Two hard drive configuration help Windows 7 + Mac

Hi everyone,
So I'm planning on upgrading my early 2011 Macbook Pro 15 by adding an SSD at the expense of the optical drive. Basically, what I would like to do is to replace the current HDD with the new SSD and replace the optical drive with the HDD mounted onto an optical caddy.
In summary:
SSD (main HDD bay) - Mac OS Mountain Lion and Windows 7 + a few Mac/Windows applications
HDD (optical bay) - Mac OS and Windows data files and programs
This is possible? If so, how would I go about doing this?
Cheers!

Hi, I have a 13" mac pro (mid 2012) with a 500GB Apple hard drive. I removed the optical drive and installed a drive adapter with a new SSD (500GB). So to confirm, I have: SSD (optical bay), and HD (main bay). I also wanted Windows via bootcamp on my machine and of course I wanted both it and my Mac OS (Mavericks) on the new SSD (to benefit from the faster drive). Installation of Mavericks on the SSD was no problem, but Bootcamp/Windows installation constantly stalls at a black screen with flashing white cursor in the top left corner.
The breakthrough came when I tried removing the original Apple hard drive from the main bay. With only the SSD (running Mavericks) present in the opti-bay I was able to complete the installation of Windows/Bootcamp on my SSD. Great right?
Yes and no. It's great to have both OSs running on a snappy SSD, but when I re-install the Apple HD in the main bay Windows once again stalls at the black screen with the flashing white cursor in the top left corner.
I thought the problem might be that the computer was getting confused by having two disks each with two OSs (even though holding the Option key from start up brought me to the Boot menu where I was able to choose my OS of choice). So I wiped the Apple HD clean, essentially making it a storage hard drive, no OSs on it. Still wouldn't start up Windows (stalling at the black screen with flashing white cursor). BTW Mavericks will boot from the boot menu, just not Windows. So james1607 it's definitely possible to install Mac OS and Windows on the same SSD but so far my experience says the 2nd drive just confuses the computer re: starting up Windows.
Removing the Apple HD from the main bay solves the issue, but that's very unsatisfying. I want to use my Apple HD as extra storage in my computer not have it gather dust on my bookshelf.
Obviously the Mac Pro is getting confused by having two hard drives present (when trying to start Windows). But why? Anyone out there with similar problem? Solutions? Thanks in advance!

Similar Messages

What is the maximum hard drive height for installing two hard drives in the 2011 Mac Mini

In a few months I'll be buying a Mac Mini. I want to upgrade the stock hard drive with a Seagate Momentus XT Solid state Hybrid Drive(720 RPM), which is 9.5 mm tall.
I would like to add a second hard drive, a Seagate Constellation(7200 RPM), which has a "15mm z-height".
I want to use those hard drives so I can have a speedy Mac Mini, but also have a great amount of storage(1.75 terabytes). My largest priority is storage space, but I also would like to use 7200 RPM hard drives as speed is also a priority.
I would like to know if those two hard drives would both fit in the 2011 Mac Mini.
And also, what does "Z-height" mean in regards to hard drives?

9.5mm is the standard 2.5" drive height. This thread says one 15mm drive may fit, but recommends against a Seagate Constellation drive, due to the amount of power it draws.
One option would be to add an external mini-stack, then storage space becomes a secondary concern. If you want speed, install an SSD for the operating system then put everything else on secondary storage.

Hard drive configuration help needed.

Just got the mac today and I'm starting the upgrades. This is how it will look. 3 1TB seagate drives. I am going to clone the factory drive to one. Install Vista through bootcamp on another.
This is what The Hatter had mentioned in another post that I started. "Vista is easy to install, doesn't need any help really, doesn't run in, under, or through BootCamp. Just format a drive as Master Boot Record, setup one or more FAT partitions (you will need to delete and create NTFS when it gets to the install screen in Vista). Then once running, you install some Apple hardware services and support to allow switching, synching time, and such. And install the latest Nvidia Vista drivers."
I can probably figure out how to get the process started, but I have no clue as to the specifics of the last sentence that starts "Then once running.....". If you see this Hatter, could you please give me the specifics? The third will be for storage.
I noticed that there are no jumpers present on the Western Digital that came with it. So is removing the limiting jumper's from the Segate's the only settings I need to worry about?
Lastly. When I install these drives, will Mac do the format or is there something I need to do first?
Thanks in advance.

