Put a solid state drive instead of dvd in a laptop. Replacing the DVD drive with an additional HDD or SSD

To date, optical discs have almost completely lost their relevance. External hard drives and USB sticks are replacing them hour after hour. In this regard, many want to replace an outdated thing with a more relevant one. After all, you can install an additional hard drive in a stationary computer, but such a number will not work with a laptop, so we will use a disk drive.

There are 3 types hard drives:

We take into account several parameters:

Speed

It depends on several parameters:

• connection interface- Today, almost all laptops are equipped with either SATA 2 (3 Gb) or SATA 3 (6 Gb). You can replace one with another, but if you connect 3 to 2, then you will not be able to maintain high speed;
• cache (memory size). The range varies from 8 to 128 MB. When choosing, you should pay attention to a larger volume;
• spindle (rotation speed). It depends on how quickly the drive will work. High speed will ensure fast processing of information. But each speed has its advantages. So, 5400 RPM is low, but it does not consume much power and at the same time your device works silently. With these parameters, the laptop will live longer. The high speed is 7200 RPM, with this choice the laptop will get very hot and the power consumption is significantly high.

Dimensions

For laptops, solid-state drives or HDDs are produced in a standard form - 2.5 form factor (3.5 is available for stationary personal computers). They differ only in thickness (from 5 to 17.5 mm). The standard value is 9.5, but ultra-thin ones use 5 mm.

Volume

Of course, the volume is not an unimportant factor in the selection of a disk. For a certain case, a certain volume is suitable:

Each manufacturer has its own ideal drive, so you should not pay attention to a particular company. It is very important to understand how the drive will be used: whether it is just for work, for high-quality games, or for data storage. There are quite a few types of hard drives, someone can please with a long service life, and someone with a large volume.

In online stores, you can get acquainted with all the characteristics and understand what kind of work it is suitable for. Also, on certain resources, a description is made of for what purposes it is best to use it.

It is very important to check on the motherboard which interface you need. If you doubt your abilities, it is recommended to consult a specialist.

Reference! When you use 2 disks, PC performance increases exponentially. Since the HDD is responsible for storing a sufficient amount of information, and the SSD for high-speed operation.

Preparing for installation

The following items are required for this operation:

Important! If your device is under warranty, then after removing the drive, you can forget about warranties. Therefore, before deciding to take such a step, it is worth considering everything well.

Tip: if you get an SSD, it's better to put it in its place hard drive, and the HDD itself is already installed instead of the drive. This is explained different speed ports. You also need to choose the right adapter. If your laptop model is outdated, then most likely you need an adapter from IDE to SATA during installation (in fact, they differ only in thickness, but there will be fewer problems with the original size).

Find out, useful information, from our article -

Let's start installation

Keep yourself safe. To do this, you need to de-energize the device, disconnect the battery, and then remove the voltage from your hands, for example, touch the battery. Since you may damage the motherboard.

Change HDD to SSD

If you're not going to do HDD replacement then just skip this step and go straight to the next one.

We are filming HDD following exactly the instructions:

1. We turn the device over and remove the cover by unscrewing all the screws. Then we slightly pry it with a thin object and pull it out.

   

2. We proceed to remove the drive: again unscrew all the bolts that secure our device.

   

3. Now carefully move the disk to the left side and pull it out of the case.

   

4. We take out this disk from fasteners and put it aside, we will install it instead of the drive.

   

5. In this fastener we install a new solid state drive SSD.

   

6. The old HDD must be installed in an adapter purchased in advance. There should be an instruction, with its help you will be able to install correctly.

   

Putting the disk in place of the optical drive

Installation is complete, it remains to set the parameters in the operating system.

BIOS setup

You need to enable recognition of the second disk.

Every day more and more users are thinking about the question: how is the HDD in a laptop replaced with an SSD? This topic is especially relevant now: the hard drive, as in a mobile computer, is becoming obsolete.

To change or not to change? That is the question

There has been a discussion for many years whether the hard drive will be superseded by solid state drives or not. Power users value SSDs for speed and reliability. However, any medal has two sides, so it should be noted that the reactivity of the drive is very expensive.

The high cost of SSD for the most part and does not allow it to enter widespread use. Many owners of PCs and laptops, whose activities require the best performance, still renounce the HDD.

