MacBook Pro SSD

taylorconor95

Hi guys this might be a stupid question but see here: http://www.crucial.com/eu/store/partspecs.aspx?IMODULE=CT128M4SSD2BAA

It says it comes with a 3.5" bracket... Is that a bracket to replace the optical drive with an SSD swell as a HDD? If so, how easy is it to install? If not where can I get a bracket for an SSD like this?

Colonel Panic

No, it's a bracket for a desktop PC.

What you're looking for is an Optibay and while I think they're easy to replace, I remember you being worried about replacing the RAM in your machine so I dunno...

taylorconor95

Colonel Panic wrote: »

I remember you being worried about replacing the RAM in your machine so I dunno...

Yeah that time I was really more worried about the warranty more than anything... I replaced the RAM with no bother obviously so other than that what brands of these optibays would you recommend?

taylorconor95

Wow I just went onto the actual optibay website theres no way I'm paying $99 for this thing I thought it would just be a tenner

Any alternatives?

Colonel Panic

It'll invalidate your warranty if you do any damage. Some of those connectors are pretty flimsy!

There are plenty of Optibay knock offs on eBay.

taylorconor95

Hmm I may just leave the HDD out full time and use it as an external if things start filling up

Colonel Panic

Yeah, I didn't bother with an Optibay for my current machine. Just bought the biggest SSD I could afford. I'm not much of a hoarder of files anyway. That said, I'm currently currently looking at around 160GB used including a modest iTunes library, a few Steam games and a Win7 VM.

taylorconor95

Just as a side note how much space does a VM windows 7 take up?

Colonel Panic

Mine is around 28GB.

taylorconor95

Hey if I get this optibay and install it, how is the disk recognized? Is it mounted at boot? Also what if I unmount it to save battery, and only re-mount it when I need it, is that possible?

Colonel Panic

It shows up as a Serial ATA hard disk and yes you can unmount it if you like.

taylorconor95

Colonel Panic wrote: »

It shows up as a Serial ATA hard disk and yes you can unmount it if you like.

Cool, but would you have to reboot to remount? Surely theres another way of doing that

K.O.Kiki

Why would you even bother unmounting it?

taylorconor95

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

Why would you even bother unmounting it?

Save battery life

Colonel Panic

Probably not necessary really, but you can remount the drive from Terminal or Disk Utility.