Wanting a 2tb in my early 2011 MBP in optibay drive

[rainking]

My stock 750gb drive that I installed in my optibay slot is near full and wanting to upgrade it to the biggest drive I can get. I purchased this external drive (link below) from amazon and I opened it up and installed the disk. At first, I thought everything was working good but as soon as my computer went to sleep, it would eject it. Only way to mount it again was to reboot the machine. I put the stock drive back on it works perfect. Drive also works perfect when used as intended, external drive via USB. It doesn't get ejected. I've come to the following conclusions and hoping someone can confirm/deny. 1. There's a maxed capacity on the optibay drive. 2. Drive error (physical error) or 3. Firmware hard drive issue or 4. my optibay drive sucks. Thoughts? Any 2tb 2.5" hard drive recommendation?

http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Expan...e=UTF8&qid=1413819375&sr=8-2&keywords=2.5+2tb

BTW, the drive in the above link is the same as this one: http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Momen...e=UTF8&qid=1413819375&sr=8-1&keywords=2.5+2tb

 

[Bending Pixels]

I recall reading somewhere that the motherboard wouldn't recognize an internal drive larger than 1TB. That's probably the reason it isn't working.

 

[benji888]

There are some limitations with the optical bay in 2011 MBPs. I know you cannot put a 6G/SATA III in some 2011 machines, it will not likely work, must be 3G/SATA II. (I helped a friend upgrade his 2011 MBP 17). I'm thinking that you are not correct in the second link, as, the unit was in a USB 3.0 enclosure, which usually indicates a 6G/SATA III drive inside.

Could you take a pic or type in the exact model number on the bare drive itself?

 

[rainking]

There are some limitations with the optical bay in 2011 MBPs. I know you cannot put a 6G/SATA III in some 2011 machines, it will not likely work, must be 3G/SATA II. (I helped a friend upgrade his 2011 MBP 17). I'm thinking that you are not correct in the second link, as, the unit was in a USB 3.0 enclosure, which usually indicates a 6G/SATA III drive inside.

Could you take a pic or type in the exact model number on the bare drive itself?

I believe the drive is SATA II. No, didn't take a picture of it and it's back in the enclosure already.

Anybody else?

 

[austinpike]

It's a seagate/samsung Spinpoint M9T and it is SATA III.

http://www.seagate.com/www-content/...nt-m-series/en-us/samsung-m9t-internal-ds.pdf

I'd guess the amazon sata II spec is incorrect.

 

[rainking]

It's a seagate/samsung Spinpoint M9T and it is SATA III.

http://www.seagate.com/www-content/...nt-m-series/en-us/samsung-m9t-internal-ds.pdf

I'd guess the amazon sata II spec is incorrect.

Ahh that explains it. Any SATA II 2tb that i can use?

 

[benji888]

It's a seagate/samsung Spinpoint M9T and it is SATA III.

http://www.seagate.com/www-content/...nt-m-series/en-us/samsung-m9t-internal-ds.pdf

I'd guess the amazon sata II spec is incorrect.

That's what I was trying to say.

What's in your HDD bay? If it's a SATA II drive, you could just swap them and put the 2TB SATA III drive there, put your SATA II drive in optical bay.

For my friend w/early 2011 MBP 17, he got a 6G/SATA III SSD, and a SATA III HDD. Neither would work in the optical bay. We had to put his 6G/SATA III SSD in the hard drive slot, and return the SATA III HDD for a 3G/SATA II HDD. The drive he got, OWC actually takes that drive and forces the interface into a SATA II mode, just for these situations. It was a 1.5TB drive, so, it's not a size limitation, just speed. It's here: http://eshop.macsales.com/item/HGST/0J28001S2/ ...they have this exact drive as a SATA III, and that's how it's sold elsewhere also.

(I helped him make this into a DIY fusion drive, works great!)

 

[rainking]

That's what I was trying to say.