You'll need to consult Seagate's configuration information for your drive model. You can locate it at Seagate's web site.
Partitioning and formatting is done using Disk Utility in the Utilities folder. New drives that did not come installed from Apple should be prepped properly as follows:
Extended Hard Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder. If you need to reformat your startup volume, then you must boot from your OS X Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger or Leopard.)
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Set the number of partitions from the dropdown menu (use 1 partition unless you wish to make more.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (only required for Intel Macs) then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the volume(s) mount on the Desktop.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
The exception would be if you plan to set up one entire drive for Vista. In that case when you partition the drive select MBR partition scheme rather than GUID and format the drive MSDOS. You need not use the Write Zeros option. When you install Vista it will reformat the drive NTFS.
If you intend to use part of one drive for Vista and another partition for the Mac, then prep the drive for the Mac as outlined above. Then use Boot Camp to create the Windows partition on the drive. Boot Camp will install the MBR on the Windows partition which you cannot do from Disk Utility.

System hard drive configuration help

Hello everyone,
I am currently upgrading my hard drives to get the best performance possible for pc. I have a couple questions regarding what size hard drives I should get for certain jobs.
1. What size hard drive do you recommend for a cache disk? 120gb SSD good enough?
2. What size hard drive do you recommend for an export drive? Should it be an SSD or HDD? Once I export from premiere/after effects, I will move the file into my media drive anyways so does the hard drive have to be large?
So here is my setup as of right now. It's terrible. Haha
    -512gb ssd for os & programs
    -1TB hdd for everything.
As I have read on multiple forums/google, its best to have a hard drive for specific jobs. I want to make sure I have the concept down.
This is the setup I would like to have......
    -512gb ssd for os & programs
    -2 TB hdd raid 0 configuration
    -120gb ssd cache
    -60gb ssd export drive
Is this a good/correct setup or should I change anything? I do not consider myself an expert on this subject at all so any help/opinions are appreciated!
My PC specs are:
Intel Core i7 5930K Hex-Core 3.5GHz
16GB Corsair Dominator Platinum 2666Mhz (4x4GB)
Single EVGA 4GB NVIDIA GTX 970
ASUS X99 Deluxe Motherboard
Thanks!!
-Matt

So you currently are aiming for
-512gb ssd for os & programs
-2 TB hdd raid 0 configuration
-120gb ssd cache
-60gb ssd export drive
Do you need 512 for OS / Applications? Seems a waste of a nice piece of hardware. If you can look at switching that for a smaller SSD and then you can use that as a export / target drive. If you are exporting raw or similar then 60GB's will be only a couple of minutes.
As for your raid 0 configuration, remember more = faster, the more drives in the array the faster the times are. With disk prices these I would consider 3 X 2 or 3TB drives. Not sure how many SATA ports you have. If you have more, add more drives.
**Edit - I use the same SSD target or export drive as my cache drive and have not seen any delays at any given time.

Two hard drive configuration on MacBook Pro

Hi everyone,
So I'm planning on upgrading my early 2011 Macbook Pro 15 by adding an SSD at the expense of the optical drive. Basically, what I would like to do is to replace the current HDD with the new SSD and replace the optical drive with the HDD mounted onto an optical caddy.
In summary:
SSD (main HDD bay) - Mac OS Mountain Lion and Windows 7 + a few Mac/Windows applications
HDD (optical bay) - Mac OS and Windows data files and programs
This is possible? If so, how would I go about doing this?
Cheers!

I actually picked up a tip from these forums
I'm just about to do this myself and I really wanted the new drive, a SSD, that I'm installing in the optical bay to have everything the original drive has on it, including the Recovery partition.
So I use Lions Disk Utilities to create a image of the whole/complete original drive and put that on a external drive.
When I get done installing the new drive I will Restore that image to the new SSD in the optical bay.
Haven't done it yet so I'm not totally sure if it's going to work but it's worth a shot.
All of these so called Cloning program only clone the OS partition. They can't clone the whole drive, at least not partitions that are marked as hidden. Which for me makes them just about useless.
I'll post back in a few days when I get all the parts to do this.

