Quick question: drive bays

[ryans79]

Hi,
As i am new to Macs I was googling a bit and came across myfirstmac.com,
it has a small part about backing up the mac regularly and mentions

"Mac Pro users have extra internal drive bays which are even easier."

I have a unibody Mac 13", does this have an extra drive bay that i can shove an extra HDD into? I was thinking of a 500gig...

Thanks!
R

 

[r.j.s]

No. Although, you can remove the optical drive and put a drive there.

 

[ryans79]

No. Although, you can remove the optical drive and put a drive there.

Hmmm, i dont know if its worth it... would rather there was already a slot there.
has anyone here tried it? your views?

 

[maflynn]

"Mac Pro users have extra internal drive bays which are even easier."

That's because a Mac Pro is a desktop computer with expandability built in.

I have a unibody Mac 13", does this have an extra drive bay that i can shove an extra HDD into? I was thinking of a 500gig...

No because most (all?) laptops have to sacrifice space for portability, especially the 13" MBP

Hmmm, i dont know if its worth it... would rather there was already a slot there.
has anyone here tried it? your views?

There's been people who pulled the optical drive and installed a hard drive in there. The unibody MBPs have an SATA interface for the optical drive so this is basically the first time that putting in a hard drive in that bay makes sense, performance wise.

Personally I'm pretty tempted to do this myself because I hardly use the optical drive.

 

[DoFoT9]

see this link for people that have installed HDs into their optical bay using a caddy.

its VERY easy to do - im waiting for my caddy to arrive as we speak

its a pretty big read..

 

[ryans79]

That's because a Mac Pro is a desktop computer with expandability built in.

Ah! Thanks, i got confused there... am new to Apple stuff.

Personally I'm pretty tempted to do this myself because I hardly use the optical drive.

Me too! Just wondering, is it easy to go back to the optical drive though... for instance if i want to reinstall the OS?
I'm pretty sure the number of times i have used the optical drive on the new MBP + the old MB + my old laptop can be counted in 2 digits...

is it possible to mount an image of the OS on the drive that replaces the optical drive and reinstall from that if needed?

 

[DoFoT9]

Me too! Just wondering, is it easy to go back to the optical drive though... for instance if i want to reinstall the OS?
I'm pretty sure the number of times i have used the optical drive on the new MBP + the old MB + my old laptop can be counted in 2 digits...

its pretty easy, you have to half pull the computer apart though and stuff... very do-able

is it possible to mount an image of the OS on the drive that replaces the optical drive and reinstall from that if needed?

no, you cannot do that. what you could do is create a bootable partition of the disc on an external USB/FW hard drive! that would work great

 

[ryans79]

what you could do is create a bootable partition of the disc on an external USB/FW hard drive! that would work great

Cool, and is this easy to do? (am new to Macs, sounds like a basic question... but am asking just in case its not)

 

[DoFoT9]

Cool, and is this easy to do? (am new to Macs, sounds like a basic question... but am asking just in case its not)

hmm its kind of hard. but not TOO hard. i could walk you through it one time if you want i would have to try it first to make sure i have the steps right though lol!

 

[ryans79]

hmm its kind of hard. but not TOO hard. i could walk you through it one time if you want i would have to try it first to make sure i have the steps right though lol!

Heh! I'll bookmark this page and take you up on the offer if i go the caddy way

Cheers and thanks!

 

[Belm]

No. Although, you can remove the optical drive and put a drive there.

Not to hijack the thread, but doesn't this void Applecare? I understand that it can, if you mess something up. But what if you don't mess anything up and an unrelated problem comes up later? Won't they try to blame it on you?

 

[DoFoT9]

Heh! I'll bookmark this page and take you up on the offer if i go the caddy way

Cheers and thanks!

haha excellent, im always on here so i should reply quickly

Not to hijack the thread, but doesn't this void Applecare? I understand that it can, if you mess something up. But what if you don't mess anything up and an unrelated problem comes up later? Won't they try to blame it on you?

it probably does, but if you make it look neat and dont damage anything then they wont know that you did it, will they!?!?

 

[r.j.s]

Not to hijack the thread, but doesn't this void Applecare? I understand that it can, if you mess something up. But what if you don't mess anything up and an unrelated problem comes up later? Won't they try to blame it on you?

Yes.

it probably does, but if you make it look neat and dont damage anything then they wont know that you did it, will they!?!?

They will know that they didn't do it, since it isn't an Apple service.