What's in your HDD bay? If it's a SATA II drive, you could just swap them and put the 2TB SATA III drive there, put your SATA II drive in optical bay.

For my friend w/early 2011 MBP 17, he got a 6G/SATA III SSD, and a SATA III HDD. Neither would work in the optical bay. We had to put his 6G/SATA III SSD in the hard drive slot, and return the SATA III HDD for a 3G/SATA II HDD. The drive he got, OWC actually takes that drive and forces the interface into a SATA II mode, just for these situations. It was a 1.5TB drive, so, it's not a size limitation, just speed. It's here: http://eshop.macsales.com/item/HGST/0J28001S2/ ...they have this exact drive as a SATA III, and that's how it's sold elsewhere also.

(I helped him make this into a DIY fusion drive, works great!)

I have a Samsung 830 SSD SATA III drive in the main drive right now so I wouldn't be able to flip them. So the link you provided will work in my optibay drive?

 

[benji888]

I have a Samsung 830 SSD SATA III drive in the main drive right now so I wouldn't be able to flip them. So the link you provided will work in my optibay drive?

yes, this is the exact one I put in friend's optibay: "equipped with a 3Gb/s SATA interface" (http://eshop.macsales.com/item/HGST/0J28001S2/)

it's this drive http://eshop.macsales.com/item/HGST/0J28001/, but, OWC put a 3G/SATA II interface on it for compatibility with these MPBs, they sell a "data doubler" optibay unit, not sure if you got this or iFixit's unit, but, they both do the same thing.


here's a quote from a review: "the right solution for the 2011 Macbook Pro
May 10, 2014
I tried to install several hard drives (> 1to) in the optical bay of my 2011 Macbook Pro. Only this one is working and it is working perfectly.
I would recommend this to a friend!" (again, this is the one you want: http://eshop.macsales.com/item/HGST/0J28001S2/) OWC SKU: HIT0J28001S2

you can live chat with them to be sure.

(here's their old blog post on it: http://blog.macsales.com/9831-2011-mbp-optical-bay-only-3gbs-no-problem)

 

[niteflyr]

This might work:

http://store.mcetech.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=OBSXGB-XTRM

 

[Gav Mack]

SATA3 is disabled on the early 2011 by Apple in its EFI. Bug in Intel SATA controller fixed and restored to SATA3 in the late 2011

Samsung drives used to have a boot utility that you could change the drive handshake from SATA3 to 2 and permanently set it. Without having a drive you can downgrade the mode to set in firmware you could run into issues.

 

[rainking]

yes, this is the exact one I put in friend's optibay: "equipped with a 3Gb/s SATA interface" (http://eshop.macsales.com/item/HGST/0J28001S2/)

it's this drive http://eshop.macsales.com/item/HGST/0J28001/, but, OWC put a 3G/SATA II interface on it for compatibility with these MPBs, they sell a "data doubler" optibay unit, not sure if you got this or iFixit's unit, but, they both do the same thing.


here's a quote from a review: "the right solution for the 2011 Macbook Pro
May 10, 2014
I tried to install several hard drives (> 1to) in the optical bay of my 2011 Macbook Pro. Only this one is working and it is working perfectly.
I would recommend this to a friend!" (again, this is the one you want: http://eshop.macsales.com/item/HGST/0J28001S2/) OWC SKU: HIT0J28001S2

you can live chat with them to be sure.

(here's their old blog post on it: http://blog.macsales.com/9831-2011-mbp-optical-bay-only-3gbs-no-problem)

Thanks for all you help. I'll be getting that drive.

----------

This might work:

http://store.mcetech.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=OBSXGB-XTRM

Seems pricy but looks like this would work.

 

[benji888]

SATA3 is disabled on the early 2011 by Apple in its EFI. Bug in Intel SATA controller fixed and restored to SATA3 in the late 2011

Samsung drives used to have a boot utility that you could change the drive handshake from SATA3 to 2 and permanently set it. Without having a drive you can downgrade the mode to set in firmware you could run into issues.

