Install it, because it is many times faster than an HDD, but I didn’t have one, and it’s expensive. I used what I had at home.
The drive had a problem with a spring or something else, I'm not sure, and that's why the drive wouldn't close. If you have something wrong with your floppy drive or have decided to replace the drive with a hard drive anyway, then this article is for you.
First, we need a special adapter, which looks like a DVD drive. I ordered this one from the Aliexpress store for 174 rubles, for those interested, here is the link.
This way you can replace a rather outdated drive with a hard drive or solid state drive.
How to choose a hard drive adapter?
The fact is that the drive size exists in two types - 9.5 mm and 12.7 mm - this is the thickness. I recommend that you measure the thickness of your drive before purchasing, and then purchase an adapter.
You also need to pay attention to what interface the drive is connected to, if SATA, then using an adapter that has an adapter from this interface you can easily install an HDD or SSD, but if your DVD drive is connected via IDE, which is already outdated technology , then connecting an additional drive using this adapter is impossible.
As I already said, the adapters differ only in thickness, but the width and shape are all the same.
The adapter came to me in a regular plastic package, inside which was the adapter itself, a bag of bolts and a screwdriver.
Replacing DVD with HDD in a laptop
Now you can insert a hard drive into the adapter. Do this carefully so as not to break the SATA port. Now we take the bolts that were provided to us and tighten the disk on the sides.
Remove the drive from the laptop; naturally, before doing this, you need to unscrew it from the back of the laptop. It is usually held on by one bolt.
After this, you need to unscrew the drive mount and screw it to the adapter. This is necessary to secure the adapter in the laptop.
The appearance of this mount may vary depending on the laptop.
If we look at the adapter itself, or at the packaging, we can see instructions for installing a hard drive into it, but we have already done that.
Install it on the adapter, there is a place for it.
The fully assembled hard drive adapter can be placed in the drive slot. Snap it into place and then tighten the bolt.
Connect the battery to the laptop and turn it on, let's see what we got. What happened is that now we have an additional 1 TB hard drive.
If you have difficulties installing the adapter in your laptop, watch the detailed video:
Today we will look at the “12.7 mm thick adapter for 2.5" inch hard drive,” which is needed to install the hard drive into the DVD drive bay of a laptop by removing the latter.
This adapter is useful for those who use a laptop instead of a desktop computer. The laptop does not take up much space, it works almost silently, but you have to pay for everything. In this case, the power of computer hardware and the capacity of the hard drive. As a rule, laptops have one hard drive, access to it can be very simple, as in this case HP Pavilion DV6. But it also happens that without completely disassembling the laptop you cannot get to the HDD, such as the DELL inspiron N5110. Situations arise when you start to run out of space on your hard drive; of course, there are several ways out of this situation: 1) External HDD 2) Network storage 3) Installing an additional HDD instead of a DVD ROM. 4) Replacing the HDD with a more capacious one. Everyone chooses for themselves, according to their capabilities and computer literacy.
What are the advantages of replacing HDD instead of DVD? With such a replacement, you can install an SSD in a regular place; as a rule, for a reasonable price you can get 64 Gb or 128 Gb, which will be quite enough to install the operating system. However, media files and documents can be stored on the HDD installed in the DVD adapter. With this installation, the speed and comfort of work will increase significantly. Or add to an existing hard drive, for example another 1 terabyte. Such a replacement is quite simple to make; you don’t need to be a computer genius to set up a network server or disassemble a laptop down to its screws; as a rule, removing a DVD is a fairly simple procedure.
So purchase:
Order details:
The adapter itself:
This is what the adapter looks like:
Compared to a standard DVD drive (everything is exactly the same):
Installed in laptop:
This is how it looks on a laptop :) Just like a DVD ROM
Measuring the speed of the adapter:
Testik HDTune
You can evaluate whether you can install a HDD yourself instead of a DVD drive by watching the installation video:
P.S.: This option of replacing a DVD drive with an HDD has a right to life, it’s not a bad option. I myself ordered this adapter for a 1 TB HDD, but an excellent option turned up to take a Transend external box (for free). Therefore, I put it aside...
P.P.S: Dismemberment (related to the switch).
Disassembled adapter:
The last photo shows the contact numbers of the SATA connectors (DVD-rom) and the position of the switch. For each switch mode, a contact closure diagram is drawn. Differences:
Position 1: 1-4-7 are shorted to 4th and to ground.
Position 2: 1-4-7 are closed to the 1st contact and to ground.
Position 3: 1-4-7 Does not connect to another connector.
Every user would like to install a modern SSD drive on their PC for better productivity and higher system speed. Installing an SSD on your computer is incredibly easy, and the process itself is usually not accompanied by any difficulties.
By the way, there was a similar article earlier, but in it we only needed to remove a small cover on the back of the case, which does not create any difficulties.
