Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Running 5,1 without Optical drive?

DanielCoffey

DanielCoffey

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Nov 15, 2010
1,208
30
Edinburgh, UK
I am considering disconnecting the power and SATA from my 5,1's optical drive simply because I don't use it but I wanted to check (and I assume the answer will be "yes, of course")...

Is a 5,1 happy to run with no optical drive present?

I wanted to be sure that there would be no error logs, popups or longer POST times if an optical drive was not found.
 
DanielCoffey said:
I am considering disconnecting the power and SATA from my 5,1's optical drive simply because I don't use it but I wanted to check (and I assume the answer will be "yes, of course")...

Is a 5,1 happy to run with no optical drive present?

I wanted to be sure that there would be no error logs, popups or longer POST times if an optical drive was not found.
Click to expand...

i have an 09 im running with 2 SSDs on the two ODD SATA connections. works fine.
 
I thought it would be happy but I just wanted to make sure there wouldn't be a prolonged POST while the machine searched for an optical drive.

Thanks.
 
DanielCoffey said:
I thought it would be happy but I just wanted to make sure there wouldn't be a prolonged POST while the machine searched for an optical drive.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

I just removed my optical drive a few weeks ago. POST is very quick. It did not take very long before I removed the superdrive, but it certainly is not slower now.

I've got nothing in those bays at the moment. If anything, this should improve airflow to the PSU.

----------
jetjaguar said:
if you run 2 x ssds off the satas in the optical bays can you raid them or you need a card ?
Click to expand...

No need for a card. You can use Disk Utility to set up a RAID.
 
Studio K said:
I just removed my optical drive a few weeks ago. POST is very quick. It did not take very long before I removed the superdrive, but it certainly is not slower now.

I've got nothing in those bays at the moment. If anything, this should improve airflow to the PSU.

----------



No need for a card. You can use Disk Utility to set up a RAID.
Click to expand...

hmm tempted to do this and run windows off 2 raided ssds ... i dont really use optical but i feel weird not having one
 
I am about to remove the Optical drive this weekend and have ordered an OWC Multi-Mount configured for 2xSSD to take its place.

I will take the opportunity to give the entire machine its semi-annual vacuum and dust-down.

I will be putting a Highpoint Rocket 640L Lite (non-RAID) in the top PCI slot, running two data cables up to the ODD bay as per Concorde Rules' guide to the OWC Multi-Mount where I will have two Samsung 840 Pro 256Gb SSDs. Power for both drives will come from the ODD cable via a splitter.

One 840 Pro will be the OSX boot drive and the other will be a Win7-64 drive. I don't need RAID and both are well within my current storage needs.

One of my old SATA II OCZ Vertex2 SSDs will be doing duty as Time Machine in one of the original drive sleds and my Caviar Green will be retired to act as CCC Clone backup on demand.

Once I have all the equipment I will do a photoshoot to show the process and any issues and append it to Concorde Rules' Guide so that folks can see an alternative configuration.
 
i've got nothing in those bays at the moment. If anything, this should improve airflow to the PSU.
18iqumw
 
I have just removed the ODD and discovered a ton of dust in that caddy and plastered all over the PSU grille. I can certainly recommend adding it to your spring-clean routine for dusting.

Since I have never touched that bay before (I didn't appreciate it was user-removable), I was interested to note that a mild thread-locking compound had been used on the screws into the ODD.

There are only four holes (already populated) in the 2010 ODD caddy for storage of screws so when you remove the stock ODD you are left with four floaters. I stored them with the ODD itself.

Having removed the drive there is blissful peace when waking from Sleep. Yes you get the click from the PSU but that is all. The gronking and whirring were the ODD POSTing.

I didn't see any change in boot times without the ODD. 13s to chime, 21s to Apple and 32s to desktop on the 5,1 in my sig.

Now to see what difference to the boot times there is with the new gear (2x840 Pro on Rocket 640L) once it is all delivered next week.
 
DanielCoffey said:
I have just removed the ODD and discovered a ton of dust in that caddy and plastered all over the PSU grille. I can certainly recommend adding it to your spring-clean routine for dusting.

Since I have never touched that bay before (I didn't appreciate it was user-removable), I was interested to note that a mild thread-locking compound had been used on the screws into the ODD.

There are only four holes (already populated) in the 2010 ODD caddy for storage of screws so when you remove the stock ODD you are left with four floaters. I stored them with the ODD itself.

Having removed the drive there is blissful peace when waking from Sleep. Yes you get the click from the PSU but that is all. The gronking and whirring were the ODD POSTing.

I didn't see any change in boot times without the ODD. 13s to chime, 21s to Apple and 32s to desktop on the 5,1 in my sig.

Now to see what difference to the boot times there is with the new gear (2x840 Pro on Rocket 640L) once it is all delivered next week.
Click to expand...

Do you have your tower in the floor or on your desk? I have mine on my desk, and I don't seem to have a dust issue, yet.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back