The OptiBay drive really allows for the best of both worlds: using an SSD as the main drive to run Mac OS X and apps off of, and using the OptiBay drive to put a larger standard 2.5″ disk in to use as file storage. Crucials guide shows how to install an SSD into a 2008-2012 model Mac Pro computer using an Icy Dock converter. The Macbook Pro 11,3 models EFI is switching off the Intel GPU if you. I have seen the performance boosts firsthand, a friend of mine recently added a 160GB Intel X25 SSD to his MacBook Pro as the main disk and it absolutely screams. Open Disk Utility and check that the SSD appears in the sidebar on the left. Luckily, this is also the default install location for the systemd-boot binary. Plus installing an SSD on a MacBook/Pro is a really good way to boost performance, it’s a bit dated but you can see for more on SSD’s and Mac’s. So is this worth it? I think if you don’t use your optical superdrive, and you want more hard disk space – then absolutely yes. As you can see in the below picture from the LifeHacker walkthrough, it involves taking apart the entire back case on a Unibody MacBook & MacBook Pro: If you’d like to do it yourself and you want to see in advance what the process involves, I’d highly recommend checking out the LifeHacker article to take a peak at the installation process. The OptiBay unit includes good installation guides or you can shell out $50 to have them do it for you by mailing in your Mac. It’s really worth mentioning that the $99 OptiBay unit comes with a caddy to turn your once internal SuperDrive DVD unit into an external DVD drive, which is a really great added bonus and allows you to still use the SuperDrive. * Patience, and comfort with disassembling computer hardware * Carbon Copy Cloner to make bootable backups * A superfast SSD drive, like the Intel X25 SSD, disk space and prices vary from $115 to $430 * MCE OptiBay for your MacBook Pro (starts around $99) What you’ll need to install a hard drive or SSD into the Optical Bay of a MacBook / MacBook Pro:

Installing ssd in macbook pro 2011