But installing an SSD in a laptop instead of a DVD drive is much more difficult, because first you need to carefully disassemble it. And many users already have difficulties at this stage. So let's look at the whole process in more detail.
What is required for installation?
First, you should familiarize yourself with the characteristics of your laptop to understand what components you need to purchase. As practice shows, most modern models with a CD drive can easily be equipped with an additional hard drive. Therefore, there should be no problems.
Before you start, you should make sure that you have everything you need for full-fledged work.
You will need:
Special attention should be paid to the last point, so let's look at it in more detail.
How to choose an adapter?
The drive size comes in two types and differs in thickness - 9.5mm and 12.7mm. Before purchasing an adapter, carefully measure the thickness of your drive and only then buy the appropriate adapter. Otherwise, the SSD drive adapter simply will not fit into the laptop in place of the DVD drive.
You should also pay attention to the interface through which the drive is connected. If the interface is SATA, then using an adapter with an adapter to mSATA, you can easily install an SSD instead of a disk drive. But if your DVD drive is connected via IDE, and this is an outdated technology, then to connect the SSD you will need an adapter from IDE to SATA.
As mentioned above, the adapters differ only in thickness, while their shape and width are the same. The adapter usually comes with a disposable screwdriver, screws for fastening the hard drive and a plastic cover. The latter is needed for installation on the adapter to cover the free space that appears after removing the drive.
Disassembling a laptop
After we have prepared everything necessary for replacement and purchased a suitable adapter for the SSD, we can begin opening the laptop and then replacing the drive.
You can do this as follows:
After the battery is disconnected, you need to remove the installed hard drive.
For this:
Under the cover there is a hard drive and memory modules. We need to remove the hard drive, since a solid-state drive will be installed in its place.
If you ask why we install the SSD here, and not instead of the drive, then there is a simple explanation for this.
When the speed of the bus to which the hard drive is connected is faster (in this case, the hard drive is connected via SATA 3, while the drive has SATA 2), then the SSD is installed in place of the HDD.
To properly remove the drive, you must carefully follow the following instructions:
We put both drives aside; we will return to them later.
Removing the Top Cover
Now we need to remove the top cover of the laptop by unscrewing all the fixing screws. You should take into account the fact that they come in different sizes and you definitely need to remember where they were unscrewed from.
After all the screws are unscrewed, it's up to the pick. Now you need to separate the bottom and top of the laptop. You need to be extremely careful when opening it, as most models have unreliable latches that can easily break. Check again that all screws have been removed, otherwise there is a risk of damaging the device case.
To remove the cover, you need to insert the pick into the slot that is located between the top and bottom covers, and slowly turn it to release the latches located inside the case. You should start from the front of the laptop, where the indicator lights are located. It is necessary to walk the mediator around the perimeter of the entire body.
After you separate the top cover from the bottom, do not lift it up suddenly. Both parts are connected by cables and you can damage them.
When working with some devices, you do not have to disconnect the cables, since sometimes you can replace the DVD drive without removing the top part of the device, which can significantly save your time.
DVD drive
Now unscrew the DVD drive. We will need a short screwdriver to remove the screw that secures the drive to the case. Once it is unscrewed, you can remove the drive without any problems.
Then remove the plastic cover from the DVD drive. To do this, you need to open it. To do this you will need a paperclip or a needle. Find a small hole on the front panel of the device and insert a paper clip into it. After lightly pressing, the drive carriage will move out of the housing, and you will have full access to its lower part and can easily separate the plug from the carriage.
Once the plug is removed, it will need to be placed on the adapter.
After this, we install the adapter in place of the drive we previously removed and tighten the fastening screw.
All that remains is to turn the laptop over and install the SSD drive in place of the old HDD. Close the cover removed at the beginning of disassembly and tighten the remaining bolts around the perimeter of the device, insert the battery.
The laptop is now assembled and ready to use. We installed two hard drives: we put the old HDD in an adapter and connected it instead of a disk drive, and a new solid-state drive was mounted in its place.
Software settings
The next step will be setting up Bios, namely enabling AHCI mode. This mode allows you to increase the speed of the drive, mainly due to the advantages of NCQ technology. It also opens up other possibilities, such as hot swapping.
Now you know how to install an SSD in a laptop instead of an old DVD drive, and you can do it yourself without any problems, following our instructions exactly.
By the way, you can completely transfer the system without losing its functionality using special programs, for example, Acronis Universal Restore, Macrium Reflect and others. They have wide functionality and will help you in this situation.
Hi all. Today I want to tell you how to independently install an additional SSD drive in place of the CD drive in an Asus X550L laptop. First, you need to familiarize yourself with the technical characteristics of your laptop in order to understand what components you need to purchase in order to start installing an SSD drive. I’ll say right away if your laptop model is different from the model I’m considering in my post, don’t be upset. Almost all modern laptop models that have a CD drive can install an additional HDD.
