Optibay Drive Questions...

[ChopinGuy]

So I am going to be purchasing a new 13" MBP and want to put the standard drive in the optibay and install a Intel 320 SSD to run all software/apps from. I understand that I will have to use the Lion Recovery Disk Assistant to format and install Lion on the Intel drive.

My questions really come to the optibay and how the computer utilizes the drive. I, as most people do, would want to use the optibay for photos music.
So my questions are:

1) Once the old drive is installed in the optibay -- do I have to wipe it and reformat it -- as won't there be confusion with two drives with system os installed on them.

2) How do I tell the computer to store say my iPhoto library and iTunes library on the other drive?? Is it as simple as putting those folders on that drive??

Thanks for the help...

 

[Orlandoech]

1, Yes

2, I just changed my "folder location" in the preferences of programs. I store all my music, pics, movies, files, data on my Optibay drive. I even copied my iTunes library over and just changed the folder in the preferences of iTunes. I imagine its the same or close to for iPhoto and such.

 

[dusk007]

2) you can also use symbolic links.
Create the folder structure anyway you want on the secondary HDD.
open Terminal navigate to your home folder actually you usually start in the homefolder so there is nothing to do.
now enter.

ln -s /Volumes/NameOfHDD/NameOfMovieFolder/ ./Movies

That should replace the current Movies folder with a link to the other folder on the other drive. Everything will work the way it always did. I recommend only to move the Movies, Music and Picture folders and those only if needed. The other stuff I would keep on the SSD unless you got some other big folder.

Again it is
ln -s target name
By naming it the same way you just overwrite the old one. You could name it Lollipop if you want. Might be that it needs sudo to overwrite those folders.

 

[Satnam1989]

Its better to manage what you really wanna put on optical bay drive and what not......rather then doing that u might as just make alias....its easier and requires no commands..and simply go into the program preferences and change their "Save/Access/Download/store" folder location to point onto ur HDD which can be access when u launch the program..I have only done this of my DROPBOX and Vuze(Torrent Client)..also do you really want to keep your Optical bay HDD spinning all the time? making such moves will keep it awake I'm pretty sure....I keep my docs, applications, OS and music on SSD as i have a 180GB SSD, and Movies, Pics, torrent downloads and some other files/docs that i don't access as often on my HDD that way it can sleep and when I'm running on battery I get 7+hours of web browsing, emailing, making notes(for school), reading pdf's etc etc-all light tasks as the SSD uses far less power then the HDD...also its obvious that keeping two drives on is gonna use more power then 1....