XT750Gb + SATA II 128Gb SSD DIY Fusion Drive setup in Early 2011 MBP

So I have these two drives- a Momentus XT750Gb Hybrid Drive, and a 128GB SSD. I had planned on using them as separate drives, with the 128SSD in the optical bay, but recently I've been reading about Fusion Drives, and I was wondering if anyone had used this configuration in a Macbook Pro. I realize that the hybrid nature of the XT750Gb means that it is optimized for use as a boot drive, but is there any reason why it shouldn't be used as outlined above? I plan on making a clean install, and I realize I'll have to get into terminal, although I'm not overly happy about that- this is not my area of expertise at all-
If anyone has any observations or opinions, I'd be glad to hear them-
I've searched for this particular topic, but nothing specific has come up-
Thank you-
joe

Thank you-
I think SATA II speeds might be adequate for my needs- much faster than the stock HDD, and the OS, Program and file handling capabilities of the Fusion Drive setup might be worth it. I guess I'll just have to try it, see if it works at all...
Of course, the speed gain is important, but perhaps only if long term reliability is maintained-
Thanks again-
j

Similar Messages

Which kind of SSD hard discs do support with earlier 2011 MBP ?

Which kind of SSD hard discs do support with earlier 2011 MBP ?
I'm using 15 inch earlier 2011 MBP. I would like to replace hard disc to a new SSD hard disc to improve performance. But I don't know which kind of SSD works fine for it. Does anyone work fine? Could you give me some successful experience? Thanks a lot.
BTW, Can I use SATA3 SSD? And any problems here?
Thanks a lot!

is it a hard questions?

DIY Fusion Drive on MacBookPro8,2

Yes, I know it's not supported out ot the box.
I've been trying to set up a DIY Fusion Drive on my Early 2011 MBP 15" with no luck.
I've been googling a bit and found several others reporting the same problems on the MBP8,2. Seems this setup works on most Mac's, just not this model. Has anyone gotten this to work with any sort of hack? Please share your experience.

In case you are not already aware of these resources here are some links
http://blog.macsales.com/15617-creating-your-own-fusion-drive
http://www.macworld.com/article/2014011/how-to-make-your-own-fusion-drive.html
There are others, but the most salient point from the first link is that it alleges the 2012 Mini is the only Mac that uses a version of Disk Utility capable of creating a Fusion volume. This sounds dubious to me though since I find it hard to believe CoreStorage is dependent upon a version of Disk Utility that exists only for the Mini. The only reason I mention this is that I consider OWC knowledgeable about the subject.
Without further details of how you intend to accomplish this I am curious how you justify the following comment:
The OS handles where the files go so I can use the time to work instead of managing where the files go for best performance.
We know Apple's Fusion Drive accomplishes these actions in firmware or software that exists in their new iMacs, but what resource led you to conclude this ability exists in your MacBook Pro, or anything other than the current production 2012 iMacs for that matter?
If you are certain it does, I may do it also. I like challenges too.

Repair DIY fusion drive possible?

It seems as the mechanical drive in my DIY fusion drive setup has failed. It took forever to start the computer and the disk sounds weird. I ran the disk tool and it said that it had repaired something that was broken (can't remember what). When I restarted the computer I got a questionmark instead of an apple during startup. If I boot from an external drive I can't even find my fusioin drive in Finder. Can this be fixed or am I screwed?

You will need to reboot the machine with the DIY Fusion drive from a clone or a USB thumb drive with the Recovery HD on it. Then open Terminal and type diskutil list to view the drives. You would then need to rebuild your Fusion drive using the Terminal commands you previously used like LowLuster points out.
Using the Recovery HD would be preferred, in my opinion, because after rebuilding your Fusion drive you can Reinstall OS X from the OS X Utilities menu.

