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Container dvd drive in a laptop on ssd. Replacing the DVD drive with an additional HDD or SSD solid state drive. Types of SSD memory chips

After installing ssd instead of hdd in my laptop, I began to experience a catastrophic lack of space on the first one. Buying a sata-usb adapter made it possible to expand my media library to an old hdd. A couple of months passed and this option ceased to suit me, namely, I got tired of carrying this “appendix” with me, and the speed left much to be desired. After some time, I came across a series of articles about installing a second disk using an ESPADA adapter. This miracle device with a second disk was inserted instead of the native DVD drive and delight users. A search in electronics stores led to the realization that this device is an unaffordable luxury for me. The price is from 800 rubles with us, from $ 6 in China. Further, on Habré, I found articles on self-reworking the DVD drive for installing a second disk, but I was sorry to break the drive for such experiments, and then it started ... At work, I took a dead hdd, sata-loop, molex-sata from an old PSU.

Just in my apartment there was a repair and there was a lot of tools for "fitting" some details for my idea.

With the help of a grinder (angle grinder), the sata connector was upgraded to Slimline SATA.

On the power side, 5 contact pads were left and other areas that we did not need were cut down.

By removing unnecessary contact pads, in total I got the connector I needed just like in a DVD drive.

In advance, a pinout diagram was found on the Internet.

Armed with a soldering iron and a reserve of patience, I soldered the whole thing into a SATA (ODA)-> SATA (HDD) adapter.

Filling everything with ordinary shoe glue (well, I don’t have hot glue) and wrapping it with electrical tape, I got a completely aesthetic-looking posting. After waiting for the glue to dry, I began to try to assemble the whole thing. I glued the HDD with double-sided tape, thereby creating a “cushion”.

All connected and tightly inserted into the inside.

Fingers crossed, I turn on the laptop and immediately run into the BIOS.

Hooray! WDC has decided.

I boot the system and everything is in order.

There is no limit to joy and pride! It turns out how easy it is to connect a second drive to a laptop with a minimum of costs.

Every user would like to install a modern SSD drive on their PC for better productivity and more high speed system operation. Installing a solid state drive on a 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 just 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 at this stage already have difficulties. So let's take a look at the whole process in more detail.

What is required for installation?

First you need to familiarize yourself with the characteristics of your laptop to understand what components you need to purchase. As practice shows, in most modern models with a CD drive, you can easily install an additional hard drive. Therefore, problems should not arise.

Before you start, you should make sure that you have acquired everything you need for a full-fledged work.

You will need:

Special attention should be paid to the last point, so let's analyze it in more detail.

How to choose an adapter?

The size of the drive is of two types and differs in its thickness - 9.5mm and 12.7mm. Before buying 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 with which the drive is connected. If the interface is SATA, then using an adapter with an adapter to mSATA, you can easily put an SSD instead of a drive. But if your DVD drive is connected via IDE, which is an outdated technology, then you will need an IDE to SATA adapter to connect the SSD.

As mentioned above, adapters differ only in thickness, while their shape and width are the same. The adapter usually comes with a disposable screwdriver, screws for mounting the hard drive and a plastic cover. The latter is needed to install on the adapter to close free space, which is formed after the removal of the drive.

Disassembling a laptop

After we have prepared everything necessary for replacement and purchased a suitable adapter for the SSD, we can proceed to open the laptop and then replace the drive.

You can do this in the following way:

After the battery is disconnected, you need to remove the installed hard drive.

For this:

Under the cover is the hard drive and memory modules. We need to remove the hard drive, as 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 strictly 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 be sure to remember where they were unscrewed from.

After all the screws are unscrewed, it's up to the mediator. Now you need to separate the bottom and top of the laptop. You need to be extremely careful when opening, as most models have unreliable latches that can easily break. Check again if all the screws have been unscrewed, otherwise there is a risk of damaging the device case.

