Which laptop could take an extra ssd instead of dvd drive?

Lemaildetom

Lemaildetom

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thomas
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Hi I have a lenovo T430, i can take out the DVD player and i have a caddy in which i have a ssd. It's been a great solution has i have all my LR catalog on this removable HD. Plus it seems faster and more convenient that an external HD.
I have been thinking of buying a newer computer. Mainly because we need a second one at home.
With which machine can i do the same thing?

I see online that you can buy 9.5mm and 12,7mm thick caddy, is this mean i can use them for any laptop?
 
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Put one in my Dell XPS and it's great, I would imagine that if you have a DVD then you will be able to replace it with caddy & SSD ... probably a specific youtu.be video on how to do it as well. :)
 
Its better to get a laptop with a spare place designed for the purpose.

The sata cable you took out of the dvd drive is highly likely a sata 2 cable and not a sata 3 used on modern ssd drives.

I don't think it makes that much difference but I would rather use the sata 3 anyway
 
Lemaildetom said:
Any pointer to which model/make would do this?
Click to expand...

Found this on a forum, its from a couple of years back so perhaps still applies now but not sure. Worth looking into

Dell have told me that of their current models:
- all their 17" inch laptops have two hard drive bays.
 
Hard to say for sure as some laptops have different connectors/modules at the back of the cd bay (hp I'm looking at you).

I know a lot of dell's will take a caddy. I used to do it on latitude and precision models.
 
Any new laptop using USB3 will be quick enough to have the SSD in an external USB3 caddy, might even be quicker if your current dvd drive was only running on a SATA2 port.
 
I'm sure my current is SATA3 has i tested the speed after install. The thing is external is external and that always a bit of a pain.
 
The big Dell Precision M6600 I think I have.
Has extra Hdd slots inside and the optical drive.
 
GTG said:
Found this on a forum, its from a couple of years back so perhaps still applies now but not sure. Worth looking into

Dell have told me that of their current models:
- all their 17" inch laptops have two hard drive bays.
Click to expand...

Yes my Dell 17 M6600 does
 
If you look at Fleabay there is a whole raft of optical caddies available for lots of different models. So it would be worth, when you have decided what machine you want to check Fleabay out.
I think nearly every current model is covered. The Optical bays are very similar.
 
Would it not be better to look at a laptop that has both an mSATA SSD and a mechanical disk or is it the fact that you can remove it which entices you?

If it’s the modularity you’re looking for then Dell Precision/Latitude and T series Thinkpads are the key players, I’ve got both and wouldn’t entertain any other brand or model to be honest
 
Neilc28 said:
Would it not be better to look at a laptop that has both an mSATA SSD and a mechanical disk or is it the fact that you can remove it which entices you?

If it’s the modularity you’re looking for then Dell Precision/Latitude and T series Thinkpads are the key players, I’ve got both and wouldn’t entertain any other brand or model to be honest
Click to expand...

I don't need the removeable option to be honest, but adding a 1TB ssd only for my picture is great, keeping the main hdd for windows and software.
 
neil_g said:
And an msata if I remember rightly to when I had mine.
Click to expand...

yes it does, I did think about putting one in.
I bought mine of a guy on here, it is the laptop that connects to me Marantz HiDef DAC for my home headphone station.
 
Dell XPS 9530 models had both an mSATA socket and SATA3 sockets. The laptop I'm using now has a 256GB mSATA card with OS and a 1TB SSD where the original HDD was.
 
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