Since their release, people have been asking whether the 2011 MacBook Pros can use a 6Gb/s SATA drive at full speed in the optical bay, via an adapter such as the OWC Data Doubler. The short answer is: No, you can’t.
Unfortunately, the optical drive bay only runs at SATA 2.0 speeds (3Gb/s). There doesn’t seem to be any firmware setting to enable the faster SATA 3.0 protocol. This is a factory limitation, and we don’t expect any updates from Apple, since they don’t even seem to be officially supporting 6Gb/s right now, anyway.
To reiterate, this is a hardware limitation of the MacBook Pro, not the fault of the 6Gb/s-capable drives themselves. However, it does change the way you may want to look at upgrading your machine.
For best performance, you’ll want to put a 6Gb/s SSD (such as the OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G SSD) in the original drive bay, and use a Data Doubler to install your factory hard drive into the optical drive bay. You’ll get the SATA 3.0 speed boost from the SSD, but still have the high-capacity storage your standard hard drive provides.
If, however, you’d rather not put your hard drive in the optical bay but would still like the speed boost an SSD provides, then we suggest getting one of our original Mercury EXTREME Pro SSDs and pairing it with a Data Doubler, instead.
Either way, you’ll have performance ranging from ludicrous speed to levels you previously could only dream of.
In preparation for our official OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G SSD introduction next week, our team has been focused of all aspects of performance of it and including (of course) that offered by the Apple MacBook Pro 2011 laptops, Apple’s first computers with a SATA 3.0 (6.0Gb/s) drive port. For over a month, we’ve been following reports from some MacBook Pro 2011 model users – almost exclusively those with 17″ models, where issues with other brand 6Gb/s SSDs have been encountered. The main issue reported was that the drive simply wasn’t being seen/working.
Another month of news has gone by and there’s so much to discuss! The iPad 2 is still not widely available. Apple has cut several products from retail stores. Acer is looking to overhaul their operations to be more like Apple. OWC has released several new and exciting products in the last month. Join us as we discuss all of this and more.
It’s tax season, and while we’re now finding out whether we’ve overpaid the government or still owe them money, we can take solace in the fact that the OWC Garage Sales give you the best deals without the need for an accountant.
It may have been a while since 
Like many people, I’ve had the dream of being able to drink beer at work. So when the “Be A HeadCase” Bottle/Can Opener Case for iPhone came across my desk to look at, it was just the excuse I was looking for; after all, I can’t really write about a product without testing it first…