I just purchased a late 2011 15" MBP and got a 128GB Crucial M4 SSD to put in it. I discovered after attempting to put the SSD in the Optibay that it has a design flaw preventing the SATA 3.0 SSD from working in the Optibay. Has anyone had any luck in moving their SATA 3.0 main HDD to the Optibay and installing the SSD in the main drive bay or am I only going to be able to get a SATA 2.0 drive to work in the Optibay? Thanks for your help!
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Move HDD to Optibay on late 2011 15" MBP
- Thread starter dale040205
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Even if you only would get S-ATA 3.0 Gbps (S-ATA II) "speeds" in the Optibay, no current 2.5" HDD even saturates S-ATA 1.5 Gbps (S-ATA I), thus S-ATA 3.0 Gbps (S-ATA II) is more than enough for an HDD.
Yeah unfortunately the problem is the Optibay doesn't allow my SSD to work at all and I'm wondering if I would have the same problem with the HDD. I've read SATA 2.0 drives work fine in the Optibay but haven't found anything about SATA 3.0 HDDs.
Since S-ATA 6.0 Gbps (S-ATA III) is backwards compatible, it should work. I have an S-ATA 6.0 Gbps (S-ATA III) SSD in my 2009 MBP, which only has S-ATA 3.0 Gbps (S-ATA II) interfaces. And as any 2.5" HDD (except the Hybrid ones from Seagate) don't even saturate the S-ATA 1.5 Gbps (S-ATA I) interface, S-ATA 3.0 Gbps (S-ATA II) or S-ATA 6.0 Gbps (S-ATA III) is not needed.
I'm not really tech savvy and I'm trying to follow the info in your post. Can I run a SATA II SSD in the optibay and a SATA III SSD in the main bay?
Update
For anyone else looking to add a SATA III SSD to their 2011 15" MBP, I was able to move my already existing SATA III HDD to the Optibay utilizing a caddy and install the SSD in the original main drive bay. The SSD would not work in the caddy in the Optibay for some reason, but the HDD does. I hope this helps someone else looking to upgrade their 2011 15" or 17" MBP.
For anyone else looking to add a SATA III SSD to their 2011 15" MBP, I was able to move my already existing SATA III HDD to the Optibay utilizing a caddy and install the SSD in the original main drive bay. The SSD would not work in the caddy in the Optibay for some reason, but the HDD does. I hope this helps someone else looking to upgrade their 2011 15" or 17" MBP.