To remove the cover, you need to insert the pick into the slot, which is located between the top and bottom covers, and slowly turn it to unlock the latches inside the case. You should start from the front of the laptop, where the indicator lights are located. It is necessary to walk with a mediator along the perimeter of the entire body.

After you separate the top cover from the bottom one, do not lift it up abruptly. 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 of the device, which can save you a lot of time.

DVD drive

Now unscrew the DVD drive. We will need a short screwdriver to unscrew the screw that secures the drive to the case. After it is unscrewed, you can remove the drive without any problems.

Then remove the plastic cover from the DVD drive. To do this, it must be opened. This will require a paperclip or a needle. We find a small hole on the front panel of the device and insert a paper clip there. After a slight push, the drive carriage will come out of the case, 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 put on the adapter.

After that, we install the adapter in place of the drive we previously removed and tighten the fixing screw.

It remains to turn the laptop upside down and install the SSD drive in place of the old HDD. We 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 go. We carried out the installation of two hard drives: we put the old HDD into an adapter and connected it instead of a drive, and a new solid-state drive was mounted in its place.

Software settings

The next step will be bios setting, namely the inclusion AHCI mode. This mode allows you to increase the speed of the drive, mainly due to the advantages of NCQ technology. Other possibilities are also opening up, such as hot swapping, for example.

Now you know how to put 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 performance using special programs, for example, such as Acronis Universal Restore, Macrium Reflect and others. They have a wide range of functions and will help you in this situation.

After installing ssd instead of hdd in my laptop, I began to experience a catastrophic lack of space on the first one. Buying a sata-usb adapter made it possible to expand my media library to an old hdd. A couple of months passed and this option ceased to suit me, namely, I got tired of carrying this “appendix” with me, and the speed left much to be desired. After some time, I came across a series of articles about installing a second disk using an ESPADA adapter. This miracle device with a second disc was inserted instead of a native DVD drive and delighted users. A search in electronics stores led to the realization that this device is an unaffordable luxury for me. The price is from 800 rubles with us, from $ 6 in China. Further, on Habré, I found articles on self-reworking the DVD drive for installing a second disk, but I was sorry to break the drive for such experiments, and then it started ... At work, I took a dead hdd, sata-loop, molex-sata from an old PSU.

On the power side, 5 contact pads were left and other areas that we did not need were cut down.

By removing unnecessary contact pads, in total I got the connector I needed just like in a DVD drive.

In advance, a pinout diagram was found on the Internet.

Armed with a soldering iron and a reserve of patience, I soldered the whole thing into a SATA (ODA)-> SATA (HDD) adapter.

All connected and tightly inserted into the inside.

Fingers crossed, I turn on the laptop and immediately run into the BIOS.

Hooray! WDC has decided.

I boot the system and everything is in order.

There is no limit to joy and pride! It turns out how easy it is to connect a second drive to a laptop with a minimum of costs.

On the hard drive, which is also called a hard drive, with a capacity of 250 GB, installed in my Samsung-R719 laptop, due to the constant saving of newly captured photos, music and videos, there was not enough space. The question arose of choosing a new hard drive with a larger capacity to replace it.

Another question of choosing a new hard drive may arise in the event of its failure due to aging, magnetic coating applied to the disks, or failure of the electronic board. Service centres They don't repair hard drives.

Hard disk HDD (Hard Disk Drive) or its modern analogue solid state drive SSD (Solid State Drives) in a computer or laptop is designed to record, store and read information. Without an information storage device, any computer product will not be able to fully work.

Choosing a HDD for a laptop

To choose the right hard drive for a laptop, first of all, you need to determine its main technical characteristics, such as:

Hard disk capacity;
Information storage method (HDD or SSD);
The type of connector (interface) with which the hard drive is connected to the laptop;
Form factor (geometric dimensions).

By memory

Currently, only hard drives with a capacity of 500 GB or more are on sale for storing information data. This amount of hard drive in the computer will be enough to install all the necessary software, store photos, music and your own video. If you need to contain an archive of films, then you will need a hard drive with a capacity of 1 TB or more. When choosing a hard drive, please note that not all motherboards support hard drives larger than 2 TB.