DIY Fusion Drive Problem (8,2)

Hey,
I wanted to go a step further and create my own DIY Fusion Drive. I had no problems installing the new ssd (128gb Samsung 840 Pro) instead of the hdd (standard mac hdd) and moving the hdd to the place where the optical drive has been.
I then proceeded to boot from a recovery USB Stick runing the mountain lion recovery partition on it. I configured both of these drives without any problems and finally created my Fusion Drive (visible in disk utility).
But here are things getting worse. My original plan was to recover from a TimeMachine Backup i created right before I started working on the Fusion Drive. But no, it said an error occured and I should restart the PC. After googling this error a little bit (and trying the recovery over and over again, different attempts to repair the time machine, which doesn't seemed to be broken etc.), I came up with the idea that my TimeMachine data could be corrupted and a whole backup is not possible. No problem I thought to myself.
You just try to install Mountain Lion fresh with your Recovery USB Stick and then get one or two folder from your backup that you need. But nope, installing Mountain Lion aborted with an error too while checking if my MacBook would fit the installation or something.
Last try: Cmd+R to start internet recovery. Downloaded the whole thing. Now I was able to reinstall LION fresh on my system (which of course would be the basic installation since my macbook came with Lion). Problem is: Lion doesn't know anything about Fusion Drive and I couldn't select any drive to install it on.
Right now I'm really thinking about installing the os on the ssd alone, what I didn't want to do. But I'm not seeing a possiblilty to get the system back up and running they way I wanted it to.
Now it's on you guys. My last hope. Do you have any ideas on how to fix this problem? I read so many guides and neither of them came up with the problems I have. They just say "and after configurating your fusion drive, you just install moutain lion again and you're good" :|
Thank you very much,
MrMütze

I just tried what would happen if a delete the Fusion drive again. I was able to start the installation process of LION to my SSD, but Mountain Lion still aborted with an error while evaluating my system. So it shouldn't be a problem associated with the FusionDrive.

DIY Fusion drive not working after Mavericks install

Hi Everyone,
I had setup a DIY fusion drive on my iMac 27" Mid 2011 - installing a Samsung SSD and a new 1TB drive. Everything was working swimmingly in Mountain Lion but as soon as I upgraded to Mavericks - everything slowed down.
In speed test I get an average write speed of 70 MB/s and a read of about 100MB/s...
Did I do something wrong? I installed Mavericks via the App Store.
Thanks.
Martin

Did you ever figure this out? I have a similar experience (read below) and wanted to know if anything you learned helped?
Hi all. I have a 3.2GHz i5 w 24 GB of Ram. Purchased in January 2014.
My good friend helped me install a DIY Fusion. I purchased a 256GB Samsung 840 Pro SSD and he did the work to "fuse" it with the regular 1TB HD the iMac came with. It is attached via USB 3.0 in an OWC case.
Originally, after being set up - Black Magic Speed tests benched it at 250-350 write and 500-650 read. I'm not a techie, but spent enough time to know that is pretty smoking and well above a typical disk hard drive.
Well, now it is down to 70-80 write and 180-250 read. The imac still boots in less than 25 seconds, so I don't feel the system is slow. (and it certainly blazes next to the first generation aluminum iMac I had before - a 2008 model). But I am concerned at deterioration of speed and really thought the extra investment would have led to faster sustained speeds.
So my questions are:
* Does anybody have any ideas why this is happening?
* Any idea what the fix is? I'm hoping not to have to start over.
* Any ideas whether it would have been better just to keep the 256 a boot drive for OS & apps, and leave the 1TB for media? I almost did this and wonder if it would have simplified things or led to better performance.
* Any idea where to go from here?
BTW, I know a little about TRIM, but I think my friend said the Samsung will handle that itself.
Lastly, you can probably tell I know a bit ABOUT this stuff, but not much on HOW to do it. So regular maintenance and upkeep is not my strong suit.
Thanks in advance for comments & suggestions.
Jake

