Second SSD MacBook Pro late 2011

Question

I have a MacBook Pro late 2011 and I always had an OptiBay with a 750GB optical drive in it. Now I wanted to upgrade the HDD to a SSD because I don't need so much space, I prefer the SSD speed.

I plugged the new SSD into the main SSD connector to format it, because it wouldn't format when connected to the SuperDrive connector. This worked fine, after the format I put the new SSD back into the OptiBay and after starting up it recognized the disk as it is supposed to.

When i try to write data to the new SSD i get a -50 error.

The operation can't be completed because an unexcepted error 
occurred (error code -50).

Here is the information on the disk.

Name :  KINGSTON SV300S37A120G Media
Type :  Disk
Partition Map Scheme :  GUID Partition Table
Disk Identifier :   disk1
Media Name :    KINGSTON SV300S37A120G Media
Media Type :    Generic
Connection Bus :    SATA
Device Tree :   IODeviceTree:/PCI0@0/SATA@1F,2/PRT1@1/PMP@0
Writable :  Yes
Ejectable :     No
Location :  Internal
Solid State Disk :  Yes
Total Capacity :    120,03 GB (120.034.123.776 Bytes)
Disk Number :   1
Partition Number :  0
S.M.A.R.T. Status :     Verified

This is the partition info.

Disk Identifier :   disk1s2
Mount Point :   /Volumes/Data
File System :   Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Connection Bus :    SATA
Device Tree :   IODeviceTree:/PCI0@0/SATA@1F,2/PRT1@1/PMP@0
Writable :  Yes
Universal Unique Identifier :   393464D1-1474-3BDE-952D-C48D9BAE3C95
Capacity :  119,69 GB (119.690.149.888 Bytes)
Free Space :    119,47 GB (119.467.651.072 Bytes)
Used :  222,5 MB (222.498.816 Bytes)
Number of Files :   42
Number of Folders :     19
Owners Enabled :    Yes
Can Turn Owners Off :   Yes
Can Repair Permissions :    No
Can Be Verified :   Yes
Can Be Repaired :   Yes
Can Be Formatted :  Yes
Bootable :  Yes
Supports Journaling :   Yes
Journaled :     Yes
Disk Number :   1
Partition Number :  2

I hope someone is able to help me :D When more information is needed feel free to ask and I'll provide it.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

This could be related to SATA 3 support for the optibay in 2011 MacBooks. If your SSD is SATA 3 it won't work correctly when mounted in the optibay.

My fix for this was to move the HDD to the optibay (be aware that there is no vibration dampening if you do this) and mount the SSD in the HDD bay. After doing this and cloning the drive using Carbon Copy Cloner everything is working brilliantly :)

I believe that some SSDs (OCZ Vector 3) can have their firmware modified to allow them to operate correctly with SATA 2.