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OptiBay on the Cheap

T

tdshank

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 8, 2012
2
0
Hey all,

Just thought I would let you know. I was looking for an optibay or OWC alternative that was a little cheaper.

The OWC version looks really nice, but i see no need for a pretty thing that no one will ever see.

Searching amazon, I found this.

http://www.amazon.com/Drive-Unibody...H2US/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1328715224&sr=8-1

This is made for the unibody MBP, (i have 2010 Model)

It works PERFECT, and is only $18.54 Shipped!

No vibration, and it even has screws on the bottom that actually hold the drive in place.

Best bang for the buck!
 
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Thanks, pretty cool.

Something I'd be interested in seeing is an SSD drive in the shape of the optibay thing. Seems like a lot of space is wasted with the caddy since it's 5.25" wide while a regular disk drive for laptops is 2.5". So half the space taken up is just filler. Why not put all that extra space to good use? Think how much more disk space you'd have! Probably could have 1-1.5 terabytes in it.
 
one thing to keep in mind is the ocw optibay / data doubler is much lighter than the alternatives.
 
guzhogi said:
Thanks, pretty cool.

Something I'd be interested in seeing is an SSD drive in the shape of the optibay thing. Seems like a lot of space is wasted with the caddy since it's 5.25" wide while a regular disk drive for laptops is 2.5". So half the space taken up is just filler. Why not put all that extra space to good use? Think how much more disk space you'd have! Probably could have 1-1.5 terabytes in it.
Click to expand...

probably becasue a SSD that was 5.25" wide would not sell as well as one that is 2.5", not every SSD is used in a optibay caddy
 
syan48306 said:
one thing to keep in mind is the ocw optibay / data doubler is much lighter than the alternatives.
Click to expand...


This is actually very light - is made of aluminum I did a comparison, of the SuperDrive and the hard drive with this enclosure. The HDD/Enclosure is lighter than the super drive.
 
iisforiphone said:
probably becasue a SSD that was 5.25" wide would not sell as well as one that is 2.5", not every SSD is used in a optibay caddy
Click to expand...

Yeah I know. I didn't mean to totally get rid of 2.5" drives, just saying some people who are ditching their optibay might want to go with one big ssd rather than a 2.5" drive + caddy. Or maybe make it possible to put two 2.5" drives into one caddy. Not sure if that's possible, though.

Anyone know any statistics on how many people actually swap out their optibay and put in another disk drive? Just curious to see how big a market these caddies have.
 
I don't think size is a limiting factor when creating SSDs. The NAND chips are just damn expensive.
 
I was planning on using the same caddy - glad for the good report - I think I will purchase mine right away.

What optical drive enclosure did you purchase?
 
I have an OWC data doubler and love it. My buddy has a different brand and you can tell as far as weight, but it's not much. I don't think a gram of weight difference is really that serious.

one thing I like about the one that you have is it seems a little more durable and uses more than just two screws.
 
Spink10 said:
I was planning on using the same caddy - glad for the good report - I think I will purchase mine right away.

What optical drive enclosure did you purchase?
Click to expand...

May sound obvious, but I think this one is a reasonably priced option for the superdrive enclosure at about $12 shipped

http://www.amazon.com/USB2-0-Extern...book/dp/B002IRY3ME/ref=pd_luc_bxgy_01_01_t_lh

So the total cost of Caddy and enclosure is coming to about $30 shipped as against about $100 shipped for the OWC data doubler + OWC SuperSlim USB 2.0 Enclosure for Apple SuperDrive
 
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new1macuser said:
May sound obvious, but I think this one is a reasonably priced option for the superdrive enclosure at about $12 shipped

http://www.amazon.com/USB2-0-Extern...book/dp/B002IRY3ME/ref=pd_luc_bxgy_01_01_t_lh

So the total cost of Caddy and enclosure is coming to about $30 shipped as against about $100 shipped for the OWC data doubler + OWC SuperSlim USB 2.0 Enclosure for Apple SuperDrive
Click to expand...

Just wondering if any one has used this product! Amazon reviews seem to be promising but not sure how good this reseller called "Brainydeal" is ??
 