This is what OWC has done with the 1.5 TB drive I posted about in my post #9 above...they took the HGST SATA III drive and changed the firmware setting for SATA II, but, sell them separately. Considering this was a problem with only the early 2011 MBPs, and not a recent issue for most computers, Samsung probably no longer has that boot utility included.

This might work:

http://store.mcetech.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=OBSXGB-XTRM

That does look pricey, but, interested to find out if anyone has used this successfully in an early 2011 MBP.

 

[niteflyr]

That does look pricey, but, interested to find out if anyone has used this successfully in an early 2011 MBP.

I've seen 1 post here on MR about an obtibay extreme working in a late 2011 model.

https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=19898453#post19898453

This from MCE:

"VERIFY: To check if your Early or Late MacBook Pro can benefit from the OptiBay Extreme, hold down the option key on your keyboard while going to the Apple Menu at the upper left of your screen and select the first item there which should say "System Information". Then select, depending on your Mac OS, either "Serial-ATA" or "SATA/SATA Express" and there you will see on the right pane two Intel 6 Series Chipsets listed. While the top chipset normally corresponds to the main drive bay and the lower one to the optical drive bay check to see that in the information below that the "Link Speed" for both chipsets indicates "6 Gigabit." If so, then you can use the OptiBay Extreme to get full SATA-III (6Gbps) speeds when using a SATA-III SSD, Hard Drive, or Hybrid Drive in that location."

 

[Gav Mack]

This is what OWC has done with the 1.5 TB drive I posted about in my post #9 above...they took the HGST SATA III drive and changed the firmware setting for SATA II, but, sell them separately. Considering this was a problem with only the early 2011 MBPs, and not a recent issue for most computers, Samsung probably no longer has that boot utility included.



That does look pricey, but, interested to find out if anyone has used this successfully in an early 2011 MBP.

OWC just used the hsgt utility you can get from the support website themselves and repackaged the hdd. Samsung utility is still on wd support site and there's a good chance it will as legacy support isn't limited to just these Mac chassis.

As a spinning disk won't saturate a sata 2 interface anyway I would get the drive and take a punt to see if the utility works though you may need another computer to do the work. Lot cheaper than a deluxe optibay

 

[benji888]

OWC just used the hsgt utility you can get from the support website themselves and repackaged the hdd. Samsung utility is still on wd support site and there's a good chance it will as legacy support isn't limited to just these Mac chassis.

As a spinning disk won't saturate a sata 2 interface anyway I would get the drive and take a punt to see if the utility works though you may need another computer to do the work. Lot cheaper than a deluxe optibay

I'm looking at their site, can't find it. That would have saved some trouble returning and waiting for new drive for my friend's set-up. I'm guessing the host utility is windows or dos based, which, I don't have windows, most Mac users don't have or have access to a win machine. But, the drive itself is within $5 in the SATAIII or flashed SATAII, as far as their pricing goes, so, it's not like they are charging extra.

I'm with you, I don't think the deluxe optibay is worth the price unless someone wants to install 2 SSDs in their machine, and have to have SATA III speed. That device is $100, whereas the data doubler I got was $35. But, you could still get a $35 data doubler, and a SATA II/3G SSD and still get higher performance. (But, SSD would have to be specifically SATAII/3G.)

 

[Gav Mack]

I'm looking at their site, can't find it. That would have saved some trouble returning and waiting for new drive for my friend's set-up. I'm guessing the host utility is windows or dos based, which, I don't have windows, most Mac users don't have or have access to a win machine. But, the drive itself is within $5 in the SATAIII or flashed SATAII, as far as their pricing goes, so, it's not like they are charging extra.

