4 ms·

I vowed that my next computer will not have an optical drive in it. As for MacBook, you can make some use of that space with optibay http://www.mcetech.com/opt

I vowed that my next computer will not have an optical drive in it. As for MacBook, you can make some use of that space with optibay http://www.mcetech.com/optibay/ http://www.mcetech.com/optibay/

Groxx 16y ago
I like that idea... makes having a dedicated SSD and a dedicated HDD a real possibility with a laptop. If I had the money for it, I'd go with that setup in an instant - I use my optical drive roughly weekly, all but once or twice a year where it can easily wait a day for access. Or I can just borrow someone else's system, and install stuff over the network (done that a few times).
- weaksauce 16y ago
  I have the optibay with a ssd. Good stuff but I had to drill holes in the tabs to mount all the screws(the hole was just off an 1/8") The bummer is that my late-2009 15" MBP cannot handle the raw speed that 3.0Gbps can give so it would over saturate the bus and lose connection. downgrading the firmware to force a 1.5Gbps bus speed made it rock solid but a bit slower. Still so much faster than the 500GB 7200RPM Seagate though. I also have the external cd drive that I have used a sum total of 5 times since the conversion.
  - Groxx 16y ago
    Hah, that's the exact drive I've got now, loving the space over the stock drive. Speed difference is a bit noticeable, more-so on Windows, overall probably worth the extra cost.
  - bbatsell 16y ago
    Have the exact same setup — 2009 15" MBP with an SSD and Optibay. However, I didn't have to drill any holes, and I moved the Seagate to the Optibay and the SSD to the standard HDD slot, and I've never had any bus issues whatsoever at 3Gbps — it's rock-solid. Latest Sandforce chipset. Odd.
    - weaksauce 16y ago
      Interesting. I didn't try the SSD in the standard slot but maybe I will have to revisit this. Thanks!
whatusername 16y ago
Or, you know, Buy a Thinkpad. My ultra-bay has had a hard drive in it for years. But I can on the fly swap that out for the CD unit. Or a battery pack. It's built to be useful and not just to look pretty.
- bradleyland 16y ago
  Kind of tough to run OS X on a ThinkPad :\
- Keyframe 16y ago
  I bought a dv7 from HP, has two hard drive bays and a bluray in it (I need bluray because of my job).
- sjs 16y ago
  Gloating about your notebook of choice just makes you an asshole. I don't want to swap out the components in my notebook every week, that's not a useful feature for me. It's objective! Instead of lame invisible magic scrolling areas on the side, what if I want a large trackpad with lots of gestures, 2-finger scrolling & right-click? Or a slot loading DVD drive instead of a shitty tray one? Backlit keyboard? Magnet based power adapter so the dog doesn't drag my notebook off the table? LED battery life indicator on the side? 1" thickness? 5-8 hours battery life? Or just want OS X? And yes it looks good. If you don't care about those things that's fine. I think it's even worth sacrificing an eSATA port even though I'd like one. Different people are willing to make different compromises. As everyone says the CPU, memory and disks are the same now. Only difference is software and other hardware features. I don't understand why people have a mental block about looking at Apple's hardware objectively. "It looks good so it's clearly not meant to be useful!" ... wtf? Let me guess, the Vaio Z isn't useful either because it looks good and doesn't have a swappable SATA bay. Even though you can get it w/ dual SSDs and a Core i7. Give me a break.
  - whatusername 16y ago
    Apple do a lot of things right. But they optimize hard for the 80-90% rule. Maybe even 95%. If you want to do anything in that 5-10% -- you have challenges. Woz wanted power and flexibility and options. Jobs wanted beauty and simplicity and ease of use. There's nothing wrong with simplicity. In fact - most of the time it's a benefit. But lets call it for what it is -- Apple's design ethos will choose simple over flexible almost every time.

I vowed that my next computer will not have an optical drive in it. As for MacBook, you can make some use of that space with optibay http://www.mcetech.com/optibay/ http://www.mcetech.com/optibay/

Groxx 16y ago

I like that idea... makes having a dedicated SSD and a dedicated HDD a real possibility with a laptop. If I had the money for it, I'd go with that setup in an instant - I use my optical drive roughly weekly, all but once or twice a year where it can easily wait a day for access. Or I can just borrow someone else's system, and install stuff over the network (done that a few times).

weaksauce 16y ago
I have the optibay with a ssd. Good stuff but I had to drill holes in the tabs to mount all the screws(the hole was just off an 1/8") The bummer is that my late-2009 15" MBP cannot handle the raw speed that 3.0Gbps can give so it would over saturate the bus and lose connection. downgrading the firmware to force a 1.5Gbps bus speed made it rock solid but a bit slower. Still so much faster than the 500GB 7200RPM Seagate though. I also have the external cd drive that I have used a sum total of 5 times since the conversion.
- Groxx 16y ago
  Hah, that's the exact drive I've got now, loving the space over the stock drive. Speed difference is a bit noticeable, more-so on Windows, overall probably worth the extra cost.
- bbatsell 16y ago
  Have the exact same setup — 2009 15" MBP with an SSD and Optibay. However, I didn't have to drill any holes, and I moved the Seagate to the Optibay and the SSD to the standard HDD slot, and I've never had any bus issues whatsoever at 3Gbps — it's rock-solid. Latest Sandforce chipset. Odd.
  - weaksauce 16y ago
    Interesting. I didn't try the SSD in the standard slot but maybe I will have to revisit this. Thanks!

whatusername 16y ago

Or, you know, Buy a Thinkpad. My ultra-bay has had a hard drive in it for years. But I can on the fly swap that out for the CD unit. Or a battery pack. It's built to be useful and not just to look pretty.

bradleyland 16y ago
Kind of tough to run OS X on a ThinkPad :\
Keyframe 16y ago
I bought a dv7 from HP, has two hard drive bays and a bluray in it (I need bluray because of my job).
sjs 16y ago
Gloating about your notebook of choice just makes you an asshole. I don't want to swap out the components in my notebook every week, that's not a useful feature for me. It's objective! Instead of lame invisible magic scrolling areas on the side, what if I want a large trackpad with lots of gestures, 2-finger scrolling & right-click? Or a slot loading DVD drive instead of a shitty tray one? Backlit keyboard? Magnet based power adapter so the dog doesn't drag my notebook off the table? LED battery life indicator on the side? 1" thickness? 5-8 hours battery life? Or just want OS X? And yes it looks good. If you don't care about those things that's fine. I think it's even worth sacrificing an eSATA port even though I'd like one. Different people are willing to make different compromises. As everyone says the CPU, memory and disks are the same now. Only difference is software and other hardware features. I don't understand why people have a mental block about looking at Apple's hardware objectively. "It looks good so it's clearly not meant to be useful!" ... wtf? Let me guess, the Vaio Z isn't useful either because it looks good and doesn't have a swappable SATA bay. Even though you can get it w/ dual SSDs and a Core i7. Give me a break.
- whatusername 16y ago
  Apple do a lot of things right. But they optimize hard for the 80-90% rule. Maybe even 95%. If you want to do anything in that 5-10% -- you have challenges. Woz wanted power and flexibility and options. Jobs wanted beauty and simplicity and ease of use. There's nothing wrong with simplicity. In fact - most of the time it's a benefit. But lets call it for what it is -- Apple's design ethos will choose simple over flexible almost every time.