Do not be surprised if installed in computer hard a disk, for example, with a capacity of 1 TB, will have a capacity of 0.93 TB during verification. The fact is that a computer processes information in a binary system, in which 1 GB = 1024 MB, and manufacturers indicate the volume of a hard disk in a decimal system (which is not true), assuming that 1 TB = 1000 GB. A kind of marketing technique that misleads consumers. In addition, part of the hard drive memory is used by the computer system to store service information.

How information is stored

Recently, a new type of hard disk has appeared on the market and is becoming popular, in which information is stored not on magnetic disks, but with the help of microcircuits that are widely used in flash drives connected to USB port. These drives are called solid-state drives and are briefly referred to as SSDs (Solid State Drives). Due to the absence of mechanical components, SSD solid state drives have high speed and high reliability. But their cost is more than twice the cost of traditional HDDs. So the choice depends entirely on the budget allocated for the replacement of the hard drive.

There is a third, combined type of laptop hard drive. On the board of an ordinary hard drive, SSD memory chips are additionally installed, which store information frequently requested by the computer system. This allows you to significantly increase the speed of the disk as a whole with a slight increase in its cost.

When buying a hard drive for a laptop with a limited budget, I recommend paying attention to the combined type of hard drive.

Type of laptop interface

There are two ways to find out the type of interface installed in a laptop HDD - informational and mechanical. With the information method, you need to go to the laptop Control Panel, then to the Hardware List and find out the model of the installed hard drive. Easy to find by model number online specifications, from which you can find out all the parameters of the hard drive.

The mechanical method is simpler, since it does not require searching and understanding the technical characteristics of the hard drive, it is enough to have only a Phillips screwdriver on hand. First you need to close all programs, turn off the laptop and fold it. Next, turn the laptop upside down to place it so as not to scratch the lid on a soft surface. Usually on all removable laptop covers it is inscribed what is hidden under them.

Attention before hard drive, SSD, DVD, memory sticks or any other device, to avoid failure of the laptop, it is imperative to turn it off, disconnect the power adapter from the mains and remove the battery.

Typically, the battery in the laptop case is fixed with the help of two movable latches, which are disengaged by moving in the direction of the arrow on the laptop cover with the sliders associated with them. Both sliders must be simultaneously moved along the arrows on the cover and the battery should be moved to the side, as shown in the photo, and removed.

On the cover of the compartment in which the hard drive is installed, there is an inscription HDD, and under it there is an arrow in the form of a triangle, showing in which direction you need to move the cover to remove it after unscrewing the screws located on it.

To dismember the connector on the hard drive, there is a tab made of thick plastic. You need to take it and move the disk, as shown in the photo, away from the connector.

After removing the hard drive from the laptop, it became obvious that a SATA type serial interface was used to connect the hard drive. Serial-ATA. The photo shows this type of connector, with which today the vast majority of laptops, regardless of manufacturer, connect a hard drive.

And this is how the Serial-ATA connector looks on a hard or SSD drive. Previously, laptops used an IDE-type connector to connect hard drives.

Connector IDE is a set of two rows of pins protruding from the base, as in the photo, so it is easy to distinguish it from the Serial-ATA connector.

SATA Revision specification interface speed characteristics

To connect hard drives in computers, Serial-ATA connectors of one of three specifications are used.

SATA connectors of all specifications are interchangeable. For example, an SSD with a SATA 3.0 connector can be installed in a laptop that has a SATA 1.0 connector. In this case, the maximum data transfer rate will be limited by the data transfer capability of the SATA 1.0 connector.

The connector specification determines only its capabilities, and real speed write-read is determined by the technical characteristics of the hard drive installed in the laptop. For example, a modern, one of the best Seagate hard drives with a capacity of 3 TB has a maximum read and write speed of large amounts of information of only 150 MB / s, and only 1 MB / s for small files. Thus, any hard drive will provide maximum data transfer speed, regardless of the computer's SATA interface specification.

