Is the optical drive SATA & swappable?

I'm looking to buy a bunch of these now that they've finally updated them. However, the whole thing hinges on whether the optical drive can be replaced with a second hard drive.
Once folks start getting theirs delivered, I'd be interested to know if the superdrive is SATA and if there is room to replace it with a second HDD?
Thanks.

These folks have already disassembled the new Mini
http://www.macminicolo.net/macmini2009.html
"Three months ago, we published an article called The State of the Mac mini. In this article, we were the first the mention that the new mini would have a SATA optical drive, making it easier to have a second hard drive in it. It turns out that the optical drive is indeed SATA."

Similar Messages

MBP (9,1) Optical Drive SATA link speed?

I have found about 400 different answers for this question. Every messageboard i post to seems to have a different opinion, so to end all my confusion:
Does the Optical Drive SATA port in the Macbook Pro 9,1 non-retina model have a 6 Gbps link, or does it have a 3 Gbps link.
I have been told different answers from numerous Apple techs, and cant seem to get a concrete answer on this one. Anyone know?

It has a SATA 3 rating, 6 GBs. Whether you will ever see that or whethere it really works with fast drives, SSDs, is another story.

On my Macbook pro 15 2011, System Profiler is suggesting that it uses SATA III for the hard drive and SATA II for the Optical Drive. Is that true?

On my Macbook pro 15, 2011, System Profiler is suggesting that it uses SATA III for the hard drive and SATA II for the Optical Drive. Is that true?

That is correct. The tech specs indicate:
Hard Drive Interface
6.0 Gbps Serial ATA (SATA)
Optical Drive Interface
3.0 or 6.0 Gbps Serial ATA (SATA)

I want to replace the optical drive in my iBook with a SATA-SSD.

I want to replace the optical drive in my iBook with a SATA-SSD (using a HDD-caddy PATA to SATA) and use that as my OS disk. Is there a speed difference between the ATA connections of the optical drive and the hard drive? Mactracker tells me that the Hard Drive Bus is Ultra ATA/100 (ATA-6), but there is no information to the Bus of the optical drive. Is it the same?

There may be a kit from OWC to replace the optical drive in the old iBook G4 with an SSD. They have similar items for other portable Macs of the era where optical drives still were inside.
They do have what they call a 'legacy' ATA/IDE SSD series of portable computer drive for use in older type architecture, but I don't see the kit to replace the optical drive with an SSD on the same page... They do offer a live chat on the page, though. So it is possible to ask questions and hope you get matching results...
•OWC Mercury Legacy Pro:
For all laptops that use a 2.5" IDE/ATA Drive
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/OWC/Mercury_Legacy_Pro
I'd considered upgrading my iBook G4 (mid-2005) 12" 1.33GHz computer with an SSD because the original 38GB HDD is rather tight with Leopard OS X 10.5.8 installed and some applications. And it has the max RAM at 1.5GB. Plus it would need a new battery since both batteries from Apple failed early on with low use cycles. I do like the idea of wear-leveling technologies in their Mercury Legacy drives. And some of the external enclosures look durable enough.
Hopefully they can answer some questions.
Good luck & happy computing!

Retrieve data from a Hard Disk That was connected to the optical Drive of Mac Book pro

Hi Experts
I have been using a Mac Book pro from 2011 (Early 2011 Model), In the mid of 2012 I have planned to upgrade, and bought a 240 GB SSD and 16 GB ram from OWC, Installed successfully and bought another 750 GB WD Sata Disk and connected it to the Optical Drive Bay of the Laptop, using the optical drive as an external device now
I was using the SSD as the main disk for all the applications and OS itself, and tranferred all the user library (iTunes Library, iPhoto Library, Documents etc..) to the additinal 750 SATA Disk,
Last week the Mag Safe cable has been worn out and seperated completely from the adapter, I tried soldering the cable again and it was working for two days, third day The machine stopped charging and it was working until the battery run out of charge,
Now I have bought a new Mag Safe Charger for 108 Singapore Dollars and it wont charge, read in iFixit Forums to change the Mag Safe DC in Board, so found a new part in singapore and replaced DC in Board myself, after doing this when I connected the new mag safe adapter, it fired the cpu fan for two second, I was able to see the green light the adapter and it stopped again and the green light wont lit up now
Removed the logic board from Laptop completely and tried connecting the Mag Safe Adapter I can see the green light,
So with all the above details, Iam confused whether its the Logic Board or the Battery that is giving me issue, I can find out the problem by contacting a Authorised service centre, but Iam thinking whether its is worth to repair it or buy a New Mac Book Pro ?, Because if I need to change the logic Board need to spend 900 Dollars + 100 dollar service charge
So I was trying to remove the 750 GB WD Sata Disk to see if I can get the data back so I can buy a new Laptop without worrying,
The real issue now is when I connect the 750 WD Disk using a sata to usb converter cable to my official macbook, it says the connected USB device is drawing more power than expected and it wont even detect the hard disk, Iam wondering why it cannot detect the hard disk even in the disk utility, is there any way to get the data back from the 750 GB WD Sata disk (which was connected to the Optical Drive Bay)
Your expert advice is much appreciated
Regards
Vinodh

