SATA at optical drive bay

Greetings,
I just mounted a hard disk below the Superdrive. On checking the system profile, it reads:
Link Speed: 3 Gigabit
Negotiated Link Speed: 1.5 Gigabit
Just wondering do both devices share a same channel/port?
Thanks

It means the drive is limited to 1.5 GB/sec. Some drives, such as Western Digital Raptors only run at 1.5 GB/sec Some drives ship with a jumper installed to set them to that speed for compatibly with older SATA controllers, but will run at a higher link speed if the jumper is removed. See if there is a label on the drive for jumper settings.
It doesn't make much difference, anyway, except for some SSDs, since hard drives can't actually read or write faster than 1.5 GB/sec. The higher speed is only used moving data to the drive's cache. Since OSX is already usng RAM for caching, you won't see any speed difference.

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Can I use the 2nd Optical Drive Bay on my Mac Pro for an SSD?

Since I have no plans to add a second Optical Drive to my Mac Pro in the Second Optical Drive bay, I was wondering if I could put an SSD in that bay using a 2.5' to 3.5" drive carriage. Is this possible? Would it work? Would I be able to use it as my boot drive? Never tried this, so not sure if it would work.
Thanks in advance.

Your 2010 model has SATA wiring in that bay, so the SSD plugs right in.
Macs can boot from the drive specified in System preferences > Startup Disk.
You would need an adapter from 2.5 size of the drive to the 5.25 (CD drive) size expected, but since there are no moving parts, most folks just dump the drive in there without a bracket.
The biggest payback comes from establishing a Boot Drive with only System, Library, Applications, and the hidden Unix files including Paging/Swap. Putting the boot drive on an SSD is frosting -- it provides an incremental improvement over a spinning Boot drive.
A caution when establishing your drive -- some users have killed brand new SSD drives by cloning onto them. The manufacturers have not been helpful in telling us why this happens, but a clean Install may be a better way to proceed.

Add a 2nd HDD using the CD/DVD Optical Drive Bay

Hi HP,I,m going to add a 2nd HDD for my laptop bu using CD/DVD optical drive bay,so,i don't know if optical drive connection support SATA 2 or SATA3? And where i can buy a bay for 2nd HDD( good quality)? Tks a lot!
This question was solved.
View Solution.

Dảkwarrior1912 wrote:
Why hard drive conection support SATA 3 but optical drive support SATA2??As i know the other notebook like asus or dell support SATA 3 both conection(hard drive and optical drive)
It appears that you did not understand the post that I made.
If you purchase a high end notebook that has a chipset with sata controllers that support SATA3 then SATA3 devices will run at SATA3 bandwidth. Your notebook is not one that does.
It would not matter which brand you chose.
If you decided to economize and purchase a mainstream notebook, then the issue would still be the same.
Notebooks are not created equally. It is the same with desktop PCs.
That is why each manufacturer has a tiered structure to accomodate the economic means of the target market.
1) Entry level (basic chipset and CPU) $
2) Mainstream (mid level chipset and mainstream CPU) $$
3) High end. (high end chipset and high performance CPU, wifi adapter and even SSD hard disks) $$$
****Please click on Accept As Solution if a suggestion solves your problem. It helps others facing the same problem to find a solution easily****
2015 Microsoft MVP - Windows Experience Consumer

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!

Installing IDE HD in empty optical drive bay?

I guess the subject line about says it all; Can I install an IDE hard drive removed from my previous Mac and install it in the empty optical drive bay of my Mac Pro? It looks like it should work...
Mac Pro Mac OS X (10.4.7)

I guess the subject line about says it all; Can I
install an IDE hard drive removed from my previous
Mac and install it in the empty optical drive bay of
my Mac Pro? It looks like it should
work...
Mac Pro
Mac OS X (10.4.7)
Hi ElectricDan,
Yes you can it works,
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=3183553#3183553
Peloche
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I love the dual optical drive bays in my PowerMac G4 FW800 DP 1.25GHz. I don't like the single drive in the G5s because I like to be able to copy and clone disks easily. Having one drive requires extra steps to make copies and I don 't like the clutter and expense of exterior drives.
Is there a compelling reason why Apple would not at some point reintroduce dual optical drive bays in the future Intel Macs?
I prefer expandability over limitations. And BTW, I have always felt that the PM G4 FW800 MDD was the most beautiful Mac ever made. I like the PMG5s, but they're kind of cold and austere by comparison.
JoeL