Pros and cons of SSD and HDD

The fact is that HDD has a number of disadvantages in comparison with SSD:

As a rule, it is because of them that many decide to replace it, and one cannot ignore the advantages of hard drives over solid state drives:

• Volume. On the this moment ordinary users are available from 320 GB to 10 TB. And the same SSD in ordinary stores can be found with a maximum of 2TB. We are not talking about drives for industrial or server equipment, but only about those that can be bought at the nearest computer market.
• Price. She is much lower. If we compare the cost of a popular hard drive with a volume of 2 TB with an SSD of the same capacity, it turns out that a solid state drive is 16 times more expensive than an HDD.
• With an SSD, it is almost impossible to recover deleted data due to the storage method. The maximum that can be done is to take the drive to the laboratory, where the necessary equipment will be.

Based on the foregoing, we can conclude if the speed and security of data is more important than their volume. Do you value low power consumption? Feel free to upgrade to an SSD.

What HDD is used in the laptop?

At the moment, laptops use 2.5-inch hard drives. This means that inside there are “pancakes” of exactly this diameter. Some MacBooks have 1.8 ″ hard drives installed, but this is a separate issue, and we will not talk about them.

Each disk has a set of characteristics, such as:

• manufacturer;
• size: the amount of data to fit, usually in GB;
• buffer memory: fast memory or cash;
• rotation speed: the number of revolutions per minute made by the spindle;
• connection interface: connector that connects the drive to the board.

The HDD price depends on the set of these characteristics and their quality. The most common hard drive option at the time of this writing has:

• connection interface - SATA III;
• volume - 2 TB;
• - 5400 rpm;
• buffer memory - 32 MB.

What SSD can be installed instead of a hard drive?

The main difference between a solid state drive and an HDD is that data is written non-mechanically. Simply put, information is recorded on microchips. This results in high and low noise levels.

Such drives have 4 common form factors:

• PCI-E AIC (add-in-card);
• M.2 2280;
• mSATA;
• 2.5 in.

In the context of this article, which is devoted to the question of how to replace the HDD in a laptop with an SSD, all attention will be paid to the latest format drives, i.e. 2.5 inches. They with HDD have the same shape and SATA III connection interface. A similar view allows you to remove the drive and install an SSD in its place, screwing it to the same slide and closing it with the same cover.

mSata form factor SSD

Some laptops also support mSata. They have a special III on the motherboard and two places for screws to secure the drive. Such SSDs can be used both as independent storage devices, and paired with depends on the design of the laptop.

In many Lenovo models, such an SSD acts as an additional medium (in the role of a cache). There are laptops in which mSata is installed in pair with the hard disk and is used as a system partition, that is, nothing is installed on it except for the operating system. Thanks to this solution, OS loading is accelerated, and the amount of data storage remains quite large, since information is written to disk.

SSD form factor 2.5″

To successfully replace the HDD with an SSD, you need to choose the right drive. At the moment, we managed to decide that it should be 2.5 inches and connected via SATA III. It is also worth paying attention to the thickness of the SSD, since for hard drives it ranges from 5 to 9.5 mm. If you buy an SSD that is too thick, the disk cover in the laptop may not close.

Next is a matter of taste. For home use 100-300 GB is considered sufficient. According to Tom Hardware, the best SSD for users is recognized at its affordable price of less than $ 100, it has excellent characteristics. If you are an inexperienced user, just look for something similar in the description and you will not lose.

Replacing an HDD with an SSD in a laptop

The process of changing a hard drive to an SSD is the same as installing a new hard drive.

The first thing to do if the old hard works is to copy information from it to another medium. Important data must be transferred to the cloud, to a USB flash drive or removable disk.

You can buy a case for HDD 2.5, install an old hard one in it and use it later as a mobile storage medium.

Replacement process

First you need to remove the battery. If it is non-removable, turn off the computer, remove the cover, and remove the battery connector from the motherboard.

1. Loosen the screws that hold the disc cover and remove it.
2. Remove the screws holding the hard drive sled.
3. Pull the sled away from the connector to disconnect the HDD and remove it from the case.
4. Loosen the screws securing the drive to the sled and remove it.
5. Take the drive, install it in the sled in the same way as the hard drive was, and tighten the screws.
6. Lower the SSD with the sled into the case and slide it into the slot to connect the drive.
7. Screw the sled fasteners into the housing.
8. Close the cover and tighten the screws.
9. Connect the battery in the same way as disconnected, and close the cover if necessary.
10. Turn on the laptop and check the performance of the SSD.

