SATA III in optibay of MacBook Pro mid 2012 13", bad idea?

[l0renz]

The day after tomorrow the caddy for my SSD will arrive, so my first thoughts we're putting the SSD in the HDD's place, but then I heard when you do this, the sudden motion sensor in the HDD won't work anymore, so I crossed it out my list.
Now I am thinking to put the SSD (a Samsung 840 120GB) in the optibay but then I heard there will be no speed inprovements because the optibay of a MacBook Pro 2012 13" does not support SATA III...

I basically don't know what to do anymore, should I put the SSD in the main bay and the HDD in the optibay for now, and replace this HDD in the future when I have the budget, to replace it with an SSD, so I don't have that sudden motion sensor problem?

Or does none of this actually matter because the SDD works fine in the optibay?


Wow, I'm confusing! I hope I finally get a response that will solve this topic, because it's been on my mind for a while now and the internet doesn't make me much wiser about these 2012 models. Surplus that English is not my native language so some major terms are unknown to me but I like to learn


Thanks in advance and god bless

 

[NewishMacGuy]

I'm pretty sure that the optibay in all the 2012 MBPs does support SATA3. On the off chance that it does not, your SSD would work fine, but be limited to somewhere around 300-350 MB/s, which would still be much faster than your HDD but only about 60% as fast as it could go.

>

 

[Astroboy907]

English is not my native language so some major terms are unknown to me but I like to learn


Thanks in advance and god bless

You might have the best english skills of anyone who has ever posted that English is not their native language.

Some HDDs have an on board SMS... maybe you could get one of those?
Where are you planning on using the laptop most... lots of traveling or more home/desktop replacement work?

 

[l0renz]

I'm pretty sure that the optibay in all the 2012 MBPs does support SATA3. On the off chance that it does not, your SSD would work fine, but be limited to somewhere around 300-350 MB/s, which would still be much faster than your HDD but only about 60% as fast as it could go.

>

Wow! That's horrible is there an easy way to notice this lack of improvement after installing? Thank you for your fast reply!


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[niteflyr]

It was the 2011 MBP's that had issues with SATA 3, 6G drives in opti-bay. 2012 models and later shipped with SATA 3 interface in opti-bay. Should be no problems.

 

[l0renz]

You might have the best english skills of anyone who has ever posted that English is not their native language.

Some HDDs have an on board SMS... maybe you could get one of those?
Where are you planning on using the laptop most... lots of traveling or more home/desktop replacement work?

Well thank you! Always nice to hear that your work pays off, I'm homeschooling myself a little bit. I will certainly look for such and HDD the future, larger SSD's are just too expensive for a student like me and probably a lot of other people. Speaking of being a student, this also means I travel a lot and I take my MacBook every where with me, can't go without. Thank you for your reply! Much appreciated


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It was the 2011 MBP's that had issues with SATA 3, 6G drives in opti-bay. 2012 models and later shipped with SATA 3 interface in opti-bay. Should be no problems.

Ah, I'm probably wrong here, but it's definitely nice to be sure now.
Anyways, thank you for your reply and I'll keep you guys posted!
God bless

 

[comics addict]

I also have the same MBP model as you. Good to know that when I decide to switch the optical drive out for a secondary drive it'll be compatible with the SATA III interface. Next time, I would verify the components of my machine by going under the Apple logo in the top-left corner of the screen, hold the option "atl" key and select System Information. There it'll give you a boring-but-a goldmine of information about all the hardware & software that makes up your machine.

 

[l0renz]

I also have the same MBP model as you. Good to know that when I decide to switch the optical drive out for a secondary drive it'll be compatible with the SATA III interface. Next time, I would verify the components of my machine by going under the Apple logo in the top-left corner of the screen, hold the option "atl" key and select System Information. There it'll give you a boring-but-a goldmine of information about all the hardware & software that makes up your machine.

Thanks for the tip! Didn't know about that one I've seen our model run both on HDD en SSD, you should consider getting an SSD for sure, it works like a charm! Only regret on this device is that I didn't spend a couple of bucks more to have the i7 processor, still loving it though
I appreciate your reply!

 

[comics addict]

Thanks for the tip! Didn't know about that one I've seen our model run both on HDD en SSD, you should consider getting an SSD for sure, it works like a charm! Only regret on this device is that I didn't spend a couple of bucks more to have the i7 processor, still loving it though
I appreciate your reply!

I recently got a SSD for myself. Look at my signature. Like you I would have thought about getting the one with i7 since I plan on using it as my main computer for years down the road, specially now that Apple is switching to non-user upgradable model, which affects me personally because where I live there are no Apple Stores & their Online one doesn't ship directly to US territories which means that I get stuck with their stock configurations at my local reseller.

 

[rabidz7]

It was the 2011 MBP's that had issues with SATA 3, 6G drives in opti-bay. 2012 models and later shipped with SATA 3 interface in opti-bay. Should be no problems.

Only early 2011 models has issues, not the late 2011 models.

 

[l0renz]

I also have the same MBP model as you. Good to know that when I decide to switch the optical drive out for a secondary drive it'll be compatible with the SATA III interface. Next time, I would verify the components of my machine by going under the Apple logo in the top-left corner of the screen, hold the option "atl" key and select System Information. There it'll give you a boring-but-a goldmine of information about all the hardware & software that makes up your machine.

Hey, how did you do the firmware update? The SSD is already inside and the net only shows options with cd's or dvd's...

 

[l0renz]

After all those miserable tries, I have swapped the HDD out and replaced it with the SSD in the main bay. Because I didn't feel too good about an HDD without sudden motion sensor in the optical drive, I just left it out and reinstalled the optical bay.

Thanks for all the help