How do I access my Mac hard drive from my Windows OS?

I recently bought a MacBook Pro and had it partitioned into two hard drives, 65 gig of mac and 35 gig of windows, which will mostly be for games. However, when I am running OS X, i can explore the windows hard drive, but when I run XP, I can't explore the Mac hard drive. I turned file sharing on, so I thought I should be able to. My main reason for this question is because I moved my music to the mac side, and I want windows to be able to access it so that I dont have to store it on both sides. Thanks so much!

Hi Josh!
If you're sharing from Mac to Windows then obviously your network connection is working fine. What happens when you try to share from Windows to Mac? Are you getting error messages?
I highly suggest using SharePoints to create the Windows shares on your Mac. Then on your Windows machine go to Start --> Run and enter something like "\\MacIPaddress\newshare".
Hope this helps! bill
1 GHz Powerbook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Hard Drive configuration for speed

I've got a question regarding the best hard drive configuration for my mac pro. I'm looking to increase the boot speed, application load speed and particularly the speed with which hard drive intensive photoshop processes complete. Right now I'm just using some normal SATA II drives. I'd appreciate it if you could give me some feedback on the various options I am currently considering.
-2x 64GB SSD in a RAID 0 for OS X and applications with some large SATA drives for storage
-4x 300GB VelociRaptor 10k RPM SATA HDD in a RAID 0
-2x 147GB SAS 15k RPM HDD in RAID 0 with some large SATA drives for storage
I am particularly in the dark about the controllers I'd use for each solution. Clearly, I would absolutely require a PCIe card for the SAS drives, but would there be a marked advantage to using a hardware RAID card for the SATA drives over the software RAID in OS X? Also, how easy is it to get the mac pro to boot off drives connected to a controller card rather than the standard setup? And lastly, if there is good reason to use a card, are there any in particular that you would recommend?
Thanks a lot!

