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Mixed Drive Setup (SSD+HDD) in Macbook Pro
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Can yo please elaborate on why this method is better? Is it because it allows you to access your files/media/documents faster?
Some background on me:
Mid 2012 13" Pro. 128GB Samsung 830 SSD, OE 750GB in Data Doubler.
Super causal user, web and media only. I ran this set up since I have tons of music and movies and travel a bunch, so it is easier than lugging around an external HD.
I feel comfortable in Terminal, but if I can in a few clicks transfer my entire home folder less my Apps over, I would prefer the easier route.
Thanks
I love the idea of this thread because there are constant questions on all of this. It would be cool if we could keep the thread organized and taken care of, as in, any new/good info added is added to the original post, and not let it turn into that SSD sticky thread we have, where you have to read through the whole 800 pages to get answers.......that just doesnt make since to me, nobody is going to read all that, they are going to give up on page 2 or 3 and post a new thread...
so could we please keep the original post updated on a regular basis to mirror the many more additional replies/comments that are going to be added...otherwise....this will turn into a pointless mess.
which will be sad, very very sad.
-i didnt see a mention that the 2012 models now fully support 6gb/s (SATAIII) in both bays.
-also, the idea that the main drive bay protects a spinning hard drive with a shock sensor. (which i believe is correct, not 100% sure)
-and, the optibay is 49.99 without the superdrive enclosure, not 99.99 with the enclosure.
i will be installing an ssd via optibay (an old one i have in a 2009MBP) in my new 2012 non retina model this week, i will update with anything that happens or i come across. i just wonder if some how the older optibay isnt going to allow the full 6gb/s.....but i think (like someone else said) its a passive adapter so it should allow it the full speed.
so could we please keep the original post updated on a regular basis to mirror the many more additional replies/comments that are going to be added...otherwise....this will turn into a pointless mess.
which will be sad, very very sad.
-i didnt see a mention that the 2012 models now fully support 6gb/s (SATAIII) in both bays.
-also, the idea that the main drive bay protects a spinning hard drive with a shock sensor. (which i believe is correct, not 100% sure)
-and, the optibay is 49.99 without the superdrive enclosure, not 99.99 with the enclosure.
i will be installing an ssd via optibay (an old one i have in a 2009MBP) in my new 2012 non retina model this week, i will update with anything that happens or i come across. i just wonder if some how the older optibay isnt going to allow the full 6gb/s.....but i think (like someone else said) its a passive adapter so it should allow it the full speed.
I updated some of the information you provided as well as the prices. Thanks! If anyone finds out additional information, just quote me in this thread or pm me and I'll add it.
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To be honest, I've yet to be able to get it to work through terminal. I'd like a step by step guide from anyone that has done it. What I did was leave my home folder setup on the SSD and then just moved my iTunes library and iPhoto library onto the HDD. All you do is close iTunes/iPhoto, transfer folder onto the HDD. Hold option when you open iTunes and point it to the new location. Same thing goes for iPhoto.
Both Dale and bimmeracer have asked if the old HDD can be moved into the optical drive space, the new SSD placed in the old HDD space, then the computer booted off of the HDD in the ODD space, so that the HDD can be cloned and info moved to SSD.
Can someone please answer this question? Thanks!
Yes it can. No problem - assuming the HDD is not a SATA 3 HDD. To the best of my knowledge Apple didn't put Sata3 HDDs in 2011 machines. It's easy enough to look up the model on the net.
i've read this thread but something is not completely clear with me. You people say pre 2011 models should have the ssd installed in the bay (optical drive) slot.
I have a mid 2010 17 inch mbp with a stock apple SSD in it. This is the main and ONLY hd in this laptop. Its only 120 gb and i want to add another hd to this laptop. I always thought i'd just install this new hdd in the optical bay slot. Am I wrong here?
I want to make sure that I'm doing this correctly, got the hd caddy laying right here. Hope someone can give me an answer
I have a mid 2010 17 inch mbp with a stock apple SSD in it. This is the main and ONLY hd in this laptop. Its only 120 gb and i want to add another hd to this laptop. I always thought i'd just install this new hdd in the optical bay slot. Am I wrong here?
