Putting an HDD in Optical Drive Bay

Hey everyone, I recently bought an SSD for my Macbook Pro. Then I turned my old HDD into and external drive. I thought about it and realized I never even use my Optical Drive. So here's what I want to do. I want to put my HDD into my optical drive bay and put my optical drive into an external enclosure. I have found an optical drive caddy that will work, but I am having some trouble finding an external drive. I read some reviews on a few products and it sounds like every optical drive is different. One might fit perfectly while another may take some modding. Is this true?

I have a mid-2011 Macbook Pro

Mainly what I need to know is if anyone knows of a good external enclosure that will for sure work with my optical drive.

Here is what I have found.
This is the internal caddy - Newegg.com - SATA 2.5" / 9.5mm 2nd Hard Disk Drive Caddy Adapter Special Designed For Apple macbook pro (13,15,17) SuperDrive MB470LL/A, MB471LL/A, MB604LL/A, MB026LL/A, MB990LL/A, MB991LL/A, MB725LL/A

Here is what I am thinking about for the external enclosure - Newegg.com - StarTech SLMSOPTB USB to Slimline CD/DVD Optical Drive Black External Enclosure
Will this work??


Thanks!!!

Anybody have any help? Anything is appreciated!

Any help??

It looks like everything should work. But I'd recommend putting the SSD in the optical bay adapter and reinstalling the HDD in the factory location. Reason being is the factory location is cushioned for the hard drive, so if the computer were to be knocked, it shouldn't suffer any issues.

Stretch said:

It looks like everything should work. But I'd recommend putting the SSD in the optical bay adapter and reinstalling the HDD in the factory location. Reason being is the factory location is cushioned for the hard drive, so if the computer were to be knocked, it shouldn't suffer any issues.

Click to expand...

You're saying put the HDD into the original Hard Drive space? If it were cushioned and designed to reduce shock wouldn't I want my SSD there?

Thanks for the reply!!

SSDs have no moving parts, therefore no need for a cushioned space. Your HDD is rotating at least at 5400RPM, and bumps can have devastating results to a HDD while being used.

Okay that makes sense. But doesn't the Optical Drive bay use SATA II while the default Hard Drive space uses SATA III?

Mid 2011 MBP should have SATA 3 in both bays. You can double check by opening System Information in the Utilities folder.

What would that be under? I checked every option under Hardware.

Alright thanks! It is also SATA 3 so I might switch them. Thanks for all your help!!!

Increased power consumption with SSD & HDD?

Hi,

On the same topic, I recently ordered the 250GB SSD from OWC and have just ordered a caddy to replace the optical drive. I would now like to levae my HDD in position and replace the optical drive with the SSD (installed in the caddy).

Questions:
- I assume the boot and normal operations of the mac would be from the 250GB SSD?

- Will there be increased power consumption if the HDD and the SSD both were installed in my macbook pro (late 2011 model)? Will this adversely affect the battery?

- Can I configure the SSD+HDD on lines of Apples's Fusion drive?

Thanks in advance.

just one thing to think of....
If you put the ssd in the optical drive, and use it as boot drive - then wont this cause power problems later ? It was my understanding that the MBP will auto powerdown the optical drive - which is why people tend to put the HDD into the optical slot and the SSD into the HDD slot.

My MBP has HDD+SSD in this configuration (installed by reseller that I bought it from) I have optical drive on USB (not used it yet except to make sure it works). When looking into it I did notice that you can purchase a bay adaptor that includes a caddy to put your optical drive into - might be worth looking for that.