2. No. Do not make two partitions unless you do not plan to use Boot Camp Assistant to install Windows on that partition. If you plan to create a Boot Camp partition then you must partition the drive as one Mac OS X volume. Boot Camp Assistant will then create the Windows volume.
3. This drive must be repartitioned and reformatted as follows:
Extended Hard Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to two. Use the graphic resizer to set the desired sizes for each volume as you want. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (only required for Intel Macs) then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the first volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
7. Select the second volume you created and repeat Steps 4-6.
4. Now here I don't know what you think is your best option. You can buy any two hard drives you want. The ones I identified were only an example of what you could purchase for under $300. There are others, slightly more expensive, that would work, and you would still be under your $300 budget. The Samsung drives are good drives and reasonably priced, but they are just one of several alternatives. You should do some checking on your own before making your decision. I'm just giving some guidance, not trying to tell you what you should do. I've provided three sites where you can read reviews and benchmarks before you decide. You need to "own" your decision.
As for how you configure these two drives that's a secondary issue. I would recommend using them for backup. Two possible arrangements are a Mirrored or a Striped RAID array. A mirrored RAID array would create one volume that has a 1 TB capacity. Everything saved to that volume is essentially saved twice - once on one drive then a copy is mirrored to the other drive. This is not what you described in your Item 4. That's not how it works. Anything saved to the mirrored RAID array is saved the way I described it just above. It makes no difference where the files come from.
Now you can use the mirrored RAID array as a Time Machine backup drive if you want, but then you should not use it for other data storage. You would need the entire capacity as backup for both of the 500 GB drives you currently have. A mirrored RAID provides some data redundancy by having a copy of everything one each drive. Thus, if one drive fails the other drive still functions and your data backup is intact. Mirrored RAIDs are generally no faster than an individual drive that makes up the array.
The second suggestion was to make a Striped RAID array. This type of array produces one volume that is twice the size of the the two drives that make up the array. Thus, you would have a single volume that is 2 TBs in size. You can use this volume for your Time Machine backups also. Striped RAIDs do not provide any data redundancy. If one drive fails all the data stored on the RAID will be lost. However, Striped RAIDs are nearly twice as fast as either drive that makes up the array. This would give you very fast storage and backup.
You could also just leave the two drives to operate independently. Use on for Time Machine backups, use the other for more storage space.
Other possibilities abound. It's pretty much up to you to decide what will fit best into your needs today and in the future. Don't feel obliged to do what one person tells you. Five different users on the Discussions will give five different opinions.
I suggest you educate yourself a bit on backup and restore by reading the FAQ about backup and restore at The XLab FAQs.
Following is more information on RAIDs:
RAID Basics
For basic definitions and discussion of what a RAID is and the different types of RAIDs see RAIDs. Additional discussions plus advantages and disadvantages of RAIDs and different RAID arrays see:
RAID Tutorial;
RAID Array and Server: Hardware and Service Comparison>.
Hardware or Software RAID?
RAID Hardware Vs RAID Software - What is your best option?
RAID is a method of combining multiple disk drives into a single entity in order to improve the overall performance and reliability of your system. The different options for combining the disks are referred to as RAID levels. There are several different levels of RAID available depending on the needs of your system. One of the options available to you is whether you should use a Hardware RAID solution or a Software RAID solution.
RAID Hardware is always a disk controller to which you can cable up the disk drives. RAID Software is a set of kernel modules coupled together with management utilities that implement RAID in Software and require no additional hardware.
Pros and cons
Software RAID is more flexible than Hardware RAID. Software RAID is also considerably less expensive. On the other hand, a Software RAID system requires more CPU cycles and power to run well than a comparable Hardware RAID System. Also, because Software RAID operates on a partition by partition basis where a number of individual disk partitions are grouped together as opposed to Hardware RAID systems which generally group together entire disk drives, Software RAID tends be slightly more complicated to run. This is because it has more available configurations and options. An added benefit to the slightly more expensive Hardware RAID solution is that many Hardware RAID systems incorporate features that are specialized for optimizing the performance of your system.
For more detailed information on the differences between Software RAID and Hardware RAID you may want to read: Hardware RAID vs. Software RAID: Which Implementation is Best for my Application?
OS X has software for creating RAIDs by using Disk Utility. Open Disk Utility and select DU Help from the Help menu. Search for "raid" without quotes. You will find information on how to set up mirrored and striped RAIDs using Disk Utility.

Hard Drive Configure for MacBook Pro HD Editing

Can someone give me some advice on a two hard drive configuration that could be hot swappable.
I was told that I need two hard drives together to maximize speed for Proress 10 bit hd editing. Can you explain how configuring two hard drives gives me more speed to give me more real time cap.
I have seen a Lacie 2big swappable ext hard drive system and if I get the e sata connection. would that be fast enough if so what Raid system would be best.
Thanks for any input.

www.caldigit.com
FirewireVR
S2VR Duo
Explaination of the various RAID levels:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StandardRAIDlevels
what Raid system would be best.
For...? What type of footage are you trying to work with? RAID 5 is the best...Protection and speed. Look at the HDone for that. And look at www.maxxdigtial.com, sonnettech.com, g-technology.com...
LaCie? Consumer level...bad rep.
Shane

How do I take ownership of a hard drive build in windows but installed as an additional disk in my new Mac Pro?

How do I take ownership of a hard drive build in windows but installed as an additional disk in my new Mac Pro?
I bought a Mac and have various HDDs, some Portable some SATA, I can right to them and dont seem to be able to take ownership of them, is this to do with the format or Security seting I can't find?
Any help would be great; thanks.
Stephen

Thanks Kaz-K, this was what I assumed it to be. I have started to move the stuf over to a 4GB internal drive, once done and verified, I will reformat the drive and move it back, blooming nusience.
Cheers.
Stephen

New Mac Mini Server, two Hard drives, Can I install an older Mac OS on the second drive and switch start up disks to run PowerPc applications?

New Mac Mini Server, has two Hard drives, could I install an older Mac OS on the second drive and switch start up disks to run PowerPc applications?

