One of the first things I did when I bought my MBP last year was upgrade the men and replace the 500GB HDD with a a 256GB Vertex 4 SSD.
As it’s past it’s one year warranty (I know 2 according to EU etc) and the SSD is starting to fill up and I’d like to replace the optical drive with the original 500GB drive

Has anyone used one of these kits? It looks great as you get the adapter for inside and a caddy for the Optical drive (I think I may have used it once…)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/caddy-MacBook-Slot-Superdrive-enclosure/dp/B005M234MM

Or if there are other suggestions for a better, cleaner way to do it, pls let me know

Also – if anyone has any good tips for searching for files under the “other” category in about this mac doofer, I could use some pointers being a windows user 🙂

Thanks

With the search question, just hit the Apple button and space bar and type the word you’re interested in.

Is that what you mean?

Im thinking of doing the same in the new year.

Everything mac!

Think I prefer my link Slogo – for a few quid extra you get a caddy for the opt drive

Samurai – no. When you look in the storage view (from about this mac) it shows the files using up storage in groups like music, video, photos and other. Most of my files are listed other and I’d like to know if I can search on these files for some easy deletes.

I did it. It works well. I love the setup.

My ssd now runs all programs and operating system and the storage drive does exactly that.

CaptainSlow- run a program called omnidisksweeper. It goes through your HDD and lists files/folders by size and you can drill down and see what everything is. I find it one of the most useful programs on the mac! I find no end of stuff taking up space this way.

Edit: linky https://www.omnigroup.com/more

Joe – what size did you go for?

Did this a couple of years ago on my 09 Macbook Pro. Been running it as described above until a few weeks ago, SSD for OS and apps, HDD for everything else. Did the Mavericks upgrade and took the opportunity to ‘Fusion’ the drives together.
Apple would like you to think you have to buy a new Mac to do this but it works beautifully on older macs with just a few cmd line entries and a reinstall. Means you get the maximum benefit from your SSD without all the faff of keeping track of what goes where..
Just rememeber to enable TRIM on your SSD.

See here…

Fusion drive on older Macs

and here..

SSD Optimizer

Edit: Got my OD bay adapter from here Mac:Upgrades

I did something similar when I bought my Mini, I had the optical removed and a second HDD installed in the space. I didn’t go for SSD because it was too expensive two years ago, but I may give it a go next year. Mine now has 1.1Tb internally.

Is there a limit to the size I can put in my 2011 unibody macbook?

I just stuck a 500 Gb SSD in mine. Don’t really need any more storage on it.

That’s a fairly common modification – have a search on MacRumors MBP forum. I recall there are some things to be wary of regarding connectors but I’ve not done similar myself (on Mini) as I use the optical drive for watching and ripping DVD’s. I’ve been very happy with Western Digital 750gb HDD it runs at 7200rpm so quite a bit faster than original/more common 5400’s. I didn’t have the budget for 500gb SSD that would have been first choice.

“Other” files include email attachments, so check in inbox/sent items and make sure the trash is emptied in mail and on machine.

I terms of knowing what is using up your mac’s storage, I’ve found these apps useful.
[list]
[*]Disk Inventory X[/*]
[*]Disk Diag[/*]
[/list]