I want to make sure that I'm doing this correctly, got the hd caddy laying right here. Hope someone can give me an answer
i have a new mid 2012 macbook 15".
i have installed logic & all my plugins in the hd.
now i have ordered a new ssd, which will replace the optical drive.
my question is, if i clone the hd to the ssd, will it keep all my licenses of
my plugins etc? also, cloning the disk means that you have 2 identical disks with same ids' etc, will it cause any trouble on the os?
thanks!
i have installed logic & all my plugins in the hd.
now i have ordered a new ssd, which will replace the optical drive.
my question is, if i clone the hd to the ssd, will it keep all my licenses of
my plugins etc? also, cloning the disk means that you have 2 identical disks with same ids' etc, will it cause any trouble on the os?
thanks!
i've read this thread but something is not completely clear with me. You people say pre 2011 models should have the ssd installed in the bay (optical drive) slot.
I have a mid 2010 17 inch mbp with a stock apple SSD in it. This is the main and ONLY hd in this laptop. Its only 120 gb and i want to add another hd to this laptop. I always thought i'd just install this new hdd in the optical bay slot. Am I wrong here?
I want to make sure that I'm doing this correctly, got the hd caddy laying right here. Hope someone can give me an answer
The reason is there is no need to move the HDD on the regular setup. Both (optical bay and hard drive bay) house the same SATA II connections, so there speed will be the same. You would be fine installing them in either slot. One thing that is mentioned, the regular HDD bay has a sudden motion sensor. If your new HDD doesn't have one, it might be beneficial to not place it in the optical drive location.
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I'd use Carbon Copy Cloner as suggested above to create an exact copy. Then, just hold the option key down at boot up, select the SSD as the startup disk and check for yourself. It should transfer all the licenses over without any problems since it's the exact same data on the same computer. But after you copy, boot and verify it's running, you'll either want to create a partition on your HDD for a bootable backup of your SSD or just reformat it all and use it for storage space.
Hi everyone, how do I go about setting up RAID? And which would be better, RAID0 or RAID1?
I have a MacBook Pro 15" Unibody Late 2008 with original Hitachi 250GB HDD and I just bought a SP V60 120GB SSD. Planning on using the SSD as my boot-up drive and Hitachi HDD as storage space. Wondering if RAID0 is safe to use or would RAID1 be safer? :/
And can RAID be set up with two different drives or must it be identical?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I have a MacBook Pro 15" Unibody Late 2008 with original Hitachi 250GB HDD and I just bought a SP V60 120GB SSD. Planning on using the SSD as my boot-up drive and Hitachi HDD as storage space. Wondering if RAID0 is safe to use or would RAID1 be safer? :/
And can RAID be set up with two different drives or must it be identical?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
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You probably don't need to be worrying about RAID. Are you looking for performance or space? RAID0 is used for performance gains with two conventional hard disks, but in your case would be severely limited by the speed of the hard disk in the pair, so you would lose the speed advantage of the SSD. If either disk fails, your system is toast. RAID1 is chosen for resilience because it mirrors the same data on both drives, but the price of that is halving the capacity, and since you just added a disk, I'm guessing that wasn't what you are looking for. SSDs are so fast that RAID in a laptop is a bit pointless nowadays. Better just to use an SSD as intended and keep good backups with Time Machine. Doesn't need to be any more complicated than that.
So if I use RAID0 I am actually limited to the speed of my Hitachi 2.5" HDD? Am I right to assume that?
One more piece of info, because of the SandForce controller and the well known conflict with the Nvidia MCP79 chipset in my MBP, therefore my SSD is limited to SATA I speeds of 1.5Gbps. So by pairing it with my Hitachi, the speeds would be much worse? I currently achieve about 120MB/s sequential read/write on my SSD.
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Yes because with RAID0 alternate chunks of the file system are striped onto two disks. Reading or writing a bunch of things is affected by the seek time, latency and transfer rate of both disks in the array. Normally, these disks are a matched pair. In your case though, the limiting speed of a RAID0 array would be the hard disk. It would still be faster than the HD was on its own, but much slower than the SSD can manage on its own without RAID.
SATA I, are you sure? My old early 2009 was OK with SATA II. Anyway you are right that the reduced performance of the SSD does make RAID0 seem more viable. However headline absolute transfer speed is not the only bottleneck of a disk in normal use. Seek time is also a significant factor. With SSDs, it's so low it's practically zero compared to a hard disk. So a RAID0 array is still going to be relatively badly affected for typical smaller reads and writes by the hard disk in the pair. It would still be an improvement on what you are used to though with the old hard disk on its own.
Yeah I am 101% certain. Checked out my System Profiler and under the section "Serial-ATA" it says my "Link Speed" is 3.0Gbps which is SATA II. But my SSD's "Negotiated Link Speed" is only 1.5Gbps which is SATA I. So I went to google and realized SandForce controllers have a problem with working at SATA II speeds with the Nvidia MCP79 SATA controller in my MBP.