Before we start, we need to make sure that we have everything we need.
- New SSD HDD. Your new SSD must have a 2.5″ form factor.
- A set of tools for disassembling a laptop (small Phillips screwdriver). The heads of all screws that you will unscrew are the same size.
- A plastic pick for opening laptop cases or a bank card.
- Pocket for replacing a laptop CD/DVD drive with a 2.5” HDD/SSD.
Here I will tell you in more detail. The thickness of the adapter should be 9.5 mm. since the thickness of the installed DVD drive in the laptop model in question is 9.5 mm. and for successful installation of the adapter you need exactly this thickness, otherwise you simply will not be able to install the adapter. For this laptop model I purchased an adapter Espada SS95 Alu SATA 3 (SATA CD/DVD 9.5mm to SATA 3). You can buy it. The cost of such an adapter today is 300-370 UAH.
Included with the adapter is a screwdriver (for one use), screws for fastening the HDD, and a plastic cover that is installed on the adapter to close the hole that is formed after removing the DVD drive and installing the adapter. We don't need this cover, but first things first.
Now the fun part :).
First we need to open the laptop. We take our laptop and turn it off. We check that our laptop has successfully turned off, turn it over and remove the battery.
After removing the battery, we need to remove our original hard drive. To do this we need to unscrew the cap on the opposite side of the battery.
In the screenshot above, I indicated with arrows where the screws need to be unscrewed.
After you have unscrewed the screws you need to remove the cover. To remove the cover, you need to pull it slightly towards you and lift it (provided that the laptop is lying in front of you as shown in the screenshot).
Under the cover you will see the hard drive and memory modules. We need a hard drive. We must remove the hard drive because we will install an SSD drive in this place. You may ask why here and not instead of a DVD drive. I'll explain. If the speed of the bus to which the hard drive is connected is faster (SATA 3 for hard drive, SATA 2 for optical), then the SSD is placed in this place.
In the screenshot above I showed the mounting locations for the hard drive. You need to unscrew the screws and slide the hard drive to the left, after which the drive can be removed.
Please note that the screws are of different sizes and you need to remember where you removed them from.
When you unscrew all the screws, the pick comes into play. You need to separate the top of the laptop from the bottom.
Please pay special attention that all screws are unscrewed, otherwise you may damage the case.
You need to separate the top of the laptop from the bottom.
Be extremely careful when opening the case as these models have very flimsy latches on the case and they can break off.
Insert the sharp edge of the pick into the gap between the bottom and top of the laptop and slowly turn it to release the latches inside the case. You need to start from the front of the laptop where the indicator lights are located. Thus, you need to walk the pick along the entire perimeter of the body.
When the top cover is separated from the bottom, do not lift it sharply to the top since the top and bottom of the laptop are connected by cables. This can be seen in the screenshot.
I also advise you to watch a video recorded by a kind person with the nickname danythe007. This video shows how to disassemble this laptop model.
I want to say right away that I did not disconnect the cables to remove the top cover since I was able to remove the DVD drive without disconnecting the top part of the laptop (this saved my time).
Let's return to our sheep. Now we need to unscrew the DVD drive. In order not to disconnect the cables, I used a short screwdriver to unscrew the screw that secures the drive to the laptop.
The screenshot shows where the screw is located that needs to be unscrewed to remove the DVD drive.
After we have removed the drive, we need to work on our adapter. We need to install our old hard drive into the adapter. We immediately remove the old disk from the mounting frame and install our SSD in the frame instead of the old disk and put it aside. We'll come back to it a little later.
There are small instructions on the adapter that tell you how to attach the disk. After installing the disc, we need to remove the plastic cover from our DVD drive.
In order to remove the cover from the drive, you need to open it. For this we need a needle or paperclip. There is a small hole on the front panel of the drive; you need to insert a needle into this hole and press a little; the drive carriage should come out of the housing. You now have access to the bottom of the drive to separate the plug from the drive carriage.
The laptop is all assembled. We received two installed hard drives, one installed in the adapter and a new SSD installed in place of the old drive.
Also, after you have assembled your laptop, you need to enter the BIOS. There you will see two hard drives. It is necessary to set the AHCI mode to Enchanced if this has not already been set. This parameter will allow us to work with the new drive as a full-fledged SATA device.
Now you ask, what to do with the installed operating system? How to transfer without losing the functionality of the OS?
Since I knew that I would be installing an SSD drive in the future, I created a 95GB system partition in advance. After installing the hard drive, I transferred the system partition and all related records to the new SSD drive using Acronis Universal Restore. If you want me to describe how I did this, write in the comments and I will write a new post with a more detailed description of transferring the OS to a new disk.
