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Hello, I am looking to upgrade my macbook pro with a new Samsung 850 Eve 500gb and a HGST 1 tb 5400 rpm HDD. I am going to replace my optical drive with either the SSD or the HDD. I need to know the easiest way to manage and set up these two hard drives. The SSD will be my boot drive that will hold all of my applications like video and photo editing software. My HDD will be holding all of my large media files (photos, videos, music, and downloads). I am currently using the stock 500 gb hard drive that has around 400gb stored on it. I am wondering what the best way to manage all my data is. Should I completely clone my drive onto the SSD then manage my data from there or should I do a clean OS install then work from there. Also I have read a few things here and there, was wondering should I put the SSD in the optical bay slot instead of the original spot in order to keep the other HDD safe from any damage. Again I would like to reiterate that I want the easiest method of this. I have the ability to physically install these drives into my macbook but I do not have the technical knowledge of writing commands or overly complicated methods. Thank you for your help.
You may want to re-think this. There is a known issue with the optical drives SATA port. It is unable to support a SATA III (6.0 gb/s) device or an auto SATA speed sense drive. Review this from OWC: OWC Data Doubler text in Red: Testing has demonstrated that Apple factory hardware does not reliably support a 6G (6Gb/s) Solid State Drive or Hard Disk Drive in the optical bay of 2011 MacBook Pros (ModeI ID8,1; 8,2; 8,3). If your OWC Data Doubler bundle comes with a 6G drive, you should ONLY install that drive in the main drive bay and utilize the Data Doubler to re-task your existing drive or install a new 3G SSD or HDD in the optical bay. PRE-2011 models can utilize a 6G drive in the optical bay, but will do so at a reduced 3G (3Gb/s) speed. Bottom line here you will need to get a fixed SATA II (3.0 Gb/s) SSD device for the optical drive SATA port. You may want to look at just going to a SSHD drive to replace your current HD like a Seagate SSHD
