dead, i just want it out of there and my old HD in there! 
I bought one of the New Mode US caddy replacements, installed a 2nd drive, put it back together. Now when my laptop boots into OS X the screen stays black What the heck happened?
*edit*
Never mind, works now. Think something was lose on the inside. So far, so good.
What the heck happened?*edit*
Never mind, works now. Think something was lose on the inside. So far, so good.
Problem waking from sleep with ssd
I have a super talent ssd installed in the MCE optidrive that I am using as a boot drive with a 500 HD in the regular bay (I have an early 2008 MacBook Pro). The drive works great and boot times are under 25 seconds, but my system hangs when it sleeps. I have tried sleep mode 0, 1, and 3 with no luck. Anyone else have the same problem?
I have a super talent ssd installed in the MCE optidrive that I am using as a boot drive with a 500 HD in the regular bay (I have an early 2008 MacBook Pro). The drive works great and boot times are under 25 seconds, but my system hangs when it sleeps. I have tried sleep mode 0, 1, and 3 with no luck. Anyone else have the same problem?
I am using OptiBay with two 500gb hard drives. No problems at all. Battery life is no too bad. Average about 5 hours of web surfing and itunes muisc playback. See my post here with pictures.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/757885/
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/757885/
Thanks for the suggestion! I found the setting under the options tab and made the change, but the same thing happens. When I close the display to put the system to sleep the light for the apple logo goes off, but the led on the display release does not start blinking. The light stays solid and if I open the display the system does not wake up. The only option is to hold the power button down.
is your os on your mce or your regular hdd bay ?
this is very important.
ill dig up some other settings to try, have you reset your smc ?
good luck
I actually have an OS on both hard drives. I have a 500 GB disk that was my main disk in the regular drive bay. I put a 128 GB disk on the mce bay and installed Snow Leopard (my goal is to use the ssd as my system drive with OS and applications and have my data on the other drive). I had the same sleep issues so I figured maybe it was a Snow Leopard issue. I formatted the SSD and installed 10.5 and upgraded to 10.5.8 with no change. I can boot with the 500 GB disk and sleep works normally. I have tried resetting smc a few times as well.
Everything else seems to be working great with the SSD drive. Boot time is around 20 seconds and applications load in a fraction of the time they do on the spinning disk. Should I flip the location of the disks and put the ssd in the other bay?
Thanks for your help!!
Try change Startup Disk settings first ...
Which is set SSD as s startip drive, restart & then try sleeping it.
If you already did it, then you should definitely flip drives.
And please report it here in detail to contribute back to community.
(formally it's off-topic, yet relates directly)
P.S. I too would prefer to keep HDD in original place and shovel SSD in optibay, as HDD is much more fragile and would be better off in dedicated & protected place.
... workings of SMS is not clear either, so HDD has bigger chance to retain it in it's own nest.
Will do...I have already tried what you suggested. I am traveling this week and won't be back in the office until the 13th. I will try the physical the swap then and I can try changing OS settings between now and when I get back to the office. I am also going to order one of the Corsair drives to see if it might just be a problem with the SuperTalent.
0) So what's the "consensus" here?
Main Bay ----> HDD for storage
Optical Bay ----> SSD for boot
'cause that's the most logic setup to avoid heat or damage to hdd, right?
1) Why do some people here do the opposite? (SSD in main bay and HDD in MCE/whatever_caddy)
2) What about bootcamp? How do you use it? (partition on SDD or partition in HDD)
3) Is it true that striping 2 x25-m offer only minimal advantage in everyday use over a single x25-m? I saw benchmarks (here) and in 4k tests (which should be the most significative for everyday use) they do pretty much the same....
4) (just asking to be 100% sure) Wherever you put the HDD (main bay or optical bay), it does go to sleep without any issue when not used, right?
5) Some consensus about models: Intel x25-m 80gb (240euros including shipping in mainland Europe from ebay) + Seagate Momentus 5400.6 500gb seems to be the best choice in terms of quality/price, right? Or do you suggest to use a 7200rpm hdd?
6) I think you heard about the new WD 1tb 2.5" hdd....but it is 12.5mm....is it possible to use it? Of course not in the optibay (max 9.5mm), but in the main bay? So the best possible solution (money-wise), within a couple of weeks, will be this:
Main Bay ----> WD 1tb hdd
Optibay -----> Intel x-25m new 34nm ssd
What do you think?
Main Bay ----> HDD for storage
Optical Bay ----> SSD for boot
'cause that's the most logic setup to avoid heat or damage to hdd, right?
1) Why do some people here do the opposite? (SSD in main bay and HDD in MCE/whatever_caddy)
2) What about bootcamp? How do you use it? (partition on SDD or partition in HDD)
3) Is it true that striping 2 x25-m offer only minimal advantage in everyday use over a single x25-m? I saw benchmarks (here) and in 4k tests (which should be the most significative for everyday use) they do pretty much the same....
4) (just asking to be 100% sure) Wherever you put the HDD (main bay or optical bay), it does go to sleep without any issue when not used, right?
5) Some consensus about models: Intel x25-m 80gb (240euros including shipping in mainland Europe from ebay) + Seagate Momentus 5400.6 500gb seems to be the best choice in terms of quality/price, right? Or do you suggest to use a 7200rpm hdd?
6) I think you heard about the new WD 1tb 2.5" hdd....but it is 12.5mm....is it possible to use it? Of course not in the optibay (max 9.5mm), but in the main bay? So the best possible solution (money-wise), within a couple of weeks, will be this:
Main Bay ----> WD 1tb hdd
Optibay -----> Intel x-25m new 34nm ssd
What do you think?
ill take a stab at this grocery list of questions.
i would put your ssd in optibay no matter what so you can keep the sms sensor enabled for the hdd.
striping 2 intel drives will provide you a great deal of extra performance...only with Virtual machines...nothing else (i heavily tested my 2 striped x25m's)
striped drives would boot the os almost the same speed, i had a slight increase in application launch's and a better increase when running heavy applications.
the 12.5mm drive i have tested in 13,15,17 inch models with success. i would do a ssd + 1tb combo for best results.
your number 6 is the way to go.
good luck !
Thanks for the quick answers!
Perfect.
You mean the latest UMBP with NON-removable battery?
Perfect.
You mean the latest UMBP with NON-removable battery?
the 12.5mm drives WONT fit into non-unibody machines as they use 9.5mm (apart from the 17" i think)..
to other news: my ebay caddy just arrived! im at uni though so i wont be able to test it out until either later 2nite (i wont get home for another 12 hrs) or on friday... boo
to other news: my ebay caddy just arrived! im at uni though so i wont be able to test it out until either later 2nite (i wont get home for another 12 hrs) or on friday... boo
ok great. so the 13" use 12.5mm drives as well??
they must be getting ready for BR drives
ok great. so the 13" use 12.5mm drives as well??
they must be getting ready for BR drives
in the hdd slot...i havent tested with optibay....but im sure it will work fine.