What to do with that extra bay?

So what can be put in that extra optical bay below the top one in the Mac Pro?

A second DVD drive, a Blu-ray drive, or with an adapter, one or two extra hard drives.

(not that I can even see a way to access it).

The drive carrier slides out (when the latch at the rear of the case is raised).

Why would there even be a second space there....why would you need another optical drive when the superdrives do it all?

If you watch foreign DVDs, you can have a second drive, set to a different region.
If you want to watch a DVD, or play a CD, while burning a disc.
If you want to burn two discs at once.

I'm intrigued with the idea of putting a HD in there as there never seems to be enough drives in a machine for me(Is 4 enough....nooooo!) What HD can go in there...SATA or IDE?

Either for older Mac Pros
<http://www.maxupgrades.com/istore/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&product_ id=158>
For the 2009, SATA only
<http://www.maxupgrades.com/istore/index.cfm?fuseaction=Product.display&product_ id=187>

The maxupgrades are good, but a little overpriced imo. Putting 1 drive in the lower optical bay is very easy.

http://www.tenthousandpercent.com/?article=65&section=other

Quick notes about this procedure:

1. You don't need to an "L" angle sata, a regular sata cable will do.

2. You don't need to break the regular sata either, it'll fit perfectly just slightly bent. The standard generic red sata cables work great, as they have a small head (which is most important). I had black sata cables that came with my evga motherboard, but the sata head was a "clip on" type which made the head longer, making it unusable.

3. The brackets used to mount the drive in the cage are very easily found. They are standard brackets that can be found or taken out of old PCs. OR what works best are the 5.25" to 3.5" carriers that are used to hold zip drives, floppy drives, memory card slots, etc.

4. I don't remember the length of the sata cable, but it was just the standard length. Nothing smaller than 12".


The hardest part of the installation is pretty much the prep.

Contrary to the above linked article, you should remove the cpu cover and the fan screw. (note the 2006 fan only has 1 screw)

theres a really good youtube tutorial to remove parts in the computer. I'll try and find to repost.

The only thing I could not, and advise not necessary to do is remove the front fan assembly. Shi t is impossible to remove without fear of breaking. On the 2006 you need to use brute force to yank it out, vs. the 2008 which smartly just uses an extra screw.

Anyhow the top 1 screw just needs to be removed to give the fan assembly enough room to "play" in order to fit the sata cable into place. Also note, have the dvd bays removed before doing this so you can snake the sata cable down under the fan assembly to the sata port.

Once the sata port is connected, its all downhill from there.

If you need to utilize both (2) sata ports and give you 2 extra disks. Just buy the external enclosure from OWC w/ esata adapter.

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/MESATATBEK/

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer%20Technology/MPQXES2/

A lot of people use this method as it is the easiest. However you still need to connect the ports though.

Also note, drives connected to the extra sata ports are not recognized in bootcamp. So no windows.

If your old pc has a floppy drive, it most definitely can be used. The ones that hold the floppy drive is something like this:

http://www.amazon.com/3-5-inch-5-25-inch-Mounting-Card-Reader-Tape-Backup/dp/B00 07OWNZO

That is what I used, BUT you if you don't have that you can just use these types of braces.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811993004
http://www.xpcgear.com/harddrivemount.html

Yeah, sorry forgot to mention the guy in the article was using some strange 5.25" to 3.5" braces. I've never seen those before either.

Also, the "plastic tab, slide out" type, I'm not sure if will work or not. I'm assuming those are used as the "easy installation" type for HDs in PCs. But you need to screw the hard drive to the braces and then screw the braces to the dvd lower bay, so if possible look for braces used for the floppy drive, or just the other braces mentioned above.

If you can search any old PC or old pc parts they guarantee have these parts. They are a standard size, and haven't changed ever. I bet if you go to some pc repair shop they would give it to you for free.

One last thing, don't forget your hd screws which if you ever bought a hd retail should be included. Or if don't have any, just go down to a pc shop and they will definitely give you those for free. The screws attaching the braces to the lower bay are not needed, as apple supplies them to you. They are already attached on the lower bay itself.

I have just put two SSD drives into the second optical bay, connected to the two spare SATA parts on the motherboard. This lets me keep the four HDs in their respective bays AND benefit from a blazingly fast bootdrive.

Did you just split the power connector to give power to both SSDs? What type of brackets did you use? Just wondering~

The SSDs draw about 1.5 Watt each so I've hooked them up with a Y cable to the spare power connector that Apple foresaw for a second optical drive. As any optical drive draws much more power than that, I am confident with that setup.

They are installed within a 5.25" metal frame that was designed to do just that: hold up to three 2.5 drives in a 5.25" space...was about $10 at the local computer store.

Very nice~~
Sounds like a great setup ^^

I guess a few pictures say more than a thousand words....

!http://sn.im/hh3kd-v5w!
!http://sn.im/hh3kb-dpm!
!http://sn.im/hh3ka-qj5!



[Here|http://sn.im/hh34k-nes] is a high-res link to the photo of the product.

And [this|http://sn.im/hh3cl-zmw] is a high-res of what it looks like with the two SSD drives mounted on it.

Another thing you can put in the drive bay is an auxiliary power supply:

http://marokero.com/gtx295/ND3_0476.jpg
http://marokero.com/gtx295/ND3_0480.jpg
http://marokero.com/gtx295/ND3_0485.jpg (I taped the door open so I could photograph it)

It's an FSP Booster X5, and it provides four PCI-E power leads for extra graphics cards. In the Mac Pro it's a royal PITA to install, so whoever is not technically inclined should not even attempt such an install. Not to mention doing so may or may not void your warranty. Here's a site I've found to contain some more pics and info on the X5:

http://www.tweaknews.net/reviews/fspgroup_booster_x5_450_watt_dedicated_videocard_powersupply/index3.php