Dual HDD's (SSD+HDD), Dual OS's (OSX+Win7)

Hey guys.

I'm on a 13" MBP, 2011.

I am thinking about getting a data-doubler or optibay, in order to install an SSD in the optical bay. I would like to run OSX off the SSD.

I would also like to install Win7 via Bootcamp, and run it natively and virtually (Parallels).

FOR THOSE OF YOU HAVE HANDS-ON EXPERIENCE with dual SSD/HDD and OSX/Win7, can you comment? Especially interested in your thoughts about:

- Which bay to use the SSD in (no need for Sudden Motion Sensor, ease of removal for apple care service)

- Your backup schemes

- Thoughts behind the location/size of your Win7 partition.


It seems that having Win7 on the SSD would be ideal from the standpoint of speed, and especially if I want to run it virtually. But then I suppose I need to partition the storage HDD into a windows and OSX segment. More complicated for backup schemes. What do you think?

Please don't crosspost.


(Merged / deleted duplicate post)

And, uh, while we're on the topic, from everything I've read, it looks like I will have to do this for the install:

Clone my current OSX from the OEM HDD, to the SSD.

Install Windows 7 partition on the OEM HDD using bootcamp. (doing the double install, since I own an XP license, but don't want to install it just to use my Win7 upgrade)

Remove Superdrive and replace with SSD/Adapter-bracket. This is the clone destination of the OEM OSX HDD, and should be a possible boot target.


Does this sound reasonable? I have plenty of external HDDs and docks, which I can use to move my data around while I do this.

Bobtomay, I understand your frustration.

I posted this first in a hardware forum and realized it's probably more of a software issue:
- I updated my original post to reflect this,
- included a link,
- and asked the moderator to delete the message, since I couldn't do this myself.

Again, I'm all for efficiency, but mistakes happen.

If you have constructive suggestions, I'm all ears.

I have a mid-2012 MBP 13" with OWC 480GB SSD in the hard drive bay and the stock hard drive in an OWC data doubler in the optical bay. Total install job, including 16GB of memory, was about 20 minutes.

I run OS X and Windows 7. I run both off the SSD. Windows 7 runs off a 30GB .vdi file, which sits on the SSD, and runs under Oracle's Virtual Box (which is free).

Backups are easy - just clone the SSD to a second drive of some kind. That has the effect of making a Windows backup too. I did it this way because I just need Windows 7 to run Visio, Project, Office, etc. Don't need much space for that. Running off an image is less hassle and more efficient than dedicating a whole drive to it. I don't see any advantage to running Windows directly under Bootcamp. Unless you know this resolves some issue of some kind, or that you know you need to do it for some specific reason, I would stick with the virutal route and see how that works for you - and only go the Bootcamp route if you run into issues.