The minimum check will be to go into the BIOS or UEFI and see how the drive is determined. In most laptop models, this can be done by pressing the DEL or F2 key (Enter on some) immediately after switching on.

If the drive is operational and installed correctly, the information section will show its name and serial number. Additionally, you can run tests using the utility and check the rest, for example, the write speed.

The first thing to do is to copy the information. This is written above. The principle of operation for all computers in this regard is the same.

1. Disconnect the battery from the HP laptop. If the battery is removable, like this model, then you can do it simply:

• unlock the battery lock;
• pull the second latch;
• remove the battery from the socket.

2. Use a Phillips screwdriver to remove the screws that secure the hard drive cover to the chassis. In most models, it is small, about ½ of the entire back surface. Remove the cover, you may need to use a little force, as it can be secured with additional latches from the inside.

3. Loosen the screws that secure the hard drive carrier. There can be 2 or 4 of them. Move the hard from the connector to disable it.

4. Pry up the mount and remove the screws. If the hard drive is disconnected from the connector, this will be easy.

5. Loosen the screws that hold the HDD in the sled. Usually they are located on one and the other end of 2 pieces.

6. Install the SSD in the sled instead of the hard drive and tighten the screws on both sides.

7. Install the drive bracket with the drive into the chassis and slide it into the slot. Screw the slide screws back.

8. Close the housing cover, install the screws in the same order in which they were removed.

9. Connect the battery, that is, install it until a characteristic click. Slide the battery lock back into position.

10. Turn on the laptop and check that the SSD is defined in the system, you can perform additional testing.

Thus, the HDD in the laptop is replaced with an SSD. In the vast majority of models, this work is performed in the same way. The differences usually lie in the way the battery is disassembled and disconnected.

In this section, we will consider options for upgrading a hard drive to an SSD drive in Acer laptops. For clarity, an example will be given a model in which the battery is built-in, and almost complete analysis is required.

First of all, we still copy important data. Here the amount of information was small, so the transfer was made to a USB flash drive. We turn off the laptop and proceed to the replacement.

1. Must be removed back cover corps. To do this, remove all the screws from the back.

2. Remove the back, gently prying it around the perimeter. If the cover does not come off on either side, stop and check if all the screws are removed.

3. Disconnect the battery, to do this, remove the cable from the connector by gently pulling it towards you. Do not break the plug, otherwise you will have to completely change the battery.

4. In this model, the hard drive is not fixed in the sled, but simply inserted into the connector on the board between the chassis mounts. In order to replace the HDD with an SSD in a laptop, just remove the old drive by pulling from the connector. Then put the drive in its place.

5. Connect the battery back. Make sure the connector is straight and not damaged.

6. Replace the housing cover and tighten all screws. Make sure that the back does not pinch the wires.

7. Turn on the laptop, check the performance of the solid state drive in any way. If the computer does not respond to the power button, you will have to disassemble it again to check the battery.

In this way, the HDD in the laptop is replaced with an SSD for some models manufacturer Acer. You can rely on this instruction if you have to update other computers with a built-in battery.

Replacing HDD with SSD in Lenovo laptop

There is no big difference from the previous two options here. It can be noted that replacing the disk with an SSD drive in this option combined the two previous ones. This Lenovo model has a removable battery, but the HDD mount is located under back corps. There is no separate lid.

Following the main principle, you need to transfer the necessary data to another place or prepare an HDD-case to mount your old disk into it. This time we will not copy anything, we will insert the hard drive into Case and start using it as a portable “flash drive”.

1. First you need to disconnect the battery. The battery in this model is removable, so you need to remove the latch and remove the battery.

2. Unscrew all the screws in turn, which are located at the bottom. Be sure to check if your model has extra screws on the side.

3. Carefully remove the cover, snapping off each fastener one by one. If the case does not give in, check if all the screws have been removed.

4. Remove the screw that secures the hard drive carrier. In this example, there is only one. Lift up the HDD brackets and remove it from the laptop.

5. Use a screwdriver to remove the screws that hold the sled to the hard. In this model, the mounts have a shielded foil that protects the disk controller from shorting to the case.

6. Install the new SSD into the HDD bracket and screw it back into place.

7. Close the laptop with the bottom of the case, carefully snapping all the fasteners. Tighten the screws in the same order and connect the battery.

