Replacing optical drive with 2nd HDD, best way to proceed

[ScubaGos]

Hi there, apologies if this has been asked specifically before.

I have just purchased an SSD to use as the boot drive for my 2010 macbook pro. I plan to place the existing HDD into the optical bay for extra storage using the "Data Doubler" bracket from OWC.

I would like to do a clean install of Mavericks onto the SSD, but wasn't sure of the best way to do it.

Was wondering if i could do it this way.
- Backup original HDD
- Remove original HDD, and replace with SSD
- Remove optical drive, and replace with original HDD in the OWC "Data Doubler"
- Boot into the original HDD (using either option at startup, or press C at startup)
- Use disk utility to format SSD
- Do a clean install onto the SSD


I know this isn't the ideal way to do it, but if it is possible to boot into the HDD when it has been moved to the optical bay, then I'd only have to open up the computer once, which would minimize my chances of screwing something up.

Am I missing an easier way to do this?

Will this way work?

Cheers

 

[Watabou]

I actually just helped my brother do an SSD upgrade + data doubler on his 13" Mid 2010 MBP, this past weekend.

When I started up the mac, it booted into the HDD first, even though we moved it to the optical bay. So we had to fresh install mavericks on the SSD so we could boot into it in recovery mode and then erase the HDD, which answers your question. But we also wanted Fusion drive.

So, what I did was, install mavericks on a 8GB USB flash drive, then boot up the machine while holding down option, select the USB, with the terminal, reformat both the SSD and HDD, install Mavericks on the SSD, and then set up fusion drive so that OS X can manage files between the SSD and HDD.

It sounds painful to go through, but it was actually pretty easy. For the most part, we just had to wait though it.

Really though, the chances of screwing anything up is pretty low imo. If you delete something, just do an internet recovery and it's pretty much set up.

 

[ScubaGos]

Thanks for that, will have a bash later today.

The biggest issue is trying to figure out where to put my stupidly big itunes library (>350gb).

 

[simonsi]

I just run the SSD and HDD separately, OSX and APPs on the SSD, iTunes, media and iPhoto library on the HDD...works a charm and no real need to have OSX managing each files location IMHO.....