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new1macuser said:
Just wondering if any one has used this product! Amazon reviews seem to be promising but not sure how good this reseller called "Brainydeal" is ??
Click to expand...

I was a little concerned about the optical enclosure as well. I had my eye on another one from Amazon.
 
i've got a early 2011 Macbook Pro 13-inch and a boatload of credit currently in my amazon account...anyone have any experience with one of the "optibays" on there...which one would be the "best" for me...
 
Spink10 said:
http://www.amazon.com/Super-Slim-SA...T6/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1328848425&sr=8-10

mixed reviews - anyone tried this?
Click to expand...

If that one is a 'no name' brand, then I have the same one. I got mine off ebay for about $25. It works perfectly fine, reads all optical media and I haven't had a single problem copying DVDs.

Its made of plastic that kind of feels like the MacBook Pro's aluminum finish, but the quality is still poor. On the upside it does look very nice and goes well with the MacBook Pro for a *decent* price (its still overpriced, its basically a cheap enclosure that should cost more than $10 and thats still being generous).

Installation is pretty easy; the optical drive goes inside and the bottom and top covers snap together. I did have a problem with it though at the beginning, where inserting discs was fine but ejecting them caused the disk to hit the plastic enclosure and wouldnt come out. This was due to the optical drive being positioned too low inside the enclosure, so I had to throw in some paper inside to push the drive up a little. The solution doesn't bother me since I've only used the (now external) drive less than 20 times in 6 months.

I'm actually quite happy with having two hard drives inside my MacBook Pro, one being an Intel SSD in the optibay and another in the default bay being a 1TB Western Digital drive for storage and a Windows partition. Reason for having the HDD in the default bay slot is due to an anti-shock mechanism being present there where as the optibay wouldnt have it (and since SSDs dont suffer from shock, it was was the right place to put it).

Anyway, buy the external enclosure for your ODD, it looks nice despite being plastic (who cares though), regardless its the closest thing you'll find to match your MBP aluminum finish.
 
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wikus said:
If that one is a 'no name' brand, then I have the same one. I got mine off ebay for about $25. It works perfectly fine, reads all optical media and I haven't had a single problem copying DVDs.

Its made of plastic that kind of feels like the MacBook Pro's aluminum finish, but the quality is still poor. On the upside it does look very nice and goes well with the MacBook Pro for a *decent* price (its still overpriced, its basically a cheap enclosure that should cost more than $10 and thats still being generous).

Installation is pretty easy; the optical drive goes inside and the bottom and top covers snap together. I did have a problem with it though at the beginning, where inserting discs was fine but ejecting them caused the disk to hit the plastic enclosure and wouldnt come out. This was due to the optical drive being positioned too low inside the enclosure, so I had to throw in some paper inside to push the drive up a little. The solution doesn't bother me since I've only used the (now external) drive less than 20 times in 6 months.

I'm actually quite happy with having two hard drives inside my MacBook Pro, one being an Intel SSD in the optibay and another in the default bay being a 1TB Western Digital drive for storage and a Windows partition. Reason for having the HDD in the default bay slot is due to an anti-shock mechanism being present there where as the optibay wouldnt have it (and since SSDs dont suffer from shock, it was was the right place to put it).

Anyway, buy the external enclosure for your ODD, it looks nice despite being plastic (who cares though), regardless its the closest thing you'll find to match your MBP aluminum finish.
Click to expand...

http://www.maxupgrades.com/istore/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&product_id=186

Is this the same ODD enclosure?
 
tdshank said:
Hey all,

Just thought I would let you know. I was looking for an optibay or OWC alternative that was a little cheaper.

The OWC version looks really nice, but i see no need for a pretty thing that no one will ever see.

Searching amazon, I found this.

http://www.amazon.com/Drive-Unibody...H2US/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1328715224&sr=8-1

This is made for the unibody MBP, (i have 2010 Model)

It works PERFECT, and is only $18.54 Shipped!

No vibration, and it even has screws on the bottom that actually hold the drive in place.

Best bang for the buck!
Click to expand...


I also bought this one a month or so back. It works flawlessly. Not only does it have screws to secure the drive in the adapter, but it also has screws and screw holes to secure the adapter inside the optibay the same way the superdrive is secured. Works great.
 
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