Slow boot up on 2012 Mac mini with DIY fusion drive

Hello everyone, I bought a Mac mini (2012) 2 months ago with a stock 500GB HDD.
I added another SSD to make a DIY fusion drive, and everything is working fine, except that I'm experiencing a very slow boot up.
I have confirmed both by information from the OS and some tests with command line tools, that the fusion drive itself is a success and absolutely working fine.
The slow boot up happens on cold boot only (a reboot does not have such problem).
Symptom: the Mac mini is stuck on the gray blank screen for about 40 seconds, and then finally shows up the apple logo.
Everything after this is pretty fast and fine.
I have tried the following methods and none of them seems to help:
1. Go Preferences -> Startup Disk, select the Machintosh HD. (Suggested by Apple in the Fusion Drive FAQ)
2. Verify the whole disk along with the partition with Disk Utility.
3. Reset NVRAM by holding Command+Option+P+R during boot up.
4. Reset SCM/PMU.
Does anyone have an idea on the cause of my problem?
Best regards and thank you.

If you have more than one user account, these instructions must be carried out as an administrator.
Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
Step 1
Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left. If you don't see that menu, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar.
Enter "BOOT_TIME" (without the quotes) in the search box. Note the timestamps of those log messages, which refer to the times when the system was booted. Now clear the search box and scroll back in the log to the last boot time when you had the problem. Select the messages logged after the boot, during the time something abnormal was happening. Copy them to the Clipboard (command-C). Paste into a reply to this message (command-V).
For example, if the problem is a slow startup taking three minutes, post the messages timestamped within three minutes after the boot time, not before. Please include the BOOT_TIME message at the beginning of the log extract.
If there are runs of repeated messages, post only one example of each. Don’t post many repetitions of the same message.
When posting a log extract, be selective. In most cases, a few dozen lines are more than enough.
Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Important: Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.
Step 2
Still in Console, look under System Diagnostic Reports for crash or panic logs, and post the entire contents of the most recent one, if any. In the interest of privacy, I suggest you edit out the “Anonymous UUID,” a long string of letters, numbers, and dashes in the header of the report, if present (it may not be.) Please don’t post shutdownStall, spin, or hang logs — they're very long and not helpful.