I haven't purchased a Mac Mini at this time and I may not if I can't use it as a non server. I need to update my system I would be better off buying a new Mac with Snow Leopard the last app that will run Rosetta. The Mac Mini Server has a quad 2.0 processor and 4 GB RAM and two internal hard drives and should out perform my dual 1.25 G4. I can run PPC apps on my G4 but it is 8+ years old and seems to be getting noisy. I don't want to tie myself to another old machine. I want a machine that will work with Intel Apps I was hoping that the two hard drives would allow me to boot from the second with Snow Leopard and use Lion on the first drive to be able to keep up to date with all my other universal apps and Mac OS up grades. The application I use the most is my CanvasX app with drawing & vector effects, text & typography, sprite technology, painting, image editing, and multimedia tools are all in this one app but will not be updated to run Intel apps. I am frozen in time because my most valuable Application won't be updated and Apple has cut me off by not supporting PPC in Lion and onward; Apple used to backward support but I guess that they are no longer as user friendly and concerned with a happy user. I have always been a loyal Mac user and I will not migrate to Windows under any circumstance; I hate windows!
Thanks for your prompt response,
Dick Deaton

How to get two hard drives to be seen on MBP desktop. I need to be able to see 2 hds both 3 tb to transfer data between them. This is easy in windows just open two instances, one for eac hard drive. TIA robbo

am trying to back up and transfer data between two hard drives but cant get up twp Hd icons at the same time. It is so easy in windows but cant seem to do it in MBPro. Even Dick Smith couldnt help me today.
It is probaly so easy it everyone will LOL but I cant get it happening.
TIA Robbo

Do the HD icons appear on your Desktop?
If not, adjust your Finder preferences:
Also check "Hard Disks" if you want your internal HD to appear on the Desktop.
Open one, open the other, should be no problem.

I have two hard drives on my mac 10.5.8 power pc and hear the clickking sounds of the first hard drive and think that it may be dying, can I install everything on the other hard drive also and wait for the first drvie to die before i use the other drives

I have two hard drives on my mac 10.5.8 power pc and hear the clickking sounds of the first hard drive and think that it may be dying, can I install everything on the other hard drive also and wait for the first drive to die before i use the other drives? Or, what is the best way to handle this?

I do not know what you are waiting for.
I'd make a backup of your important stuff before cloning the entire disk.
Carbon Copy Cloner will copy your startup drive to an external firewire drive. You can boot from the external drive to verify that you have a good clone. When you upgrade your existing startup drive, you can at any time boot from your external drive and go back to your existing system.
http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
SuperDuper is the wildly acclaimed program that makes recovery painless, because it makes creating a fully bootable backup painless. Its incredibly clear, friendly interface is understandable, easy to use, and SuperDuper's built-in scheduler makes it trivial to back up automatically. And it runs beautifully on both Intel and Power PC Macs!

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Format it as MS-DOS from a Mac or exFAT from a PC, or install Mac OS X software which allows it to write to NTFS drives, or hook it up to a PC and make it available as a network share.
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Two Hard Drives on my computer - one totally full the other totally empty - how do I manage this - windows 8

Hi I have two hard drives on my computer running Windows 8. One is called OS (C:) and has 10.2GB free of 186GB, the other is Data (D:) and has 258GB of 258GB free.
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Hi,
In addition to the above information,
If your operating system is Windows 2008 and higher(Server) or Windows Vista and higher(Client).
Then you can use the native tool Disk Management to solve your requirement.
For opening Disk Management, Right click -> Computer -> Select Manage -> As result Computer Management console opens -> In the left pane under storage select Disk Management.
In the Disk Management, for extending your C: drive,
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- Since the unallocated space is not contiguous, when you right-click C: drive the "Extend Volume" option will be greyed out.
- So to solve your requirement, you have to backup the data on D: drive -> Delete D: drive -> right-click on the c drive and select "Extend Volume" -> enter the size you want to add
- Finally you can create a new D: drive from the remaining unallocated space and restore the backup data.
Checkout the below thread on similar discussion,
how
to increase space in c drive
Regards,
Gopi
JiJi Technologies

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1. Click here and buy a Mac OS X 10.6 DVD.
2. Use the Boot Camp Assistant in the /Applications/Utilities/ folder to return the drive to a single partition setup.
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Two hard drive configuration help Windows 7 + Mac

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