Welcome to the discussions!
It sounds as if your disk was not correctly formatted to work with the Mac operating system. I suspect it was formatted in FAT32, which is primarily a Windows format. This type of format will not allow the disk to accept any files larger than 4GB. That's probably why you are seeing the crashes.
Connect the drive to your Mac and open Applications > Utilities > Airport Utility.
Click your disk on the left and click the erase tab on the right. You need to format the drive in +Mac OS Extended (Journaled)+. Formatting will erase everything on the disk.
Then you could try the drive again attached to your AirPort Extreme to see if that will do what you want.

Win 8.1 - solid HDD light on a W530 when the optical drive is closed

Hello,
I have a new W530 with Windows 8.1 on and a short time after boot or resume from standby, the HDD light will illuminate solidly (not flickering at all) with no disk activity to speak of showing in task manager.
I have tried the usual steps of disabling superfetch, search indexing, av, etc. and nothing helps. The only thing that does influence the light is whether the optical drive is closed or not. With the drive open, the light behaves normally and reflects the peaks of activity shown in task manager. The light going solid coincides with Windows turning off the Optical drive after start up when Zero Power ODD is enabled (the light still goes solid after a few seconds with Zero Power ODD disabled so may be related to some energy saving mode?).
This behaivour is not exhibited in Windows 8, Ubuntu 14.04, FreeDOS or the Bios so does seem to be an oddity of 8.1 on the W530. There appears to be no impact on performance of the system so it is more of an annoyance.
I am wondering if anyone else has come across this and/or has any suggestions as I don't fancy siutting with my optical drive open all the time...
Relevant specs are below:
Intel i7-3740QM
8GB RAM
250GB Samsung 840 EVO mSATA SSD (OS drive & boot drive, hardware/eDrive encrypted with Bitlocker)
500GB Hitachi Travelstar 7200RPM HDD
Nvidia Quadro K1000M 2GB (running in Optimus with Intel HD Graphics)
The laptop is configured with a static 1GB page file on the SSD and a static 36GB page file on the HDD.
Solved!
Go to Solution.

Ok, a bit of progress... For some reason, The SATA controller had been set to Compatability in the Bios rather than AHCI. Doing a fresh build with AHCI enabled did not exhibit the solid light when the Lenovo Settings Dependency Package was installed
Restoring my system image and then going through the process of enabling AHCI after a windows 8.1 install has solved the issue.
So, lesson learned - AHCI is needed in this config unless a solid HDD light is wanted. Obviously this is a bug, what is the best way to report it to Lenovo officially?

(2011 13" Macbook Pro Model 8,1) I want to replace my 320GB HDD and replace it with a 6gb/s 120GB SSD. I also want to replace the optical drive with a 7200RPM HDD 750GB.

I want to use:
The SSD and enclosure to replace the optical drive with the new HDD
So basically, I want to use the SSD in the link above. I want to set this up as either preferrably a fusion drive. If not the smoothest most stable configuration. I have a Macbook Pro Early 2011 13" with 8 GB of ram, 2.3 GHz Intel Core i5, 320GB HDD.
I want to install the SSD directly to the SATA port where the 320 GB HDD is currently. I then want to install the new HDD, preferrably a name brand 750 GB 7200RPM hard drive where the optical drive is now. I want the storage to work in a way in which the OS, and my most used programs and files get stored on the SSD, and everything else gets stored on the larger hard drive. My most preferred method would be Fusion drive, or a SPAN drive.
I would like to use a Seagate Momentus XT, but I learned that there might be issues with compatability with this. I dont mind using the 3 gb/s 500GB option, but would like to know if it would even be smart to do it. I also have no problem settling for a regular 7200 RPM hard drive.
I have read a bunch of stuff online but I still am not sure if this is even possible. I want my machine to run as fluid as possible so any info would be appreciated.