Disk Utility error when verifying DIY fusion drive

Hi,
It has been a while since I had to post a problem, but I need others advice on this if you can help. When 10.8.3 came out I installed an M4 512gb ssd in my main drive bay of 2008 unibody aluminium macbook and put a 1tb spinner in the optibay. Created a fusion drive, migrated data and all has been great. Decided to run disk utility today to check for any errors as I had a sleep issue with the 10.8.4 update which I ended up solving by changing the sleep settings in terminal - the issue had caused a few forced shutdowns. I have Disk Utitliy Version 13 (450). The Fusion drive is shown as the logical volume group followed by the volume disk. When I run a verify disk on the volume itself it is all ok:
Verifying volume “Cybernet”
Checking storage systemChecking volume.
disk0s2: Scan for Volume Headers
disk1s2: Scan for Volume Headers
disk0s2: Scan for Disk Labels
disk1s2: Scan for Disk Labels
Logical Volume Group 0DAE76E1-A325-4925-902F-1015B270B84C spans 2 devices
disk0s2+disk1s2: Scan for Metadata Volume
Logical Volume Group has a 2170 MB Metadata Volume with double redundancy
Start scanning metadata for a valid checkpoint
Load and verify Segment Headers
Load and verify Checkpoint Payload
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Incorporate 6 newer non-checkpoint transactions
Load and verify Virtual Address Table
Load and verify Segment Usage Table
Load and verify Metadata Superblock
Load and verify Logical Volumes B-Trees
Logical Volume Group contains 1 Logical Volume
Load and verify 309877EC-EA53-443C-A75C-63C159B04EF3
Load and verify 5388E543-6974-4251-BDBD-FA850C121897
Load and verify Freespace Summary
Load and verify Block Accounting
Load and verify Live Virtual Addresses
Newest transaction commit checkpoint is valid
Load and verify Segment Cleaning
The volume 0DAE76E1-A325-4925-902F-1015B270B84C appears to be OK.
Checking file systemPerforming live verification.
Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
Checking extents overflow file.
Checking catalog file.
Checking multi-linked files.
Checking catalog hierarchy.
Checking extended attributes file.
Checking volume bitmap.
Checking volume information.
The volume Cybernet appears to be OK.
When I run it on the LVG it comes up as:
Verifying partition map for “M4-CT512M4SSD2 Media”
Checking prerequisites
Checking the partition list
Checking for an EFI system partition
Checking the EFI system partition’s size
Checking the EFI system partition’s file system
Checking all HFS data partition loader spaces
Checking Core Storage Physical Volume partitions
Checking storage system
Checking volume.
disk0s2: Scan for Volume Headers
disk1s2: Scan for Volume Headers
disk0s2: Scan for Disk Labels
disk1s2: Scan for Disk Labels
Logical Volume Group 0DAE76E1-A325-4925-902F-1015B270B84C spans 2 devices
disk0s2+disk1s2: Scan for Metadata Volume
Logical Volume Group has a 2170 MB Metadata Volume with double redundancy
Start scanning metadata for a valid checkpoint
Load and verify Segment Headers
Load and verify Checkpoint Payload
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Incorporate 40 newer non-checkpoint transactions
Load and verify Virtual Address Table
Load and verify Segment Usage Table
Load and verify Metadata Superblock
Load and verify Logical Volumes B-Trees
Logical Volume Group contains 1 Logical Volume
Load and verify 309877EC-EA53-443C-A75C-63C159B04EF3
Load and verify 5388E543-6974-4251-BDBD-FA850C121897
Load and verify Freespace Summary
Load and verify Block Accounting
Load and verify Live Virtual Addresses
Newest transaction commit checkpoint is valid
Load and verify Segment Cleaning
The volume 0DAE76E1-A325-4925-902F-1015B270B84C appears to be OK.
Incorrect size for volume “Cybernet”
Problems were found with the partition map which might prevent booting
Error: Incorrect size for logical volume.
Verifying partition map for “WDC WD10JPVT-00A1YT0 Media”
Checking prerequisites
Checking the partition list
Checking for an EFI system partition
Checking the EFI system partition’s size
Checking the EFI system partition’s file system
Checking all HFS data partition loader spaces
Checking Core Storage Physical Volume partitions
Checking storage system
Checking volume.
disk0s2: Scan for Volume Headers
disk1s2: Scan for Volume Headers
disk0s2: Scan for Disk Labels
disk1s2: Scan for Disk Labels
Logical Volume Group 0DAE76E1-A325-4925-902F-1015B270B84C spans 2 devices
disk0s2+disk1s2: Scan for Metadata Volume
Logical Volume Group has a 2170 MB Metadata Volume with double redundancy
Start scanning metadata for a valid checkpoint
Load and verify Segment Headers
Load and verify Checkpoint Payload
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Incorporate 43 newer non-checkpoint transactions
Load and verify Virtual Address Table
Load and verify Segment Usage Table
Load and verify Metadata Superblock
Load and verify Logical Volumes B-Trees
Logical Volume Group contains 1 Logical Volume
Load and verify 309877EC-EA53-443C-A75C-63C159B04EF3
Load and verify 5388E543-6974-4251-BDBD-FA850C121897
Load and verify Freespace Summary
Load and verify Block Accounting
Load and verify Live Virtual Addresses
Newest transaction commit checkpoint is valid
Load and verify Segment Cleaning
The volume 0DAE76E1-A325-4925-902F-1015B270B84C appears to be OK.
Incorrect size for volume “Cybernet”
Problems were found with the partition map which might prevent booting
Error: Incorrect size for logical volume.
I got the same when I did a safe boot and when rebooted from the recovery partition.y question is, do I repair or could it damage my setup? eg is Disk Utility being accurate and it can repair the error, or is it a phantom issue that should be ignored bearing in mind it's a DIY fusion drive and it could end up getting mashed?
Thanks!

Hi,
The computer's running fine since I sorted the sleep issue. No issues as far as I can tell, which is why I was surprised to see the error. What does the error actually mean - is it saying that the volume is a different size than the computer thinks it should be and therefore it'll just change a few values? In which case I suppose a repair is harmless? I just don't want to repair and then reboot to find the volume corrupted.