Thanks for the note . . .
I certainly appreciate the numbers of the Quad G5. I've told many of my FCP and Photoshopping friends that if they value their time, they should absolutely buy the G5. I'm doing digital editing part-time out of my home office now and while I'd love the speed, I'm taking care of three kids four and under and with a year of disruptive home renovations ahead, I won't really need that speed until early next year. I'll be re-entering the workforce full-time in the fall of '08.
My upgrade path this year is a MacBook Pro first, although I will be waiting until I see reports on their reliability and I may even wait until "revB" comes out, esp. if Apple upgrades the optical drive and Firewire.
But I can't do both now and the portable is more important to me now. However, once the new Pro Macs are out I'll compare them to the Quad and may just opt for a deal on the Quad. By then, though, I'm sure Adobe, and much of the rest of the Mac world will be Universal Binary.
You have to wonder what the new enclosures will look like. Will they make an overall design change or stick with the aluminum look and just tweak as they have with the MacBook Pro?
Interesting Mac times . . . .
JoeL

Booting from HDD/SSD in optical drive bay.

Macbook Pro 15" non retina mid 2012 2.7 GHz 8GB RAM
Hi,
A while ago I partitioned my hard drive and installed Windows 7. I use it for gaming and eventually decided I would swap my superdrive out for a SSD so Windows could run on it’s own drive.
So I now have two drives, the original Seagate Momentus XT 750GB hybrid, and a new Samsung 840 EVO SSD 1TB. Ideally I would like Windows 7 on the SSD, in the optical drive bay and OSX on the hybrid in the primary bay. My only reason for that position is that I believe the hybrid would be less prone to overheating in the primary bay. However, after a bit of research I believe Windows will only boot from the primary bay so I can live with either.
So far I have managed to boot Windows (on the SSD) from the primary bay. Works well. It would not complete booting from the optical bay.
OSX on the hybrid (this is my original drive before this upgrade) boots fine as usual from the primary but will NOT boot from the optical bay. I get the apple and loading wheel only.
A clone of that OSX on an old HDD will boot fine from the optical bay. When I booted from this drive in the primary bay I can see both the SSD and the hybrid if I have them in the optical bay and system profiler reads them well.
So my first question is; does anyone have any experience or knowledge of Momentus XT’s not working in the optical bay? I believe they had some firmware updates years ago but my drive has always ran very well until I tried it from the optical bay.
My second question is; does anyone know if it is possible to persuade my macbook pro to boot Windows from the optical drive?
Many thanks.

Well I suppose it looks like 6gb/s connection from the optical drive connection cannot be achieved on my mid 2012 model. Would be nice to know if anyone else has achieved it...

MBP doesn't see newly installed SSD (installed into optical drive bay)

Hi all,
Re-posting, from an earlier post, with a more specific topic. I recently installed an OWC 2.5" SSD, via the OWC Data Doubler, replacing my old, non-working, optical drive. I installed it step-by-step, from their installation video. BTW - I also installed a RAM upgrade, and, that installation (although admittedly easier than the SSD install) is working fine. However, my MBP is not "seeing" any new drive. Does anyone know if there is a step that I am missing? Or have an idea what I may have done wrong?
I re-opened the machine and double checked that all 3 "connections":
From SSD to Data Doubler Frame;
From Data Double Frame to SATA tab; and
SATA connector to the motherboard;
WERE ALL SEATED PROPERLY. Yet, the MBP still does NOT see the newly installed drive.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
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MJ

Hi,
Have you tried booting up while holding down the Option key and the selecting the SSD? Or putting the SSD in the other bay?

Opening Optical Drive Bay

I'm trying to install a second DVD drive, but I'm having trouble opening the drive bay. I'm following the directions in the manual: latch is up, side panel removed, etc. But pulling the drive bay out halfway to reach the cables is impossible.
It moves perhaps a quarter inch and then refused to budge. I don't want to use force, fearing that the optical drive drawer may be stuck on something, and pulling too hard might break it.
Should it be this hard to pull out?