bump

Using the optical drive of a MacBook Pro from new iMac for iTunes

Can I connect my macbook pro to my new iMac (no optical drive) with ethernet cable and use the optical drive of the macbook pro to upload CDs to iTunes on the new iMac?

On my 17" MacBook Pro I use the eSata port for Black X Duet Hard Drive Docking station where I put 2 1TB Hitachi internal drives. They are swappable and are about $80.00US. I use the USB port for my system backup and a G-force 500 MB bus powered portable drive on the FW800 port just for the heck of it. It works out really well for me.

Putting a SSD in the optical drive bay of a late 2011 MacBook Pro.

I want to put a large Solid State Drive in the optical drive bay of my late 2011 (Model ID 8,2, 2.4 GHZ quad i7, 8 Gigs RAM, SSD boot drive) using the carrier and drive from Other World Computing. The "About This Mac" box shows that the optical drive is 6G so I'm thinking that it should be OK putting a 6G drive in that bay, but OWC says that MacBook Pros have only a 3G optical drive capability. I know this was true on earlier models, but my bay says 6G.   The 6 G SSD's are faster and have a longer warranty. I do pro audio work and want to record to the new drive with speed and reliability. Is there any way to prove that my MBPro will handle 6G? I was told by someone at OWC who looked up my my serial number that it would work, but another tech guy at OWC said they didn't recommend it. I'm thinking that they just issue a blanket "no" answer to cover themselves against people ordering a 6G drive for a machine that wouldn't handle it. Before I order a 6G drive is there a way I can know for sure if it will work?
Many thanks,
Robert

If the computer is correctly identified as 15-inch Late 2011 MacBook Pro, and not an Early 2011 build series,
according to MacTracker database (http://mactracker.ca download application) optical drive interface supports
the same spec as the hard disk drive...
Hard Drive Interface    6.0 Gbps Serial ATA (SATA)
Optical Drive Interface    6.0 Gbps Serial ATA (SATA)
So should there be an error in identification, that would make a difference. Some Early 2011 models may
have the 3.0 Gbps or 6.0Gbps data rate in the optical drive. All Late 2011 models should be 6.0 Gbps.
Good luck & happy computing!

Is the optical drive port on my logicboard dead?

Hi all,
I'm running OS X 10.8.5 on a MacBook Pro 15" early-2011 with 16GB 1333MHz DDR3 and 2.3 GHz Intel Core i7. Apple states it only supports up to 8GB but I've been running 16GB for a few years and it works much better!
Additionally I replaced the optical drive many years ago with an OptiBay and a 1TB SSD, and use the main hard drive bay for a 2TB SATA. I would swap them (since the main drive bay has faster speeds) but the 2TB SATA is too thick to fit into the place of the optical bay. This has been working great and every year or so I upgrade a drive. I've been using this configuration for probably a year now and one day the SATA (in the location of the optical bay) stopped working.
I connected the SATA via USB and it works, so it's not the SATA drive. I replaced the OptiBay (which converts the optical port cable to SATA) and that did not resolve it. I then replaced the actual cable as well, and still no go. I tried putting the SSD in the optical bay and no go. Obviously the only thing left is the physical port on the logic board.
Has anyone ran into this? Any thoughts on resolving or what the problem is? I'm very comfortable working with the laptop and have even did SMD (hot air reflowing) of the GPU in the past on this.
ps, One thing that has been strange in the past is that at one point, the same port would *not* work with some drives but would work with others. I replaced the cable that connects from the logic board to the optical drive (or optibay in my configuration) and this resolved it, but the oddity was that it was only certain drives.
Thanks!
-samy

Your HDD or the internal connection cable may have failed. If you have a HDD enclosure, take the internal HHD out and install it into the enclosure. Use the original install disk and see if you can install the OS. If not, the HDD is probably dead and will have to be replaced. If it will accept the OS, then the internal cable is faulty and will have to be replaced.
Ciao.