8. Turn on the laptop and test the drive in BIOS or some utility, for example, Victoria.

Ways to change the HDD to SSD in a laptop can be listed endlessly. The fact is that each model has its own principle of disassembly. Therefore, if you are not qualified enough and do not have experience in this matter, it is recommended to turn to professionals.

Replacing the hard drive with a solid state drive will increase the performance of your laptop by an order of magnitude. However, be sure to take into account the parameters of the processor and the volume random access memory. If you have a very weak CPU installed and no more than 2 GB of RAM, then the system will slow down anyway, even with an SSD.

Price your computer adequately, make only the necessary changes to it, and it will serve faithfully until you buy a new one.

If you are the owner of a laptop and you are not entirely satisfied with the speed of its work, and especially the download speed, and you are increasingly thinking about upgrading or even replacing the entire laptop, then do not rush. We offer an upgrade option for almost any full-sized laptop for adequate money.

The fact is that the processor is not the first freshness, a small amount of RAM and an integrated video card are not the main culprits of the "brakes" of the system. The main reason is a slow hard drive. We suggest replacing it with a more modern analogue - SSD. But you yourself probably thought about such a purchase, but after all, for the full use of a PC, you need a lot of free space on an information storage device - at least 500-750 gigabytes. And the prices for SSDs of this capacity are very, very biting.

And when buying an SSD for 60-120 gigabytes, there is enough space only for the system and applications, there can be no talk of any media content. Therefore, you need to look for another way out, a way out in which it will be possible to increase the speed of the system and not lose disk capacity, and not spend too much. We understand you perfectly and offer just such a way.

Why do you need a DVD drive?

No, seriously, why do you need it? Any films or music can be downloaded on the Internet, which almost everyone has, information that is not needed permanent access can be stored either in the cloud, which is now divorced immeasurably, or on an external hard drive, the prices for which are quite “ridiculous” today. Important Information I would not trust optical discs - they are quite easily scratched and become unusable.

So, if you really don't need a DVD drive on your laptop, then we suggest installing an SSD instead. And again, do not be afraid - you won’t have to break anything, and you won’t have to “make” either - we promise to leave beautiful view your beech is safe and sound.

What do we need?

First, we need an SSD and connectors to connect it. In principle, a 60 GB disk for the system will be enough for us, but it’s still better to buy 128 - in this case, you won’t worry about the lack of space and you can always put some large program on the SSD, or demanding input operations \\ output the game (because that's what we buy SSD for). In addition, the prices for this gadget of such volumes are quite low and the purchase of such a part will not hit your wallet.

In addition to the SSD, we need a seat for it, or rather an adapter that will replace the DVD drive. At various foreign auctions and in online stores, this is called "HDD-Caddy" (in our country it is most often referred to as "HDD 2.5 connection adapter" in the laptop drive bay). Buy this device only for your laptop model.

Actually, this is all we need to buy. Of the tools, we need a screwdriver and ... nothing more.

What is the best place to put it?

It's up to you to decide. You will have unhindered access to the device installed instead of the DVD drive, that is, it is better to put a media device there - a hard drive (movies, music, photos, etc. will be stored on it). In this case, you can always quickly get the HDD and, using a special tool (pocket), connect it to a DVD to watch movies or connect it to another PC as a bulk flash drive.

On the other hand, the heat dissipation of the drive is worse, and there will be more vibrations, besides, about protection from mechanical damage this place is also hard to say. And the SSD is much smaller than the hard drive, it is afraid of vibrations, high temperatures, etc. That is, with regard to operational properties - it will be better here than a hard drive.

In any case, it's up to you, depending on how you plan to use these devices and depending on the configuration of your laptop model.

Let's get started

In principle, the procedure is quite trivial. First you need to pull out the DVD drive - in many laptop models you don’t even need to remove the case - they are held on by one bolt, after unscrewing which they are simply pulled out of the laptop.

When the DVD drive is in your hands, you will need to remove the cover from it, on which the compartment opening button is located, and rearrange it to the purchased HDD-Caddy. Now we perform the reverse procedure - install the adapter in place of the DVD drive. Don't forget to secure it with a bolt. Well, that's all - it remains only to install an SSD here (or a hard drive, and the SSD in place of the hard drive).