Installed my SSD last night
and I'm sold! My MBP is so fast now it makes me a little dizzy.
The SSD is so quiet that now I can't stand the noise of the HDD! I'm probably going to replace the HDD (which is now in the optical drive space) with another SSD at some point in the near future. My MBP is an early 2011 model, so I realize that the secondary drive will only be at SATA II speeds, but other than that, there are no issues to doing this, are there?
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By the way, I used the cheapy optibay adaptor from Amazon that is mentioned in the first post, and it worked fine - perfect fit, no issues. Very glad I didn't buy the expensive one.
Also got a really cheap enclosure for the superdrive on Amazon, and it was a good fit and works fine.
and I'm sold! My MBP is so fast now it makes me a little dizzy.
The SSD is so quiet that now I can't stand the noise of the HDD! I'm probably going to replace the HDD (which is now in the optical drive space) with another SSD at some point in the near future. My MBP is an early 2011 model, so I realize that the secondary drive will only be at SATA II speeds, but other than that, there are no issues to doing this, are there?
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By the way, I used the cheapy optibay adaptor from Amazon that is mentioned in the first post, and it worked fine - perfect fit, no issues. Very glad I didn't buy the expensive one.
Also got a really cheap enclosure for the superdrive on Amazon, and it was a good fit and works fine.
Hey,
I got my SSD few days ago. I am going to do a fresh install of ML when it comes out (hopefully this week). I have late 2008 model so I am going to put SSD in optibay. I have couple of questions:
1 - Can I wipe out OS installation on my current HD and treat it like an external HD (only file storage device)? Or do I have to keep the installation intact?
2 - I ordered this caddy. Has anyone used it - any pointers to install it?
I would appreciate any help, thank you
I got my SSD few days ago. I am going to do a fresh install of ML when it comes out (hopefully this week). I have late 2008 model so I am going to put SSD in optibay. I have couple of questions:
1 - Can I wipe out OS installation on my current HD and treat it like an external HD (only file storage device)? Or do I have to keep the installation intact?
2 - I ordered this caddy. Has anyone used it - any pointers to install it?
I would appreciate any help, thank you
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Hey,
I got my SSD few days ago. I am going to do a fresh install of ML when it comes out (hopefully this week). I have late 2008 model so I am going to put SSD in optibay. I have couple of questions:
1 - Can I wipe out OS installation on my current HD and treat it like an external HD (only file storage device)? Or do I have to keep the installation intact?
2 - I ordered this caddy. Has anyone used it - any pointers to install it?
I would appreciate any help, thank you
I have a late 2008 MBP too. I bought my caddy in ebay for 12GBP. I didn't have time to install it yet.
There have been sone issues reported when putting the SSD in the optibay. So, your spindle HDD would better go in the optibay.
1- Yes you can wipe it and threat it as external hdd. It will be mounted under /Volumes directory. In my case, I'll probably move the swap and users directory from the SSD to HDD in order to reduce write operations on SSD.
2- Can't say. There are plenty of installation guide. Do a search in google.
FYI: I did some Benchmarks on my late 2008 MBP with a Crucial M4 64GB SSD on both Lion and ML.
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Thank you for your input. I also get mine from ebay and it was for $20 plus $4 shipping cost.
I was initally going to do that. But this guide and some other posts seem to suggest that it would be better to put SSD in optibay for pre-2011 models. I am confused now :S
cool - I think I am going to do the same.
yup, I found a youtube video
thanks for sharing these...I got intel 320 160gb, I will post my benchmarks when I install it
To get the best performance out of it, put in the main bay. As far as I know (someone correct me if i'm wrong) the main bay allows for 6G but installing in optical drive only allows 3G.
My Setup
Late 2011 17" MBP 2.5 i7 with 16gb RAM.
Installed Samsung 830 SSD 256GB in main bay after cloning it. Installed a Seagate Hybrid 750GB ST750LX003 in the optibay with adaptor from OWC after 2 different inexpensive versions from Amazon were defective.
No problems, runs fast and clean. Only thing I've noticed is that it uses power a little faster and while asleep, it seems it's still sucking power. Any ideas?
Love the forum. Thanks for the help.
Late 2011 17" MBP 2.5 i7 with 16gb RAM.
Installed Samsung 830 SSD 256GB in main bay after cloning it. Installed a Seagate Hybrid 750GB ST750LX003 in the optibay with adaptor from OWC after 2 different inexpensive versions from Amazon were defective.
No problems, runs fast and clean. Only thing I've noticed is that it uses power a little faster and while asleep, it seems it's still sucking power. Any ideas?
Love the forum. Thanks for the help.