2nd HDD in MBP

Tackle_Berry · 9 Dec 2011 at 10:11

Hi,

I recently swapped my 250gb HDD for a 128gb SSD in my MBP, but now I am thinking of swapping the optical drive for a 500gb-1000gb HDD and having two drives, obviously you need a mount for your HDD to fit in the space where the DVD-RW was. There are various ones like the Optibay, OWC data doubler but the Optibay is £100 plus import duties, I can't find any in the UK all i can find in the UK is a fake Optibay at 1/10th of the price and not sure if it's any good. Has anyone on here done this and if so what mount did you use and where from? Also what effect does it have on the battery life?

PaulyD · 9 Dec 2011 at 10:22

I used a cheap one of the bay and had zero problems with it. I put the SSD in the fake optibay and kept the standard HDD in normal place as it had more secure mounting and had heard people having vibration issues when moving it over.

I think the Optibay is so expensive as it also comes with an enclosure for the superdrive. For that I also bought a cheap knockoff from the bay and that works fine as well when I tested it. Haven't actually had to use it since the install though!

I haven't noticed much of a difference in battery life, if at all.

Tackle_Berry · 9 Dec 2011 at 10:43

Thanks for the help answers a lot of questions I will swap the drive postitions over too then. Think that's the way to do it as im not spending over £100 on a piece of metal. Will also just get a cheap version external optical drive. Was that someone from the UK on ebay or import from China or something?

Eddie182 · 9 Dec 2011 at 11:14

I bought a cheap (~£20 iirc) Optibay copy from a UK seller on the bay, installed and working fine.

The only thing I had to do was trim a small piece of plastic off the side, as it would not fit around the WiFi antenna otherwise. On the MCE Optibay there is not plastic in that position, but it just looked like the cheap one was just made with a simpler mold, and/or not tailored to the MBP exactly. But for less than a 5th of the price of the MCE version, you can't argue really.

Deku · 9 Dec 2011 at 11:21

I bought my optibay and superdrive enclosure from this website http://hdcaddy.com/product.php?id_product=11

Tackle_Berry · 9 Dec 2011 at 11:57

Thanks for all you help, I got a ebay version of the optibay, now just need to sort the drive, was thinking of a 1TB. Is there a limit to the storage size of the drive in these optibays? I can't see why there would be, but in one of the fake optibay descriptions it just said up to 750GB compatibility I am thinking that was just the biggest 2.5" drive at the time it was written.

Deku · 9 Dec 2011 at 14:36

Ash2097 said:
I am thinking that was just the biggest 2.5" drive at the time it was written.

Spot on there.

MacRS4 · 11 Dec 2011 at 10:17

Kind of - the 1Tb drives doing the rounds were 12.5mm units, not 9mm. You can't put 12.5mm drives in the OptiBay.

So if you want to put the drive in the OptiBay make sure it's a 9mm unit.

RickST · 11 Dec 2011 at 13:04

MacRS4 said:
Kind of - the 1Tb drives doing the rounds were 12.5mm units, not 9mm. You can't put 12.5mm drives in the OptiBay.

So if you want to put the drive in the OptiBay make sure it's a 9mm unit.

this is 9.5mm HDD is that okay?:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-135-SA&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=896

Also, would I be able to bootcamp from the new internal drive?

MacRS4 · 11 Dec 2011 at 17:09

Yup that'll fit just fine.

You can BootCamp from either of the drives.

RickST · 11 Dec 2011 at 18:12

awesome, that will be my next upgrade then.

I assume it voids warranty?

MacRS4 · 11 Dec 2011 at 22:46

Kinda. If you damage stuff while doing the upgrade then yes, that won't be covered under warranty. If you're careful and don't damage anything, you'll be fine.

My early 2011 unit played up something chronic - I poped the DVD back in, took it in for warranty, no problems at all. In fact they replace it with a spanky new faster late 2011 unti.