Undoing a DIY "fusion drive"

Good evening all.
I'll try to keep this as short and simple as I can.
I have a Macmini6,2 that I installed a secondary SSD into. My plan was to use the SSD for the OS and Apps and use the stock 5200rpm drive for files and data. I used an OWC instructional video on YouTube (for those interested search YouTube for: techKNOWlogy by OWC - Keeping your System and User files on Separate Drives) and was able to get it to work.
It really does work well, sort of like a DIY Fusion drive but without the system choosing what files go on the SSD. The problem is that it doesn't play nicely with one of the programs I need for work, Avid's ProTools, and I just can't afford to have this problem.
I have Time Machine backups and I was wondering if there was a way I could "unfuse" the drives and put everything onto the SSD without having to really nuke my system and start from scratch.
Any help would be much appreciated!

Yes. The way to set it up is to create a new administrator account (I called mine Boot Admin), and then install the SSD. After the SSD was in, I formatted and did a clean install of OSX onto it. When OSX asked if I wanted to transfer files from another location with migration assistant, I selected the original 5400rpm hard drive. I selected all of the options EXCEPT for the original user. So all of the Apps, files and the Boot Admin account minus my original, starting user acct.
After all software updates, I went into the System Prefs with the Boot Admin acct and created a new user account using the same name and password as the account on the original drive. I clicked Advanced Options on the newly created acct. --> Choose --> select home folder om Original 5400rpm drive ---> hit open. So I changed the Home Directory for the acct to the other drive. Then I set the new drive to the default startup drive.
Then, I deleted the App, System and Library files off the the HDD. Likewise for the Home Folder for the acct on the SSD. Then, as a final step to clear up more space, I deleted and repartitioned the recovery disk on the SSD OS to give it maximum space.
Thanks!

DIY Fusion drive with elgato, eyetv 3

I've got the imac 27" 2011, and I have set up a fusion drive and generally I have no issues with it.
However when watching TV (a waste of an imac i know) with elgato eyetv, it pauses every so often. Generally if you listen during this its because the main drive as reving up as its gone to sleep, I know in the system preferences I can tell it not to spin down, but that will cause the drive to eventually fail.
My questions are really to those who have a fusion drive (from the apple directly as a preinstalled build) if anyone else is running the elgato eyeTV 3 and experience anything similar?
Or to everyone else can the Fusion drive be altered so that the live TV stream gets written to the main Hard drive rather than to the SSD?
Any thoughts?

The drive will fail no matter what you do with it. That is the fact of hard drives and drives in general.
So stop putting it to sleep and stop the waiting.
No it can't be altered as that is what a Fusion drive is. The System determines what data gets written to each drive not the user. If you want to make that choice then you should not be using a Fusion drive setup.
Also with ANY Fusion drive When, Not If, Either drive Fails they both fail and you are left with Nothing. Kind of like RAID 0 (Zero).
I personally would never use a Fusion drive setup. Better to have a slightly bigger SSD and a secondary spinning drive to store data on. Like moving your "i" tunes, photo and other User/library files, Doc and Downloads, to the spinner and leaving the SSD for the OS and programs.

SSD HDD setup in Early 2011 - SSD Read Only?

So I recently upgraded my Early 2011 MBP with a 240 gb Sandisk Extreme SSD and a Seagate Maximus XT 750gb 7200 RPM drive. I installed Mountain Lion as a clean install on the SSD and moved my Users folder to the HDD by doing the advanced options thing I had been hearing about in a few other threads.
Now all of a sudden my SSD is Read Only and it won't let me change the permissions (nor repair the permissions in Disk Utility) which is odd because I am te admin (and only user on the comp)
When I changed the users folder I added a second Admin account (admin 1 is just MY NAME and Admin 2 was named MY NAME - TEST) so I wonder if that has anything to do with it,
I would really like to not have to format all over again so any help with this would be great. Thanks