Installing or migrating an operating system

Next, you need to install the operating system on the SSD, after removing the system partition from the HDD and attaching it to the partition that stores media information. Installing the operating system will be no different from the process you are used to.

But, if for some reason you want to keep your old system, then before deleting the partition from the HDD, you need to “clone” it to the SSD. This is done by any program for working with hard drives in boot mode. For example, Acronis Partition Director or Mini Tool Partition Wizard is suitable - in general, the choice is yours.

Instead of conclusions

After the replacement, you will be surprised how much more responsive and nimble your operating system. In addition, if you previously ran out of hard disk space, now you will have freed up the space previously occupied by the operating system.

If, nevertheless, the only thing that stops you from such an upgrade is that in order to use the DVD drive you will now need to twist the adapters every time, then we will reassure you - you can buy a special “pocket” for the DVD drive and connect it to any PC via USB interface.

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 case of its failure due to aging, magnetic coating applied to the disks or failure electronic board. Service centres They don't repair hard drives.

Hard disk drive HDD (Hard Disk Drive) or its modern analogue solid state SSD drive(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 one has appeared on the market and is becoming popular. hard type disk, in which information is stored not on magnetic disks, but with the help of microcircuits, which 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 HDD drive additionally, SSD memory chips are 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 Equipment List and find out the model established hard disk. 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 written what is hidden under them.

Attention, before removing a hard drive, SSD, DVD, memory sticks or any other device, to prevent 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 the hard drive was connected to serial interface SATA type 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 in laptops for connection of rigid drives used an IDE-type connector.

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, solid state drive 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, laptop manufacturers install 2.5” hard drives with a thickness of 9.5 mm.

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 decided on the main technical parameters of the hard drive, which guarantee the possibility of installing it 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 instead DVD drive container-adapter, which will allow you to add a second laptop hard drive.

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 regular 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 external USB container-adapter in the form of a remote 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

There is a wide range of outer box adapter containers on the market that are designed to connecting hard drive to the laptop through 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 bus provides laptop usb is sufficient and no additional power supply is required.

For installation of a hard disk into the adapter container, you must remove the cover from it, place the hard disk in it and slide it onto 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. For expansion technical capabilities The laptop 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 the hard drive into the adapter, you need to perform preparatory work, which consists 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 partitioned 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 system files Windows and storing frequently used information on an SSD drive, the acoustic noise that the hard drive used to emit has disappeared, and the laptop began to work almost silently.

Hard drives are not so easy to install in the DVD drive bay of a laptop: a special adapter with suitable connectors is required. For this we use an adapter Icy Box IB-AC642, which can be bought on Amazon for about 3,500 rubles. More affordable analogues with delivery from China are sold on the website www.aliexpress.com at a price of 1000 rubles.

If you want to install a fast SSD into your laptop, identify it in the hard drive bay, and install the hard drive removed from it into the DVD drive bay. As adapter manufacturers assure, their products fully support SSD media, but in practice there may be problems with speed.

Transfer data from HDD to SSD - it's most convenient to use special program, such as Data Migration Software from Samsung. Next, we will tell you how to get a DVD drive and install your old hard drive in an adapter, and an SSD drive in a hard drive bay.

1. Remove the HDD bay cover

HDD mobile computer usually located in a special compartment under a quick-release cover, on which the hard drive symbol is depicted. The cover is attached to the case with several screws. You will need a small Phillips screwdriver to unscrew them. Important: Before opening the mobile computer, make sure that the battery is removed and the device is unplugged from the mains. In our case, to replace the hard drive, you need to remove the entire back cover of the laptop case.

2. We take out the DVD drive

Typically, a DVD drive is secured with only one screw. In our example, it is located approximately in the center of the mobile computer case, next to the hard drive bay. Loosen the screw and insert a thin object into the hole to mechanically open the drive leaf. Pull the drive towards you and remove it from the housing. Disconnect from optical drive front panel using a flathead screwdriver.

3. We take out the hard drive

Now free the hard drive. Gently pull the hard drive towards you by the tray and remove it from the bay. If your hard drive is in a plastic or metal case, remove it.

4. Install the disk in the adapter

Install the hard drive in the adapter you purchased. Make sure the adapter plugs are properly connected to the drive connectors. Then fix it with screws.

5. Insert the hard drive into the DVD drive bay

Now insert the adapter with the hard drive already in it in place of the removed DVD drive. To secure it, use the screw you unscrewed when you took out the DVD drive.