Is is making sense to replace the optical drive with SSD on macbook pro?

Just got my macbook pro 15 inches one and thinking to replace the optical drive with a good brand SSD hard drive. Since the main hard drive is till the regular one, is it making sense just replace the optical drive with SSD? Will this increase the performance of the laptop? Any advise or suggestions?

Thanks!

 

I did that to my 2011 macbook pro but used the ssd I replaced my optical drive with as the Windows 7 drive. Having an ssd makes everything sooo much faster. Depending on what size you get, you could move your mac os and most important files to a small ssd then keep everything else on the hdd. Just make sure to do a bit of research beforehand and make sure the drive is os x friendly (most are).

You can buy hard drive caddys on ebay for around $15.

 

yes you just need to install OSX to the SSD

 

Here is what you should do, you should replace you main hardrive with an SSD, and then put your hard-drive in the bay instead of the optical drive, then format the SSD and install your OS X and applications on the SSD and put your data (movies, music, bug data) on your big drive, you'll experience amazing booting times and you'll enjoy running tough apps like final cut and photoshop and games on windows (if you did partition the SSD into 2 partitions, one for mac and one of windows OS), it's definitely worth it, do it.

 

Thanks! By the way, if I just put an ssd into the optical drive location, can I configure the system to boot from SSD instead of main hard drive?

 

Yes. In system preferences, theres an option to choose your boot disk.

 

Can I do this:

Put an ssd in optical drive location, remain the main hard drive unchanged. Then put windows 7 on SSD drive, remain Apple's IOS with the main hard drive. Everytime if I need windows 7, just boot from the SSD drive, and choose IOS if I need apply's system?

 

beige already told you exactly what to do and how to do it.

 

I got Beige's point. However, what I'm asking now is if I can install OSX and windows on two separate hard drive, instead of doing two partitions on one SSD. This way, I will only do new installation on one hard drive.

 

Yes it works. My macbook has two separate ssds (one os x, one for windows 7).
Just watch out though because for some reason, You have to switch the windows hard drive with the mac hard drive to install windows 7. It doesn't install if your windows hard drive is in the optical bay it has to be in the main bay. You can switch them back once they're both working.

 

Couldn't you just leave your OS X drive in the optical bay?

 

Thanks for pointing this out!

 

I could have. But I just wanted it to be an easy switch with the optical drive and optical bay in case I needed to bring my laptop in for repair (Wouldn't want to waste that 3 year warranty )

 

By the way, what SSD do you recommend for Macbook pro 15? I heard lots of SSD do not have trim feature, is that important for macbook pro?

 

samsung 830, 840, 840 pro
crucial m4

 

Thanks! By the way, should I must choose the 9mm SSD or 7mm is fine as well, is it hard to install with the 7mm one?

 

Also, by the way, the dvd rom on my macbook pro is broken, is there a way to install either mac os or windows7 on a brand new hard drive (ssd) without the optical drive?

 

yes but you are going to have to change some values in the plist from the bootcamp app, with your model number, there is a a lot of those how to guides in google.

and it doesnt matter if the drive is 7mm or 9mm

 

Without the optical drive, how did you get bootcamp installed on the new hard drive?

 

do as in this post to put your windows install on a usb stick

Enable "Create a Windows 7 USB install disk" on Lion [ Codez4Mac ]

after that, put the drive that you want to install windows on it in the main HDD bay, boot it up and press alt/option when the grey screen appears. install windows.

 

This is cool, I will try it and let you know the result. Thanks a lot!

 

Well, that option for create a windows 7 usb install disk is not available under the bootcamp assistant on my macbook, is it because I'm using macbook pro and it is only available on macbook air? Any ideas?

 

that plist hack was actually to enable it

 

I tried to find that info.plist file but have no luck. There isn't bootcamp under applications--->utility. I'm using the 10.8.2 version. Any ideas where to find and open the bootcamp contents? Sorry for keep asking questions.

 

try to look where bootcamp app is, Im still on 10.7.5

 

Just want to make sure that you are referring to bootcamp app, not bootcamp assistant, right?

 

the bootcamp app and bootcamp assistant are the same thing

 

Not sure if I understand you correctly. The "bootcamp assistant" on my machine is just a wizard to do windows/drivers installation and removal. Every time when clicking this wizard, it always goes into the wizard interface, no way to get contents and find that info.plist file. Are we talking about the something? Sorry, I did not use mac os often, so my question might be dumb. But I do want to get this through and have windows 7 installed on my new ssd drive.

 

You need to find the location of this application on your computer and edit one of the files inside. Every application that you run on your computer, like bootcamp assistant, is manifest from a set of files stored on your computer. You are talking about the same application here. It's possible that you are thinking about this application strictly in terms of the window that you see when your run it. You need to look at the set of files that represent it (not currently executing).

Do a google search for a tutorial with keywords: plist mac windows boot camp optical tutorial

 

didnt you read the link that I posted?

that gives you instruction on how to modify the plist in the bootcamp assistant, so that you can have the booting property and creation in it.

But in simple terms use, finder go to applications, utilities, bootcamp assistant, right click on that and press show content, modify the plist with your model number. done. restart bootcamp assistant, create your usb win 7 thumb drive.

 

Finally got that file. Thanks a lot to your guys' help! Now the new issue is that this file is locked in my machine, I need to do some research on how to unlock it so it can be modified. I will keep you posted anyway.

 

copy it to the desktop, right click on it, and click get info, go down to read and write permissions, modify the values

or just open it, modify it. Save the modified in the desktop, save the original in docs. Copy to the bootcamp folder.

 

It works now, thank you very much! By the way, even if I got the usb installation disc created, should I still need to install the mac os first on the new hard drive, then install windows 7 from usb? If this is the case, how to install mac os without the optical drive at the beginning?

 

As I told you, put the drive that you want to install windows on main HDD bay and install windows, I didnt mention anything about installing OSX in there.

 

Just got my new SSD this afternoon (samsung 830 256GB one). Try to put it on my main HD bay, nothing is on the optical drive bay (I removed the dvd rom completely). Put the USB disc which got windows 7 installation files created last time. Then boot up machine and press the option key, however, nothing showing up except that "network" sign (which is used to choose a wifi network).
Did I do anything wrong here? What did you see on yours when you do a windows 7 installation on the new hard drive last time?