Thank you-
I think SATA II speeds might be adequate for my needs- much faster than the stock HDD, and the OS, Program and file handling capabilities of the Fusion Drive setup might be worth it. I guess I'll just have to try it, see if it works at all...
Of course, the speed gain is important, but perhaps only if long term reliability is maintained-
Thanks again-
j

Installing Windows 7 on Replacement SSD in optical bay Early 2011 MBP

So i just bought a 120gb SSD and a optical bay enclosure that i installed into my early 2011 MBP. I also bought a optical drive external usb enclosure. I was hoping that I could use bootcamp to install Windows 7 onto the SSD but when i go through the bootcamp menu and my laptop restarts im stuck with a blank black screen. Ive also tried using bootcamp to create a bootable USB (which i had to do a work around to get to work because it supposed to only work for MBA) that didnt work. Can anyone help?

ANYONE???

SSD-problem with MacBook Pro 13" (Early 2011)

Hi there,
I've tried to use two different SSDs in my MacBook Pro 13" (early 2011). The first one (Samsung 840 Series, 500GB) crashed after two days: the beachball appeared and after a restart there was this question mark-symbol on my screen: no system found. Had to send this SSD back to Amazon. A few days later I've bought a new one, a SanDisk Extreme with 450GB. I've used it for two days, then my system crashed again and after a restart of my Mac I couldn't get any further than to the grey apple-symbol. Even the recovery partition didn't work anymore. Does anyone of you have the same problem with his (or her) MacBook Pro 13" (early 2011) - and any ideas for a solution?
Thanks for your answers!
Torsten

can you confirm if this is ok to buy:
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/New-HDD-Hard-Drvie-Cable-for-13-MacBook-Pro-A1278-MD101-M D102-821-1480-A-2012-/181269577616?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a34823f90&_u h b=1
or
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/NEW-MacBook-Pro-Unibody-13-A1278-2012-md101-102-HDD-Hard- Drvie-Cable-821-1480-A-/121183868039?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c371f1487& _ uhb=1
or this one..??
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/for-APPLE-MacBook-Pro-13-A1278-HDD-Hard-Drvie-Cable-MD101 -MD102-821-1480-A-2012-/331060187298?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4d14b990a2& _ uhb=1
i guess i aint gotta buy those brackets again..?
Thanks
Anjillan

You can't upgrade to a 7200rpm hard drive in the Early 2011 13" MacBook Pro. It is not supported. Period.

I tried unsuccesfully to upgrade the hard drive in my Early 2011 13" MacBook Pro to a 750GB 7200RPM hard drive. After several attempts with different hard drives I realized that the kernel panic that showed up was due to the lack of compatibility with the drives to the MacBook Pro. I had a Mid 2009 13" MacBook Pro that I did not have any issues with whatsoever. I sold that MacBook Pro and was able to upgrade to the brand new base model without any out of pocket cost. Upon purchase of the new 13" MBP I maxed out the RAM to the full 8GB. After 2 months of freezing, lockups, spinning rainbow wheels and having to force shutdown I tried one last ditch effort to see if a faster drive would help. After speaking with the Apple telephone reps and the Apple Store Genius Bar we discovered that Apple doesn't even offer the option of a 7200RPM drive on their website - a fact that I found quite disturbing. The concensus is that it is a power management issue that causes the incompatibility and the reason the drives are not offered on the 13" models. The problems I had were the end of the line for me. I just switched out that train wreck for the Early 2011 15" MacBook Pro base model. I got home and immediately installed the 750 GB 7200RPM Western Digital Scorpio Black hard drive and it was recognized within seconds. I'm back in business with gleeful abandon.

Sadly... they don't have all the answers. As someone who use to serve in the capacity (Mac Genius) it can definitely be a challenging position. You're "the voice" of Apple's service policy & procedures. Sounds like the person you spoke with got it wrong this time. It's definitely worth a follow up, because like I said, I've got a machine in my household that's living proof of compatibility between a 7200 RPM drive and 13" MBP (Early 2011).
Apple is very good about support documentation when there's incompatibility or unsupported configurations, the fact that there isn't one for 7200 RPM drives would tell me that the people/person you spoke with was misinformed.
I know I always appreciated when a customer made it known to me that I was wrong on something and supplied the right answer. I sure as heck don't have all the answers and if I can lead from my mistakes, well, I won't make them anymore.