Another thing is if a solid-state SSD is installed in the computer. In some models, the read-write speed is up to 550 MB / second. To implement this speed, you will need an interface only with the SATA Revision 3.0 specification.

Determining the form factor of a hard drive

The form factor defines the standard geometric dimensions of a hard drive. In laptops, you can find 2.5 ”hard drives (width 69.9 mm) with a case thickness of 7, 9.5 or 15 mm. As a rule, manufacturers install 2.5 ”hard drives with a thickness of 9.5 mm in laptops.

The form factor of a hard drive can be found in the technical specifications of the model or you can measure the thickness of the drive with any flat ruler or caliper.

Additional Specifications
SSD drives

For the correct choice of a new hard drive, it is enough to take into account its technical characteristics listed above. When choosing to replace a solid-state SSD drive, you must additionally pay attention to the type of memory chips on the basis of which the solid-state drive is made, since its life depends on this.

Types of SSD memory chips

In SSD drives, manufacturers install memory chips of one of three types:

TLC - the cheapest type of memory with a rewriting resource of at least 1000 cycles;
MLC - the optimal type of memory for a home computer with a rewriting resource of at least 3,000 cycles;
3D NAND is the most expensive and fastest memory with a rewrite resource of more than 10,000 cycles.

At first glance, it seems that 3000 cycles of rewriting to a disk is not enough, but if you make a calculation, then for a 240 GB SSD disk this memory resource will last for decades of intensive use.

For example, I have a 240 GB SSD in my computer. I work on a laptop every day and additionally it is recorded around the clock from three high-resolution street video surveillance cameras.

Let's calculate the real resource for overwriting an SSD disk: - 240 GB × 3000 cycles = 720,000 GB = 720 TB. No more than 30 GB of video and other information is recorded per day, less than 10.8 TB is obtained per year. Divide the disk resource by the annual recording volume: 720/10.8= 66 years old.

Calculations have shown that a solid-state SSD disk, assembled from chips of any type of memory, in home computer it will become morally obsolete before it exhausts its resource.

How to transfer system and files
in a laptop from an old hard drive to a new one

Having defined the main technical parameters hard drive, which guarantee the possibility of its installation in a laptop, you can proceed to its selection and purchase.

On new hard drives x not installed Windows system and after connecting it to the laptop, you will need to install Windows everything software necessary for work. This is a rather laborious process, as it requires care, patience and a lot of time.

The task can be simplified with the help of special programs for cloning hard drives, such as Paragon Drive Copy. The program supports the Russian language and any laptop user will understand it.

In order to use Paragon Drive Copy, you need to install it on an old hard drive, connect new disk to the laptop, run the cloning program and wait until all the information has been copied. Then install a new disk in a laptop and you can work on it immediately, as if the hard disk had not changed.

How to install a second hard drive in a laptop

To transfer the system and files (cloning) from the old drive, you need to connect two hard drives to the laptop at the same time, which is not provided for by its design. There are two ways to solve this problem:

Use a special adapter container in the form of an outer box;
Install a container adapter instead of a DVD drive, which will allow you to add a second hard drive to your laptop.

Both options are equivalent and it all depends on further plans for use. old hard disk. If you plan to use the removed hard drive as a USB flash drive for storing and transferring a large amount of information, then you should purchase an external adapter container. And if a hard drive is required to expand the total volume for storing information on a laptop, then you will need to install a container adapter instead of a standard DVD drive.

I had to use both options. A few years ago, when it was necessary to increase the size of the hard drive, and the DVD drive was still in demand, I had to buy an external USB container-adapter in the form of a portable box. And the second time, when I wanted to increase the performance of a laptop and increase the amount of information storage, replace a mechanical hard drive with an SSD drive. The DVD drive was no longer needed and instead a container adapter for a second hard drive was installed in the laptop.

