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So I installed my SSD, but... (Optibay)

H

Hydrocity

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
May 14, 2010
527
0
I installed my SSD, but when I start my MBP up, it only contains the files from my SSD. How do I 'merge' the two disks together. I want to have my Apps and a couple of other things on my SSD, but I still want everything else available such as my movies and documents that will be on the HD. Right now, it seems like I can't go onto my HD, only my SSD.

Any help? Im sorry if this sounds weird. A little tired :eek:
 
SSD is in the Optibay, HD is in the HD bay.

Yes, both disks are seen by the computer. I can access my other files through finder. Is this the only way to access my files? I want my settings such as Firefox bookmarks, settings, widgets, etc to be shown. But right now, I am 'living' on the SSD only, but have access to my SSD files.

How can I fix this
 
If I am doing this correctly, how do I boot off the SSD, switch back to the HD to 'live' in, and when I open apps, it uses the SSD?
 
It sounds to me like you would want to clone your HDD to your SSD using a program like Carbon Copy Cloner.
 
Ok, so what exactly are you trying to do?

If you can see both the SSD and HDD in the Finder then it's working. Are you saying you want to concatenate the SSD and HDD so you only see one volume?

If so, I guess you can try setting that up in Disk Manager's RAID capability, but that wouldn't be the best thing to do and I don't think it would even work right with two drive that are so disparate in capabilities.

Normally what people do when they have one of each is put the SSD in the HD bay and the HD in the ODD bay. I've never experience this first hand, but I hear there are wake from sleep problems with the SSD boot drive is in the ODD bay. They they set up the SSD as the boot drive with apps and so forth. This puts the stuff that really benefits from the speed of an SSD in that drive. Then you can move over your home directory to the HDD and whatever other files and documents you want to move over there to maximize. You can search for the procedure on moving the home directory.

Oh, and asking for help with repeated postings is kind of like pressing the elevator button a million times. It doesn't make the elevator come any faster and it annoys the other people watching.
 
Hydrocity said:
But I dont want to clone the entire thing. I just want to put the Apps on the SSD
Click to expand...

Just reads like you're over-complicating the issue ... the simple option is to make the SSD your primary drive and just put respective folders on the HDD for things like documents, music, etc. This way, while you "live" in the SSD, all the major files are saved on the HDD.

Or, you can keep the SSD as primary but move your home folder onto the HDD. The apps still boot off the SSD but you're really "living" on the HDD since that's where your home folder lives.

The first method is easy, the 2nd search the forums discussed many times.
 
Last edited:
Ok I am going to redo this. How should I delete everything except the OS from the SSD?
 
With an SSD install, I would install a fresh copy of OSX. You have nothing to lose and all the speed to gain.

Re-install all your apps it'll take like 10 min with an SSD
 
clickclickw00t said:
With an SSD install, I would install a fresh copy of OSX. You have nothing to lose and all the speed to gain.

Re-install all your apps it'll take like 10 min with an SSD
Click to expand...

I have the optibay in so there is no CD drive. Is there other way
 
Hydrocity said:
I have the optibay in so there is no CD drive. Is there other way
Click to expand...

I'm getting my optibay next week. I will be running an SSD and HD.

Here is what I plan on doing to install all my CDs/DVDs without a DVD drive.
HD space isn't really an issue for me as I have a home server that I built which has about 10tB storage space. I'm currently in the process of converting all my DVDs and CDs with software to .ISO files and storing them on my server. An install takes nothing more than dropping a USB stick and installing.
 
Hydrocity said:
I have the optibay in so there is no CD drive. Is there other way
Click to expand...

I thought optibay gave you an enclosure to put your optical in to use as an external? If not, you'll have to put the optical back in or use another external CD option.
 
When I installed the os onto the ssd for the first time, it created a separate account. So I now have to accounts. One has my hd info, and the other has my ssd. How to I make it so I have only 1 account with ssd powering apps and boot ups

I'm using carbon copy right now, and it's cloning, but I'm not sure what to do after. If I have to reinstall the ssd, then I will, but I would love some advice. I have tried searching, but I can't find any results
 
Hydrocity said:
I installed my SSD, but when I start my MBP up, it only contains the files from my SSD. How do I 'merge' the two disks together. I want to have my Apps and a couple of other things on my SSD, but I still want everything else available such as my movies and documents that will be on the HD. Right now, it seems like I can't go onto my HD, only my SSD.