DIY Fusion Drive and RAID 5

Hi everyone!
I have spent several hours by reading various forums but haven’t found any definitive answers.
I have a 12 Core Mac Pro with the following setup: one 1TB SATA hard drive that carries the system and applications. For the files and storage there are three 2TB SATA drives in RAID 5 controlled by Apple RAID card. I am going to install a 512 GB Samsung 840 Pro SSD drive in the optical bay and have initially planned to use it just for the system and applications, but am curious if the following is possible.
1) Is it possible to combine the RAID 5 array with the SSD and create a Fusion drive?
2) If yes, will it retain all the features of the RAID 5?
3) Should TRIM be enabled?
Thank you in advance!

TRIM directly addresses the shortcomings of having only garbage collection available. SSD controller manufacturers and designers (including SandForce, the controller manufacturer for OWC's SSDs), recommends that TRIM be used with their products. So does Samsung.
For example, here's a 2011 article from OWC describing how you don't need TRIM on their SSDs and how it can in fact hurt performance or reliability.
That article has been discussed here on MacInTouch before. In my opinion it's bad advice, and inaccurate in some of its assertions. It also ignores the recommendation made by SandForce to use TRIM with their SSD controllers. But even if one were to take that article at face value, applying that advice to SSDs other than OWC's makes little sense.
The reason I'm advising against TRIM is simply that it's yet another driver-level modification of the OS, and these always carry potential risk (as all the folks with WD hard drives who lost data can attest to).
Apples and oranges comparison, for a variety of reasons. The short of it is that TRIM is supported natively in all recent versions of OS X. The tools used to enable it for third party SSDs do not add a new kernel extension; they change the setting to allow Apple's native TRIM implementation to be used with SSDs other than those factory installed by Apple.
This shows that the 840s do work slightly better with TRIM than without, but the differences are (in my opinion) trivial, a 9% increase at best.
One of the major reasons for the skepticism that exists about TRIM is that so many people, the authors of both articles you linked to included, don't understand it.
TRIM is not, strictly speaking, a performance-enhancement technology -- though it is plainly obvious that most people think it is.
Though it can, in many circumstances, improve performance, there are also circumstances under which it will provide little or no noticeable benefit. Not coincidentally, a new SSD tested fresh out of the factory packaging is unlikely to show much (if any) benefit. Or rather, TRIM is providing a real benefit for new SSDs, but that benefit doesn't become measurable in terms of benchmark performance testing until every memory cell in the SSD -- including many gigabytes of cells hidden from visibility by the SSD controller -- have been written to at least once. Writing 128 GB of files to an SSD with a nominal capacity of 128 GB won't do it, as there are several gigabytes (exact number varies depending on the model) still unwritten.
Under real-world use conditions, having TRIM disabled means eventually having noticeable write performance degradation due to write amplification. It is far greater than "9%" -- it can be a 50% or greater drop in write performance, depending on various factors. Defining "eventually" is difficult because it depends on how the SSD is used. But given enough time and write cycles, it can happen to all SSDs used without TRIM, no matter how sophisticated their garbage collection algorithms are.
Under those same real-world use conditions, having TRIM enabled means that the SSD should almost never reach a state of having noticeable write performance degradation, as it should almost never get into a state where write amplification is happening.
I will concede that it is possible to design a lab test in such a way as to defeat the benefits provided by TRIM, but such tests do not reflect any real-world usage scenario I can imagine. Furthermore, those same contrived tests would put an un-TRIMmed drive into an equally-addled state even more quickly.
I would suggest reading through the rather lengthy previous discussions about TRIM. Here are a couple of my past posts that are most relevant to the current discussion:
A description of what TRIM is here.
I addressed some of OWC Larry's comments about TRIM use with OWC/SandForce SSDs here.
http://www.macintouch.com/readerreports/harddrives/index.html#d09dec2013

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