Using a USB container adapter

The market offers a wide range of container adapters in the form of an external box, which are designed to connect a hard drive to a laptop via its external USB interface.

When choosing, the main thing is that the form factor and internal interface of the adapter match the form factor and interface of the hard drive. There are also adapters with which the hard drive is connected directly to the laptop connector. They cost less, but they are inconvenient to use, since, if accidentally hit, such an adapter is easy to break.

The hard drive adapter container is a plastic or metal box with an external mini-USB connector and an activity indicator LED. The container-adapter is connected to the computer using a standard flexible cord with connectors at the ends of mini-USB and USB.

Since 2.5-inch hard drives draw little current, the power that the USB bus a laptop is sufficient and no additional power supply is required.

To install a hard drive in the adapter container, you need to remove the cover from it, place the hard drive in it and slide it over the interface connector. After that, close the lid and use a standard USB cable to connect the adapter container to the computer. Now the additional hard drive will work like a USB flash drive familiar to everyone. Thanks to the use of a container-adapter, it will be possible to quickly connect a hard drive to any laptop or desktop computer.

Instead of a DVD drive

To date DVD discs have lost their relevance, and optical DVD drives installed in laptops only collect dust. To expand the technical capabilities of laptops, the industry has mastered the production of special adapters that allow you to install a second hard drive in a laptop instead of a useless DVD drive.

The form factor and interface connector are the same for all DVD drives installed in laptops, and they are 9.5 mm and 12.7 mm thick. Therefore, before purchasing an adapter, you should find out the thickness of the DVD drive installed in your laptop.

There are two ways to determine the dimensions of a DVD drive. Go to the “Device Manager” of the computer and find its technical specifications by the drive model on the Internet. But it is more expedient to remove the drive from the laptop and measure its thickness, since at the same time it will be possible to study how the drive works and figure out how it is removed.

To remove the DVD drive from the laptop case, you need to unscrew only one screw with a Phillips screwdriver, which is located on the side of the bottom cover of the laptop in the area where the drive is located. There is usually an ODD written next to this screw and an arrow pointing to the head of the screw. After that, the drive can be easily removed.

Since the thickness of hard drive adapters differs significantly, it is easy to determine it by eye, but in order not to be mistaken, it is better to measure it with any ruler or caliper. Measuring with a caliper the size of the DVD drive installed in my Samsung-R719 laptop showed that its thickness is 12.7 mm.

Where can I buy an adapter to replace the DVD drive

After determining the form factor of the DVD drive installed in the laptop compartment, you can start purchasing an adapter. In computer and digital equipment stores there is a large selection of Chinese hard drive adapters to install instead of a DVD drive costing around $ 15.

Exactly such adapters made in China can be purchased at the Aliexpress online store for $4, although you will have to wait for delivery from a month to two.

My choice fell on an aluminum alloy adapter, since the hard drive heats up during operation, and metal removes heat better. The method of fixing the hard drive in the adapter was chosen as a screw method, as more reliable. 40 days after payment for the order, the adapter was received by mail. Upon opening the soft packaging and a careful examination of the defects, no defects were found. There was also a small Phillips screwdriver in the package.

Replacing a DVD drive with a hard drive adapter

Before installing a hard drive into the adapter, you must perform preparatory work, which consist in transferring the corner with a threaded hole and the front panel from the DVD drive to the purchased adapter.

An angle with a threaded bushing for fixing the DVD drive in the laptop case is located next to its interface connector and is fixed with two screws. There was no corner on the adapter, but there were two threaded holes in the required place.

Therefore, I had to remove the corner from the DVD drive and, observing the orientation, fix it on the adapter using the unscrewed screws.

The decorative plastic panel installed on the purchased adapter (lower in the photo) differed in shape and size from the panel installed on the laptop DVD drive. Therefore, so that large gaps do not appear and are not disturbed appearance laptop, I had to remove the panel from the DVD drive case and install it on the hard drive adapter case.