Hi,
Pulling the thing out for the first time was a hassle for me too, eventually I jiggled with it from side to side moving out some millimeters at a time until it was out.
The Good news is that the whole thing is pretty robust so you can use reasonable force and after its out for the first time it looses a-bit and then slides in a more expectable way.
Have Fun,
Baryo.

Optical Drive Bay Hard Disk Drive Caddy

Hi,
I have an old Compaq Presario v2036AP Notebook PC.
I would like to replace it's optical drive with new Hard Disk. I have tried to find a compatible caddy for the same but was not able to find any
Is there any way I can add another HDD to my laptop?
I do not want to use any external disk.
Also, if possible could anyone help me in identifying that what type of caddy drive I may require (SATA to SATA or PATA to SATA, etc.)
Thanks for your help
Regards,
Ashish Sharma

Definitely upgrade memory to at least 16 GB. Consider upgrading the video card to a 650M. For the rest it looks good, if you can live with a super glossy screen.

Help! Optical drive bay enclousure bent

Hi
I am trying to install a SSD in my 2010 Mac Pro but while trying to pull out the metal optical case it got bent some. My CD player will not come out when pressing the eject button. It's not aligned and the entire metal enclosure case is extremely difficult to pull or push back in.
At this time I don't have the SSD installed and don't want to install until I get this fixed.
Does Apple sell Optical drive enclosures? get one online or is there another work around? Thank you for your time.

Are you certain the problem is in the enclosure, and not in the drive itself? These drives are intended to be mounted with screws from the side, so they should not malfuntion with excessive sideways pressure.
The enclosure is just Aluminum. If it is bent, bend it back.
It's already broken, so you cannot hurt it.
If you give up. eBay in the US is the great "junkyard" for used computers and major sub-assemblies that can easily be "parted out" without too much effort.

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.

Adata sp900 sdd 128-GB ssd, optibay optical drive to replace superdrive, and 16 GB upgrade for macbook pro mid 2012.

Hello everyone,
Thank you in advanced for all of the support. This is my first post to the communities. I just bought a 2.9 GHz core 17 processor MacBook pro mid 2012 13" with 8 GB of RAM and I am in the process of upgrading it. When I bought the MacBook pro originally, I was told that I would never mac out the performance because I do not do a lot of photo/video editing. This is true, but I am an academic researcher and tend to multitask often, having 20+ safari tabs open, SPSS (a statistical program), full screen mail app, full screen calendar app, and preview, iTunes open all at the same time. I often get slow performance and error messages that state low memory. This is why I am interested in upgrading the laptop. I am getting ready to go to medical school and I want to have a powerful laptop. I also want to future proof because I plan on having a dual boot system to mac OS and windows OS.
Because I know I will be maxing out the performance of the computer, I want to take full advantage of upgrades, especially now because the cost of the components is reasonable at the moment. The following are the proposed upgrades:
1. Upgrade my current 8-GB ram (2x4-GB) with 16-GB ram (2x8-GB). I plan on using crucial RAM.
Crucial 16-GB Ram: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008LTBJFW/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&coli d=2B1KHELSPJPNN&coliid=IYGJWGQDH8LV0&psc=1
2. Replace my optical drive with a hard drive. I will place a SSD into my current hard drive position and then install my current HDD into the optical drive bay with the optibay optical drive caddy. I am doing this because I plan to use the SSD as the boot drive and my current HDD as my backup and files drive. I am putting the SDD into the HDD because I have read it is better to place it in this bay for performance. I will put the other HDD in the optical drive because the performance of that one will not be as important.
Adata SSD: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008LTBJFW/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&coli d=2B1KHELSPJPNN&coliid=IYGJWGQDH8LV0&psc=1
Optibay Optical Drive Caddy: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0058AH2US/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pd_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&coli d=2B1KHELSPJPNN&coliid=I3GI8MGWAKXY79
My questions:
1. Is the listed RAM appropriate and sufficient for my MacBook pro?
2. Is the listed SSD appropriate and sufficient for my MacBook pro?
3. Is the listed Optical Drive Caddy appropriate and sufficient for my MacBook pro?
4. Is there still a firmware problem that does not allow for SATA 3 (6Gb/s) support in the optical drive?
5. Would it be easier to format the new SSD outside of the MacBook using a SATA to USB adapter?
6. Does working on any of the listed components void my AppleCare (I plan on keeping all of the original components so I can replace them, if I ever need to see apple support)?
7. What is the best way to put Mavericks onto the SSD to make this my boot drive?
8. What is the best way to make all of my files remain on the HDD, but link to the SSD with the operating system?
9. Has anyone ever successfully upgraded to 16-GB RAM and used their optical drive for a secondary hard drive?
10. Is there any miscellaneous advice for this project?
Please feel free to give partial answers. I know this was a lot of information, but I wanted to be efficient in my post. I am very appreciative of everyone who will contribute.
Thank you!

