SSD upgrade in broken optical drive bay? Late 2008

[Russbus04]

I read through the sticky but I want to make sure I have some more specific consideration here as I have never done this before.

The optical drive died a while back and I have been thinking about updating some things to get some more life out of the machine.

My plan is place a 120 gb or so ssd in the optical bay. I have watched several YouTube videos on how to replace the existing hhd but not as much information about replacing the optical drive.

There is a samsung for around $100 that I was looking at. I would like to be able to boot the OS as well as cs6 and some music notation software from the ssd. I am content to leaving most if my content on the existing drive.

Any pointers to push me in the right direction here?

 

[niteflyr]

Here is a note about 2008 MBP's from OWC taken from this page:

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/DDAMBS0GB/

2008/2009 MacBook/MacBook Pro 13", 15", and 17" models. (Model IDs: MacBookPro5,1; 5,2; 5,3; 5,4; 5,5 and MacBook5,1; 6,1; 7,1) While a 6G SSD does function, it will only do so at SATA Revision 1.0 (1.5Gb/s) speeds rather that the SATA Revision 2.0 (3.0Gb/s) speed the machine can deliver. Should owners of these machines desire another SSD option, the Mercury Electra™ 3G SSD does run at the full SATA Revision 2.0 (3Gb/s) specification.

 

[mneblett]

If you are looking to boot from the SSD, install the SSD in place of the original hard drive, and put the HD in the optical bay (I did this with my late '08 MBP).

If you are going to clone your current HD to the SSD, put the SSD in an external enclosure and clone it out outside of the machine -- if you try to boot from an external drive (such as the original HD in an external enclosure) and clone it to an SSD in the original drive location, the SSD will receive all the files, but it won't boot from the SSD when you restart (with the external disconnected).

Short version of the above:

Clone SSD outside, then install inside (in original drive's spot).

 

[AppleGoat]

I have an SSD in both my main bay and optibay. Since I've done the upgrade, I've used the older SSD in my optibay -- since it still contains most of my important apps and files. I've booted into it time and time again. All you do is hold the option key down upon starting your computer and you'll be given the option of what drive to boot into.

 

[jav6454]

Here is a note about 2008 MBP's from OWC taken from this page:

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/DDAMBS0GB/

2008/2009 MacBook/MacBook Pro 13", 15", and 17" models. (Model IDs: MacBookPro5,1; 5,2; 5,3; 5,4; 5,5 and MacBook5,1; 6,1; 7,1) While a 6G SSD does function, it will only do so at SATA Revision 1.0 (1.5Gb/s) speeds rather that the SATA Revision 2.0 (3.0Gb/s) speed the machine can deliver. Should owners of these machines desire another SSD option, the Mercury Electra™ 3G SSD does run at the full SATA Revision 2.0 (3Gb/s) specification.

Which is why you don't buy a 6Gb/s SSD.