Greetings! A long time ago I had a desire to make a small upgrade to my old laptop and breathe new life into it. At the moment, the best thing to do for my junk is to add more RAM and replace the ancient HDD with a new SSD. Since I already have the maximum possible four gigabytes of RAM, the hard drive had to be replaced. Modern SSD drives are expensive, and there is never too much space. It was decided to install the old disk in place of the DVD drive. Installation, tests, conclusions - please under the cat...
The purchased 250 GB Samsung 750 EVO SSD was logically installed in place of the standard HDD drive. My native disk was 320 GB, which is not much more. There are plenty of options for using an old hard drive. Sell and recoup some of the money for the purchase of an SSD, buy a box with a USB interface and use it as a portable drive or just some kind of adapter, or install it in place of a DVD drive, which I have not used for a long time. Having defeated the “toad”, it was decided not to sell the disc. Since I already have a portable HDD, the choice fell on the so-called Caddy or Optibay device.
Specifications
- Device thickness standard: 12.7 mm
- Interface: SATA
- Disk size and interface: SATA(2.5")
- Dimensions: 12.6*12.7*1.27cm
- Caddy - 1 pc.
- Screwdriver - 1 pc.
- Bolts - 8 pcs.
- Seal - 1 pc.
The device itself is extremely simple. The shape is exactly the same as a standard DVD drive. The only thing to consider is the thickness of the drive. DVD devices for laptops come in two sizes: 9.5 mm and 12.7 mm. So I strongly recommend that before purchasing a “pocket” you take out your DVD and measure its thickness. But if you really don’t want to disassemble the laptop once again, then you can go online and determine its dimensions this way. Also be sure to check which interface your DVD is using. The screwdriver is very cheap and not particularly convenient, but if you don’t have a tool at hand and want to install the disk right now, then it will do the job.
The bolts were very useful. They help keep the disc in place, but not in a traditional way. I will describe the installation a little later. The rubber, perforated block most likely serves to more securely fix the disc in the pocket and to reduce vibration.
Disassembly
I decided to disassemble the adapter body a little and see what else was interesting there. I didn't find any surprises. The tin body is reinforced with a plastic insert. The adapter board is extremely miniature, on which the SATA and mSata interfaces are located. I also discovered a strange kind of switch that has three positions. What function it performs remains a mystery to me. I will be glad to see versions of his appointment in the comments.
Installation in a laptop
The first thing you need to do is get the standard drive for your laptop. Each laptop does this differently, but the principle is the same. In my case, it was necessary to unscrew the cover of the compartment under which the drive mounting bolt was located. I unscrewed it and pressed a small pedal, the DVD moved out of its seat a little. Now you can take it out freely. 
After we compared the dimensions and checked that the adapter fits freely into the DVD drive, we can install the disc in the Caddy. To securely fix the disk, you need to screw four bolts into it until they stop, put the disk in the “pocket” and slide it into the SATA interface. The bolts will rest against special protrusions on the adapter body. Thus, the disk will be firmly fixed, but for greater reliability it is necessary to install a rubber seal at the rear end of the disk. 
In this form, you can already connect the adapter to the laptop and turn it on. But it will not be recorded, which is not safe. The adapter is attached to the laptop case using a special fastener, which must be unscrewed from your standard DVD drive and fixed to the new adapter. These mounts come in a variety of shapes, but have a standard hole pattern for mounting on the drive housing and our Caddy. 
The final touch is to bring beauty. From the disk drive I remove the decorative cover with the button, which is held on by several latches, and install it on the Caddy. Everything is standard here too. All holes for latches are in place. All that remains is to install the adapter in its rightful place, secure it with a bolt to the laptop body and close the compartment. You can turn it on and enjoy :). 
Testing
I carried out several simple tests and it turned out that I have the same revisions of the SATA interface on my laptop, both at the main installation location of the laptop and at the connection location of the DVD drive. Since my laptop is not the latest, the most I could count on was SATA 3 Gb/s. And so it happened. In my case, it didn’t matter which interface I connected the SSD drive to, and which HDD. The operating speed is expectedly the same for both SSD and HDD drives.
conclusions
There are a great variety of similar adapters at very different prices. I can’t say exactly what the difference is between them. In my case, this is one of its cheapest representatives. The data transfer speed on an SSD drive is no different from the speed in a standard location. Perhaps there will be some difference in working with the SATA 3 interface, but I cannot verify this. I have no complaints about the build quality. Everything fit like family. I hope it will serve and please me for a long time.
I hope I helped you decide whether to purchase the product and, in particular, this adapter. If I missed something, I will try to answer all the questions asked in the comments.
A short video review for greater clarity
That's all. Thank you all for your attention to my review! Happy shopping and good luck!
You can purchase PLN adapters at
