Best Second hard disk for MBP13 Mid 2009

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Maxtor XT or WD black, Best Second hard disk for MBP13 Mid 2009

Hello and greetings from a newbie to this forum,

I have a MBP13, Mid 2009 model with 8GB RAM and a 200GB OWC extreme primary disk, I want to add an additional disk replacing the optical drive. I want to know if buying a momentus XT 750 would make any difference as compared to a WD black 750?

The startup and shutdown doesnt matter as my primary disk is anyways going to be the current SSD.

Would also appreciate if suggestions could be made on what I could move to the second hard disk.


Thanks in anticipation of good responses,

George
 
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MacInWin

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I can't comment on the two drives, but I can give you my experience with the separation of data. I have a MBP, Early 2011, that originally had a 750Gb drive. I replaced that primary drive with an OWC 48G SSD. I moved the 750G HD to the optical bay using there adapter bracket. In the process, I cloned the original drive to the SSD, then moved my home directory to the HD. So now, on the HD, I have a Users folder and a System folder. The System folder holds certain caches and were put there by the system itself. The Users folder has all my personal files that were previously in the User folder on the boot disk. On the SSD there is also a Users folder, and it contains some things that various applications have put there. Calibre seems to be the prime "offender" here, as it stores information to that folder rather than on the HD. I also moved my virtual machine images to the SSD to allow for faster booting of the images, and I have put my iTunes library of music there as well, although it ran just fine on the HD. It's been a while since I did the conversion so I don't remember the exact steps I took to define the HD for the Users folder, but it went easily and I've had no issues with it since then. You might also search here for some comments about making a Fusion drive out of the two drives. That all came out after I had made my changes, so I did not implement a Fusion drive on my system. Whatever you do, good luck with it!
 
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For what it is worth MacInWin OWC technicians advise against cloning to an SSD. Something to do with copying platter drives causes problems. They suggest clean OS install and use Migration Assistant to transfer things over.

Do a search George of the Momentus Hybrid. Many, including staff member bobtomay, reported negatively on the drive.
 
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MacInWin

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For what it is worth MacInWin OWC technicians advise against cloning to an SSD. Something to do with copying platter drives causes problems. They suggest clean OS install and use Migration Assistant to transfer things over.

Do a search George of the Momentus Hybrid. Many, including staff member bobtomay, reported negatively on the drive.
Curious, they didn't advise me that way. I used CCC to copy everything from the HD to the SSD, then selectively deleted from the SSD the material I planned to keep on the HD and vice versa. I've had zero problems with that approach. I guess I don't understand what the difference between using CCC and MA would be; both copy files, file by file.
 

chscag

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I guess I don't understand what the difference between using CCC and MA would be; both copy files, file by file.

While they both copy files, the difference is CCC does a sector by sector copy or what's known as a clone. That's why it's not recommended to use CCC or SuperDuper to clone from a platter drive to a SSD.
 
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MacInWin

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chscag, I think you are mistaken. From the CCC documentation you can find online
CCC 3.4 makes the block-level copy explicit and very easy to specify. Choose "Preferences..." from the Carbon Copy Cloner menu, then check the box to "Indicate when a block-level clone is possible" to enable this feature. When enabled, a "Block copy" button will appear adjacent to the Destination menu. If the source, destination, and settings are amenable to a block-level copy, the Block Copy button will be enabled. Click the button to specify a block-level clone. If the button is disabled, a tool tip will tell you why — simply hover your mouse over the Block Copy button to reveal this text.
The default as it is implemented is for the block copy box to be UNchecked, therefore barring block copy. Furthermore, CCC can clone from one geometry to a different geometry, which is not possible if it uses sector copy. And finally, CCC can generate an archive of changed files, when used as a backup, and pares those archives to make space, much like TM does. For all those reasons, I think CCC copies are NOT sector by sector unless you specifically allow it to do so. Perhaps your impressions were taken from an earlier version?
 

chscag

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For all those reasons, I think CCC copies are NOT sector by sector unless you specifically allow it to do so. Perhaps your impressions were taken from an earlier version?

Yes, you're correct. I've been using CCC for 5 years and just never got around to reading the latest documentation to the current update. Looking at what I personally use it for, it almost has to be doing a block level copy since I routinely clone a larger drive with less data on it to a smaller drive. A sector by sector copy would not fit.
 
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Great idea that did not cross my mind

I can't comment on the two drives, but I can give you my experience with the separation of data. I have a MBP, Early 2011, that originally had a 750Gb drive. I replaced that primary drive with an OWC 48G SSD. I moved the 750G HD to the optical bay using there adapter bracket. In the process, I cloned the original drive to the SSD, then moved my home directory to the HD. So now, on the HD, I have a Users folder and a System folder. The System folder holds certain caches and were put there by the system itself. The Users folder has all my personal files that were previously in the User folder on the boot disk. On the SSD there is also a Users folder, and it contains some things that various applications have put there. Calibre seems to be the prime "offender" here, as it stores information to that folder rather than on the HD. I also moved my virtual machine images to the SSD to allow for faster booting of the images, and I have put my iTunes library of music there as well, although it ran just fine on the HD. It's been a while since I did the conversion so I don't remember the exact steps I took to define the HD for the Users folder, but it went easily and I've had no issues with it since then. You might also search here for some comments about making a Fusion drive out of the two drives. That all came out after I had made my changes, so I did not implement a Fusion drive on my system. Whatever you do, good luck with it!

Macwin, thanks for sharing your experience. He fusion disk idea is great. I am gona try that.
I was worried about moving the wrong folder. Last week when I tried to move the iTunes library and was successful and I was happy, but yesterday when I tried to add songs, I couldn't. I used to be a hands on techie long time back, and would get into the nitty gritties but I don't have the luxury of time now a days.
Appreciate your post. Thanks once again.
 
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Momentus will search

For what it is worth MacInWin OWC technicians advise against cloning to an SSD. Something to do with copying platter drives causes problems. They suggest clean OS install and use Migration Assistant to transfer things over.

Do a search George of the Momentus Hybrid. Many, including staff member bobtomay, reported negatively on the drive.

Harry,
I shall study the disks. Thanks for the info.
Probably get the WD and try to create a fusion drive as suggested by macwin.
As far as the CCC is concerned, I had used it quite a few times to clone a spinning drive to a USB drive to a SSD and back to a spinning drive and back to my final OWC that I am using now. Never had a challenge. But that was way back in 2009.
 

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