The photo shows a laptop with an adapter installed with a bezel that was installed by the manufacturer. As you can see, the appearance of the laptop is not pleasing to the eye.

Changing the panel is an easy task if you know where the latches are and how to wring them out. It is better to remove the panel first from the adapter, since it will no longer be needed, and if the latches accidentally break, this will not lead to undesirable consequences.

In the DVD drive removed from the laptop, the drawer for installing discs, on which the front panel is attached, is recessed, and it is impossible to get to the latches in this position. But for its extension, a small hole is provided on the panel, into which it is enough to put a metal rod, for example, a needle or a straightened paper clip, by pressing a couple of centimeters.

The decorative front panel on the slide-out tray of the DVD drive is fixed with two latches. One latch shown in the photo is on the edge of the right side of the panel. To release the latch, it is enough to press it with the blade of a screwdriver in the recess provided for this.

The second latch is located on the opposite side of the panel and is slightly removed from its end. It is released from engagement in the same way.

The front panel is removed from the adapter in the same way. After removing it, you need to install the removed front panel from the DVD drive on the adapter and you can install the hard drive.

After installing the hard drive, you need to fix it in the adapter by screwing four screws that are already partially screwed into the adapter case. The screws must be tightened so that they do not protrude, otherwise it will not be possible to insert the adapter into the laptop compartment.

This hard drive adapter model has a switch to the left of SATA for adapting hard drives from different manufacturers:

A: for HP/Cony;
B: for Dell/IBM;
C: for Other Brand.

A Seagate hard drive was installed, which was not in the list, so at random the switch slider was set to position B.

The hard drive adapter is prepared to replace the DVD drive, and it's time to insert it into the laptop bay.

The adapter fits effortlessly into the laptop compartment, and the front panel merges with the body, just like the front panel of the previously installed DVD drive. It remains only to fix the adapter by tightening one screw on the bottom of the laptop and you can check hard work disk.

After installing the battery, turning on the computer, Windows recognized the adapter, installed the driver, and the partitions of the additional hard disk became available for work. When writing and reading from the second hard drive on the adapter panel, the blue LED blinked, and in sleep mode it was constantly on.

Thanks to the installation of a hard disk adapter in a laptop, instead of a useless DVD drive, it became possible to store up to 1.1 TB of information. In addition, thanks to the placement of system Windows files and storing frequently used information on an SSD drive, the acoustic noise that the hard drive used to emit was gone, and the laptop was running almost silently.

If you have long ceased to use the DVD drive in your laptop, then it's time to replace it with a brand new SSD. Didn't you know that this is possible? Then today we will tell you in detail about how to do it and what is required for this.

So, after weighing all the pros and cons, we came to the conclusion that the drive for optical discs- this is already an extra device and it would be nice to put an SSD instead. To do this, we need the drive itself and a special adapter (or adapter), which is perfect in size instead of a DVD drive. Thus, it will not only be easier for us to connect the disk, but the laptop case itself will look more aesthetically pleasing.

Preparatory stage

Before purchasing such an adapter, you should pay attention to the size of your drive. A regular drive is 12.7mm high, and there are also ultra-thin drives that are 9.5mm high.

Now that we have a suitable adapter and SSD, we can proceed with the installation.

Disconnecting the DVD drive

The first step is to disconnect the battery. In cases where the battery is not removable, you will have to remove the laptop cover and disconnect the battery connector from the motherboard.

In most cases, in order to remove the drive, you do not need to disassemble the laptop completely. It is enough to unscrew a few screws and the optical drive can be easily removed. If you are not completely confident in your abilities, then it is better to look for video instructions directly for your model or contact a specialist.

Installing the SSD

That's all, our drive is ready for installation.

Now it remains to insert the adapter with the SSD into the laptop, tighten the bolts and connect the battery. We turn on the laptop, format the new disk, and then you can transfer it to it operating system from a magnetic drive, and the latter is used for data storage.