Sata Adaptor kit Macbook pro

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geocom

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#879431 16-Aug-2013 11:57

gehenna: The problem being you can't boot off an internal drive connected to the CD SATA adapter. Only the original HDD bay SATA adapter is bootable.

If I recall correctly.

Also a Hybrid drive won't work correctly in Mac OS X unless you do some complicated and clever terminal hacking to turn it into a Fusion drive. Without doing that there is no way the OS can manage where to place the files to take advantage of the SSD aspect of the drive.

No problem booting from a SSD in my CD bay

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gnfb

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#879460 16-Aug-2013 12:37

geocom: Umm Yes you should put it on the new drive however seeing as it is a hybrid I can foresee some issues.

1. There is only about 8Gb of Solid State Storage on those drives. So the more you put onto that drive the less chance you have of having OS files on the SSD portion. So the speed increases you will see at the start will drop down over time.
2. Heat and power consumption may become a issue with a HDD in the CD drive bay as there is little to no allowance for air to get near the drive.
Your using 2 drives with motors in them they will use more power than a SSD HDD config.

If it was me I would only ever put a SSD drive into the CD bay as the speed and power/heat requirements are far superior to a HDD.

With the gear you have I would replace the 250GB HDD with the 500GB HDD(or take it back) and go by a proper SSD 120GB is likely to be the most cost effective.
I would only ever recommend the Hybrid drives if you a) Need a CD Drive. b)Only have room for 1 Drive. as the Hybrid drives have major trade offs.

I have a Fusion drive(Apples Alternative with 128GB of Flash Storeage) which is much like a Hybrid Drive and the trade offs are really not worth it and you really notice it once you go over the SSD memory cap and you have no control over what goes where.

Thanks for an informative reply

I am still old school that i like to have a fair bit of space in drive
I was going to change over to the a 120gb but as they are new they are still expensive
The particular drive i bought is a thin one so hoping that will help with the heat issue

The inform myself search continues..............

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gehenna

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#879473 16-Aug-2013 12:54

geocom:
No problem booting from a SSD in my CD bay

Cool that's gd to know. I know i've had problems in the past with my MBP but can't remember exactly what they were as it was a while ago now.

geocom

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#879482 16-Aug-2013 13:13

I am still old school that i like to have a fair bit of space in drive

I know how it is my Macbook has a 250GB SSD and a 750GB HDD(Then again my MacBook is my main home computer so I may not be a usual case).

I was going to change over to the a 120gb but as they are new they are still expensive

It is up to you on how you do the split cost wise you could go down to a 60GB SSD but given the cost of the drives it is not much more to double the capacity.

The particular drive i bought is a thin one so hoping that will help with the heat issue

Not 100% sure but the thinner drive may actually be worse as I believe the drive in the MacBook uses the unibody case as a heatsink.
You will notice on the drive that there is that Vent hole on the drive in the MacBook hard drive bay it has it label up in the Drive caddie it has the label down. So you may end up blocking that port.
Just had a look at the CD drive I pulled out of the MacBook and it runs at 1.6A so power wise you should be fine.

Cool that's gd to know. I know i've had problems in the past with my MBP but can't remember exactly what they were as it was a while ago now.

No real problems with it only issue I have ever had one issue with the setup was the drive I had would only manage to get upto SATA1 by default but a quick Firmware fix on the drive fixed that issue.
I know in later Mac computers they locked the main drive bay down to only allow Apple Drives or the fans would spin right up and stay there. But I don't believe this is the case for the CD Drive.

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gnfb

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#879514 16-Aug-2013 13:44

So just to be clear GEOCOM
you would suggest a 120gb ssd drive in the main slot then a say 500gb std drive in the cd slot?

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geocom

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#879527 16-Aug-2013 14:02

gnfb: So just to be clear GEOCOM
you would suggest a 120gb ssd drive in the main slot then a say 500gb std drive in the cd slot?

Nope other way around. 120GB SSD in the drive caddie and the 500GB drive in the main drive bay.

The CD drive and the Main Drive bay both have the same interface so the CD Bay can go just as fast as the main drive bay can. so there would be no advantage to putting the SSD in the main HDD bay.

Also while I'm thinking about it. To reinstall mountain lion onto the SSD you will need to create a bootable USB key. Instructions here

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#880093 17-Aug-2013 13:30

Ok so we are all rock and roll!

Installed the 500gb drive in the optical drive bay without to many issues there was a helpful vid on YouTube it formatted and shows up no problems!

On that vid it looked like he installed the ssd drive into the HD slot and the removed hd drive into the optical drive caddy.
It seemed that when he switched the mac on the laptop understood the drive had been moved and booted up anyway he then formatted the ssd drive.

Now is that the case? if i put the hd drive into the optical drive bay the mac would boot up no issue?

also I have the mac Tiger or lion or some wild animal disks OS that I did an upgrade online to the current version
How would i go about installing the OS on the new drive In the vid it looked very easy
But Ive been around a while and know "that if something seems to be to good to be true it proably is"

The you tube vid i refer to

On the home stretch now.....

Is an English Man living in New Zealand. Not a writer, an Observer he says. Graham is a seasoned 'traveler" with his sometimes arrogant, but honest opinion on life. He loves the Internet!.

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alexx

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#880129 17-Aug-2013 15:08

Depends on the model. There are some versions of macbookpro where many people had problems running SATA-III drives in the optical drive space, but not when replacing the HDD. Not just an SSD problem either - also some SATA-III hard drives. iirc it might have been the 2011(?) 15" and 17" macbookpro that had these sort of problems, but perhaps others.

#include <standard.disclaimer>

gehenna

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#880135 17-Aug-2013 15:31

Yeah that sounds right, I was using a Vertex 3 in a 2011 MBP Superdrive bay and it just didn't work. Switched them around and it worked fine. Guess it's not an issue anymore given SATA3 is more prolific.

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