How much would it cost to replace the optical drive

I have a 48 month old mac pro. I use the optical drive quite a bit for listening or downloading music from my cd's. There is now a loud mechanical noise coming from it , and it is now very choosy about what cd's it wants to play. It is also getting very difficult to eject without having to restart it several times as well as pressing subsequent buttons.
        I have read several discussions on these pages and have gone through several elimmination processes . Including cleaning discs.
          Now i fear that there is no option but to replace the optical drive.
       How much am looking at spending and although its not a perfect remedy , is it cheaper to buy an external drive as much as that would pain me.
Thank you.
Ray.

Optical drives for 2008-2012 Mac pro desktops use the standard SATA connectors.That drive
http://www.lg.com/us/products/documents/GGC-H20LSpec.PDF
has those connections. Thus is should be directly replaceable with your original drive.
http://eshop.macsales.com/installvideos/macpro_2009_opt/
For earlier Mac Pros
https://eshop.macsales.com/tech_center/manuals/cdinstall/macpro_optical_install. pdf

My MacBook Air does not have an optical drive. I have a program (Megastar V) which is installed using a CD. Is there a way to use the optical drive on my PC laptop to install this program on my MacBook Air?

MacBook Air does not have an optical drive. There is a program I wish to install on my Air which is an astronomy application called Megastar V. Installation requires the use of a CD. Is there a way to use the optical drive on my PC (toshiba laptop using Windows 7) to install this program onto my Air?
With gratitude,
Otto

Thank you for explaining to me how to do this. I will try it tomorrow and let all of you know how it goes.
Otto

The optical drive on my Macbook white keeps ejecting DVD's?

So am trying to upgrade to snow leopard on my older intel based macbook white, but the disc just ejects, first I thought it was a problem with the disc, but I tried with another DVD and did the same thing. CD's seem to work fine.
Tried the disc utility repair and safe mode and all that but no joy. So I also have a newer aluminium macbook which works great, so I was wondering if it was at all possible to use the optical drive on my newer macbook to install the disc on my older macbook using the remote disc facility? I know its for the Air but is there a way to make it work for my non air macbook. I wanna see if this is possible before I go to the expense of getting an external DVD drive or even getting it fixed by apple which im sure is gunna costa an arm and a leg!
Or is there something else I can try to get my dvd section of the optical drive working again?
Many thanks
Hannah

If I were you, I'd uninstall Power Manager entirely. I don't particularly like any of Lenovo's software. Each and every one has caused me problems so I've gotten rid of them all.

HT1305 how can i turn down the fan rpm that's between the optical drive and hdd in my power mac g5 dual 2.3?

how can i turn down the fan rpm that's between the optical drive and hdd in my power mac g5 dual 2.3?

Ok, I saw that error in your logic. A Dual G5 2.3 or even a Dual Core 2.3 does NOT use LCS at all. Its air cooled and if anything if the OP is experiencing this problems could be due to possible heatsink paste drying up. He might have to re-apply MX 7 or Arctic Silver.
The only G5's that use LCS are: G5 dual 2.5 from Late 2004, the G5 Dual 2.7 from Early 2005, and lastly the G5 Quad-Core from Late 2005-end of September 2006.
Hope this helps.

IMac internal optical drive reads and plays cd's but DVD's spin for a few moments then eject. Then any drive utility access results in the spinning wheel of doom. Then the optical drive doesn't show up anywhere until a restart. OSX 10.6.8 - Intel Core 2

iMac internal drive locks up after trying to play a DVD. CD's work properly. All preference settings are correct. I have tried several different DVD's that work in other drives. Drive is : HL-DT-ST DVDRW GA11N. After spinning wheel of doom goes away, so does the optical drive in Disk Utility and System Profiler and no disks work because the drive isn't there until a restsrt. Any ideas? Thanks.

The battery alone is a $5 to $15 part. Hard drives vary in cost, and depending on the iMac, they may or may not be able to install a third party hard drive, or one resold through Apple. The resold through Apple drives tend to cost more. This article discusses the varying successes of third party drives on iMacs:
http://blog.macsales.com/10146-apple-further-restricts-upgrade-options-on-new-im acs
The labor costs depend on the store as well as the time to get the parts in stock. Call around.

Is the optical drive SATA & swappable?

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