Any help? Im sorry if this sounds weird. A little tired :eek:
Click to expand...

Here's how you do what you are attempting to do, it works very well.

First of all, there are easier ways to do this, such as simply relocating your entire Home folder to the HD and re-linking through system prefs, but I opted to go the symlink route which allowed me to keep my User Library on my SSD as the SSD's caching speeds up everything (even web browsing, on cached pages of course). And since I'm not accessing my user library folder while I run apps, I'm able to spin down my HD for long periods of time which is extremely efficient and quiet.

Here's how to do it:

Use Carbon Copy Cloner using the "Incremental backup of selected items," to clone everything from your HD to your SSD. Uncheck large items that will stay on your HD such as Movies, Music, and so on. Just make sure that "delete items that don't exist on the source" is unchecked (you'll delete system files from the old HD once you feel very comfortable that your solution works).

Then follow the instructions in this excellent post where you'll learn how to symlink:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1000359/
 
Last edited:
Have nothing on your SSD. With Carbon Copy Cloner, clone everything but your home file to your SSD, that will transfer over OS X and all it's apps and such. When you boot your MacBook, hold down option, and boot from the SSD. It should allow you to select the user on the HDD.

Also, since you have the SSD in the Optibay, you are going to have problems when you try to wake your computer from sleep. MBPs naturally boot from the HDD from sleep, and so your computer may crash when trying to wake it. I'd recommend putting the SSD in the HDD slot.
 
pezasied182 said:
Also, since you have the SSD in the Optibay, you are going to have problems when you try to wake your computer from sleep. MBPs naturally boot from the HDD from sleep, and so your computer may crash when trying to wake it. I'd recommend putting the SSD in the HDD slot.
Click to expand...

I have never had a problem waking my computer from my optibay installed SSD.
 
Hydrocity said:
When I installed the os onto the ssd for the first time, it created a separate account. So I now have to accounts. One has my hd info, and the other has my ssd. How to I make it so I have only 1 account with ssd powering apps and boot ups

I'm using carbon copy right now, and it's cloning, but I'm not sure what to do after. If I have to reinstall the ssd, then I will, but I would love some advice. I have tried searching, but I can't find any results
Click to expand...

If there is nothing important on your SSD, I would reformat and erase your SSD before attempting my directions. I didn't have any issues with multiple accounts after I cloned.
 
pezasied182 said:
really? I had problems with it in my 2009 MBP, I haven't installed an SSD in my new 2011 13 inch MBP, so maybe there was a fix?
Click to expand...

Yeah, I was really worried that it would be an issue and was ready to swap drives if necessary, but it's been perfect so far.

There are so many ways to configure a SSD+HDD combo, so I'm not sure if is the instructions I followed or my hardware. I'm on a Early 2011 MBP.
 
Thanks! I will be following the last two posts.

Should the SSD (Sata 3, but I have a 2010) go in the HD bay or Optibay?
The above poster said i should put it in the HD bay, but I thought it was good to keep the HD in there because of the SMS

(well looks like I didnt refresh my page before posting. I see alot of others saying there is no sleep issue)

Also, I think my comp is currently messed up. Firefox wont open, chrome takes forever to load webpages and says the webpage crashed, and safari takes like 3 seconds to react to my commands...
 
Hydrocity said:
Thanks! I will be following the last two posts.

Should the SSD (Sata 3, but I have a 2010) go in the HD bay or Optibay?
The above poster said i should put it in the HD bay, but I thought it was good to keep the HD in there because of the SMS
Click to expand...

you can put the SSD in the Optibay, disregard my earlier post. It shouldn't be a problem, and if it is it's just a quick fix.
 
Does anybody have an iso of snow leopard 10.6.3? I hate having to take out the optibay and putting the cd drive in so I can reinstall.
 
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