rmichaud91 wrote:
Hello everyone,
I just bought a 2.9 GHz core 17 processor MacBook pro mid 2012 13" with 8 GB of RAM
16 GB of RAM is the best you can do.
The optibay HD will null and void your warranty.

What is the best optical drive for MacPro (early 2008) ?

I am having my MacPro optical drive repaired but I wish to add a new one in the second bay.
I have come to know that the Apple Store does not sell it separetely and do not know what to buy.
Suggestions?
Thank you.

Mac Pro 3,1 also has two extra SATA ports, easy enough to run a cable from one or both of them to the optical drive bays. But if you want to use the connectors that are already in the optical drive bays get one of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007589%2060000370 5&IsNodeId=1&name=IDE
Or get a SATA drive. I put a Blue Ray drive in so I can burn data to those, I have an LG
WH12LS38 that was plug and play (I think I had to order a SATA cable for it).

Very simple step-by-step guide for Optical Drive to SSD swap?

When my MacBook Pro comes out of warranty I'd like to remove the optical drive and put in an SSD, to hold my apps and OS. I have a 13" MBP, early 2011, with a 500GB SATA HDD (5400 RPM).
I'm generally handy with tech stuff, but having looked into this, am a bit uncertain on the best way forward, so am hoping to get advice from more experienced types on this forum. Issues and questions so far are...
1) Stage 1 - determining specs and approach
The first issue for me is to determine...
- Whether it's better to house the SSD in the HDD bay and move the latter into the optical drive bay, or whether I should leave the HDD where it is and put the SSD in the optical bay. Given my MBP model, which is best?
- What SSD is best? I’m currently looking at this, which includes a data transfer kit. Crucial's M4s seem to be pretty good for this sort of thing:
http://www.crucial.com/store/mpartspecs.aspx?mtbpoid=B9BCBF75A5CA7304
- What cables, adapters, bays, software etc are appropriate for my model? I’m based in Australia and will likely order much of the kit from abroad, so if I miss anything, it’s likely to be a (frustrating!) wait.
- I’m also keen to put a case around the formerly-internal optical drive so need to figure out cables and cases for that.
2) Stage 2 - Doing the swap
Seems that the best thing is to find a super-simple how-to video.
As there are quite a few out there, any opinions on ones that are great (and ones that are to be avoided!) would be welcome.
3) Advice for use once installed.
Assuming I’ve gone through the process correctly, I'll put my OS and apps on the SSD. Then...
- Can I simply delete the OS residing on the HDD? Understandably I want to avoid any bad-or-irreversible-without-great-pain mojo.
- Ditto for apps. Is there anything required to ensure any settings and preferences don’t get lost?

Okay - I'm getting closer to doing this.
I'm leaning toward getting this bay for the HDD and this enclosure for the optical drive, to make it an external. Fortunately it's available from an Aussie retailer. For me it's a little hard to figure out from the description whether this only works to shift the HDD to the optical drive bay and whether that means I'd need a separate bay/adapter to mount the SSD in the boot drive location, so any advice would be wonderful.
This is the SSD I'm looking to get: 256GB Crucial m4 2.5" SSD with Data Transfer Kit.
And I'd get CCC. Is there anything else I'd need (cables, bays)?
And a last question: I have a number of apps that are registered/authorised to my current machine - Kindle, iTunes and Final Draft. Do I need to de-authorise them, before loading them on my SSD, or will the applications see them as still being part of the current machine?
Thanks again for any help!
GG

SATA at optical drive bay

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