Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Optical Bay HDD swap mod questions

L

leoburton

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 24, 2012
8
0
Hello Mac Genius's out there,
A little advice would be greatly appreciated.

I'm on a 2.2g 17" Early-2011 500GB Macbook Pro looking to upgrade to SSD. I'm not asking 'which one' as I've done all the reading.
My original plan was to just do a simple upgrade to a 512gb SSD with Sata3 and clone the HD, but after hearing all the problems with the all the different brands I think its safer to go with a smaller more stable 256gb card.

But 256gb is not enough so I need to use the 500GB in the Optical Bay.

So my question is: If I put a 256gb SSD in the HDD bay, and the 500gb in the Optical bay, what are my options for just transferring all the application/cache info to the SSD from the original.

Does Time Machine allow for just specific items to transfer, or does it try and transfer the whole drive, even though it's half the size?

Specifically, I want to transfer both my versions of FCP 6 & X, Adobe CS6, Lightroom, etc... As those are the programs I want to use.

(I can't just reinstall FCP6 as its migrated up with me through 2 laptops since leopard, and wont install on Lion.)

Then, what happens to the Lion OS on the HDD in the optical bay? Do I just boot on the SSD and access files on the HDD (OB) through finder?

Sorry if this has been long winded, its just all a bit new to me. Never modded a Macbook other than RAM before.

Thank you all!
 
do you mean putting applications on HDD in optical bay? this is not recommended just user files like pictures music and videos should be on there. as leaving all applications on the SSD will give you the best improvement in speed. moving applications to HDD instead of SSD is a waste because you wont benefit from the speed
 
Try searching for Carbon Copy Cloner. Lets you select which folders you want to transfer onto the ssd
 
Would we still need to buy a Optibay Caddy if we want to install a SSD drive in the Optibay? What's the highest mechanical HD we can put in the optibay if we want something more than 500gb or 5400 rpm?
 
Yes you would still need a caddy for SSD in optibay.
Though its better to have the SSD in the HDD bay and move over the HDD in to the optibay, from what I have read on here.

And yes, you can put more memory in place as well.
 
identity said:
Would we still need to buy a Optibay Caddy if we want to install a SSD drive in the Optibay? What's the highest mechanical HD we can put in the optibay if we want something more than 500gb or 5400 rpm?
Click to expand...

any 2.5 drive can be placed in there theoretically. so you can do a 1tb+ @ 7200 rpm. correct me if im wrong though
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back