I got a call yesterday from a friend asking me if I could install MCE OptiBay on his 2011 15-inch MacBook Pro. I have worked on a lot of Unibody MacBook Pro but never actually installed an OptiBay on one. I figure that it would be similar to Optical Drive replacements on any Unibody MacBook Pro.
The OptiBay was overnighted from MCE headquarter in Brea, California and arrive on Friday Afternoon. I started taking the MacBook Pro bottom plate off and removing the Optical Drive. The installation was pretty easy, in less than 15 minutes, I had the OptiBay installed.
The OptiBay comes with a USB enclosure for the Optical Drive. The plastic enclosure comes with a few screws and a pretty narrow SATA to USB adapter board. The build quality is not that great but it does the job. The USB enclosure comes with two USB cables, one is for data and the other one is for power.
Pictures coming soon.
Other World Computing also sells something similar and it is called Data Doubler. It costs less but it doesn’t come with the USB enclosure for the Optical Drive.
More details later.