I'm with you, I don't think the deluxe optibay is worth the price unless someone wants to install 2 SSDs in their machine, and have to have SATA III speed. That device is $100, whereas the data doubler I got was $35. But, you could still get a $35 data doubler, and a SATA II/3G SSD and still get higher performance. (But, SSD would have to be specifically SATAII/3G.)

Samsung ES-TOOL
http://support-us.samsung.com/cyber...leshooting_fr.jsp?idx=51176&modelname=HD250HJ

Boot CD

That was the first one I found there may be newer versions somewhere.

 

[benji888]

Samsung ES-TOOL
http://support-us.samsung.com/cyber...leshooting_fr.jsp?idx=51176&modelname=HD250HJ

Boot CD

That was the first one I found there may be newer versions somewhere.

yeah, that's for Samsung, and from 2009. I was searching HGST's site, since that's the current drive being sold by OWC I was referring to. My friend had just happened to buy the HGST 1.5 TB SATA III drive from OWC, but, he needed the one OWC modded, so had to return it. I had skimmed some reading on this issue, but, my friend ordered things before I got a chance to talk to him about it. So we tried both drives (this one and the SSD he got), neither would work. OWC worked well with the return/exchange, tho, ...they have great customer service. I still think, even if I found the utility, it would likely be dos or win based.

 

[Gav Mack]

yeah, that's for Samsung, and from 2009. I was searching HGST's site, since that's the current drive being sold by OWC I was referring to. My friend had just happened to buy the HGST 1.5 TB SATA III drive from OWC, but, he needed the one OWC modded, so had to return it. I had skimmed some reading on this issue, but, my friend ordered things before I got a chance to talk to him about it. So we tried both drives (this one and the SSD he got), neither would work. OWC worked well with the return/exchange, tho, ...they have great customer service. I still think, even if I found the utility, it would likely be dos or win based.

HSGT utility is the the legacy section of downloads iirc

 

[benji888]

HSGT utility is the the legacy section of downloads iirc

OK, found it, it's DOS: "The Feature Tool is a DOS-bootable tool for changing various ATA features - See more at: http://www.hgst.com/support/downloads/legacy-downloads#sthash.xyZXS6Q7.dpuf"

It says it works with Travelstar, and it's a Travelstar drive. So, that's surely what they use, you got it.

 

[Gav Mack]

OK, found it, it's DOS: "The Feature Tool is a DOS-bootable tool for changing various ATA features - See more at: http://www.hgst.com/support/downloads/legacy-downloads#sthash.xyZXS6Q7.dpuf"

It says it works with Travelstar, and it's a Travelstar drive. So, that's surely what they use, you got it.

It definitely works with the 1tb 7k1000 I had to downgrade one for an early 2011 with the same SATA handshake issues you have with the larger drive. Booted it off a windows pc not a Mac you will find out if it can work when you hold down option on boot.

 

[rainking]

OK, found it, it's DOS: "The Feature Tool is a DOS-bootable tool for changing various ATA features - See more at: http://www.hgst.com/support/downloads/legacy-downloads#sthash.xyZXS6Q7.dpuf"

It says it works with Travelstar, and it's a Travelstar drive. So, that's surely what they use, you got it.

So follow this step and format my drive via usb on a windows machine and it will work?

http://www.hgst.com/support/faqs/how-format-xl3000-use-windows-xp-32bit

 

[benji888]

So follow this step and format my drive via usb on a windows machine and it will work?

http://www.hgst.com/support/faqs/how-format-xl3000-use-windows-xp-32bit

sorry, (I got busy, just saw this), no, scroll to the bottom, this is what you want (but, I don't have win, so not sure how it works):

 

[benji888]

also, OP, after doing that, be sure to format the drive...go to partition page in disk utility, format as Mac OS Extended (journaled), click on "options" under the partition layout, be sure "GUID Partition Table" is checked before installing OS X.

 

[satinsilverem2]

I've been running a Seagate M9T in my early 2011 for four months now and haven't had a single issue. I can confirm that it runs at 6Gbps and is recognized fully.