Unable to endure the constant lags of my laptop anymore, I finally decided to replace the one standing in it HDD on a brand new high-speed SSD. "Fatigue" hard drive is one of the main reasons for the drop in laptop performance, which I have already written about in more detail.

For 3,000 rubles, I bought the cheapest 60GB SSD available in Citylink (2,300 rubles) and an adapter for connecting a 2.5″ HDD instead of a DVD drive (700 rubles).

Despite the cheapness, the manufacturer gives a guarantee for 3 years of the drive.

It is easy to get to the laptop's native hard drive. Usually access to it and dice random access memory closed with a separate, easily removable cover, so you do not need to completely disassemble the laptop for replacement. In my case it was.

Here it is, native HDD, installed on a special skid. We get it.

We unscrew the hard drive from the sled and fasten the new SSD onto the sled.

Installing an SSD in a laptop.

Actually, that's all. The SSD is installed and ready to go.

Installing a native laptop HDD instead of a DVD drive

Installing an SSD is half the battle. You need to connect your native hard drive to use it as file storage, because 60 GB of solid state drive is only operating system install, a basic set of software and have 10-20GB of free space for updates.

For HDD settings in a laptop, you need to dismantle the DVD drive and connect a hard drive in its place through a special adapter. Getting to the DVD drive is already much more difficult, manufacturers usually do not provide for the possibility of a quick replacement, and therefore you will have to open the laptop case.

But first we fix the disk in the adapter, and ..

Bummer. It turned out that I bought an IDE-SATA adapter, and in my case I need a SATA-SATA adapter. Those. a hard drive is inserted into the adapter, but the adapter itself cannot be connected instead of a DVD drive, the connectors do not match. In the coming days I will try to return the unsuitable adapter back to Citylink and buy the correct one instead, after which I will add a continuation.

UPD: I passed the adapter to Citylink, but decided to refrain from buying the right one and installing the HDD. Perhaps in the future I will return to this idea.

conclusions

On a blank SSD I installed pirated windows 7 and immediately. There are no lags in the work. With familiar tasks that were previously always accompanied by annoying brakes (Firefox since 15 open tabs, open Word or PDF file, a running book reader, a video player with a movie on pause), the system is now flying. Which confirms my conclusion that the hard drive is the weakest point in the laptop. Therefore, if you want to give new life to an old slow laptop, feel free to change the hard drive to an SSD. It is inexpensive compared to the cost of a new laptop, but the result is obvious. Naturally, after that upgrade, the laptop will not run fresh games (if it has not pulled them before), but it will be quite suitable for home-office use and will last a long time.

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 renovation hard drives are not engaged.

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

For right choice 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, for the storage of information data, there are only hard drives from 500 GB. 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 the computer processes information in binary system, in which 1 GB = 1024 MB, and manufacturers indicate the size of the hard drive in 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, 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 The disk is additionally equipped with SSD memory chips, 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. At information way 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 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 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, 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 specification of the connector determines only its capabilities, and the actual write-read speed 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 top speed read write large volumes of information only 150 MB / s, and small files only 1 MB / s. 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 it.

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 fast memory with a rewriting resource of more than 10,000 cycles.

At first glance, it seems that 3000 disk overwrite cycles are 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 hard disk, which guarantee the possibility of its installation in a laptop, you can proceed to its selection and purchase.

Not installed on new hard drives 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 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 old hard disk, 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 future plans for using the old hard drive. 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 was installed in the laptop for second hard disk.

Using a USB container adapter

There is a wide range of adapter containers on the market 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 bus provides laptop usb 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 as usual for everyone USB flash drive. 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 DVD drive in a laptop instead of a useless DVD drive. second hard disk.

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. Computer and digital equipment stores have big choice Chinese hard drive adapters for installing instead of a DVD drive cost 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 to adapt hard drives 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 has disappeared, and the laptop began to work almost silently.

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 movies or music can be downloaded on the Internet, which almost everyone has, information that does not need constant access can be stored either in the cloud, which is now divorced immeasurably, or on an external hard drive, the prices of which are quite “ridiculous” today. Important Information optical discs I would not trust - 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 gigabyte disk for the system will be enough for us, but it’s still better to buy for 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 "Adapter HDD connections 2.5" into the laptop's 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 simply pull 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 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 has become. 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.

(early 2011) at home.

There is a crisis in the yard, and dreams of buying new Macbook disperse like smoke. In this harsh time, when a kilogram of ordinary cucumbers costs like a kilogram of Israeli apples, it's time to get a screwdriver and upgrade your faithful aluminum comrade with your own hands.

If there is no screwdriver, hands, or lack of courage, if you please, turn to the professionals of modding and repair. Proven masters live in the company modmac who, with unwavering hands, will ruthlessly dismantle any gadget, fix it and assemble it back without unnecessary remaining parts.

On a winter Saturday morning, by the pattern of clouds in the sky, I realized - it's time! Having made a backup, we are with my Macbook Pro, went to workshop for rejuvenation surgery. The plans included replacing the native HDD cable with a new one, as well as replacing the optical drive with a super-fast one. SSD drive, using the dedicated Optibay tray.

Few people know, but if you put an SSD drive instead of a native HDD, and install a native HDD as a second hard drive instead of a CD drive, then in this situation the system will work a little slower. Better SSD stick the disk in place of the optical drive, and leave the native HDD in its place. Performance will be higher.

Upon arrival, my laptop immediately passed into the hands of the master, and I got the small role of an impassive extra, who recorded on camera every movement of the specialist’s hands.

Training

So, the MacBook Pro is located on the table, turned upside down, revealing its defenseless belly to our eyes. With deft movements of a Phillips screwdriver, 10 screws were unscrewed along the perimeter of the back cover. And then, with little effort, the lid was removed and carefully set aside.

Once again, I marveled at the ergonomic arrangement of all components inside the brainchild of Steve Jobs. How fascinating all the stuffing is fitted to each other!

The first stage is successfully completed, we move on to the next level.

HDD cable replacement

In my MacBook, the hard drive is removed quite simply. In some models, for example, to pull out the HDD, you must first remove the battery, but this is not our case. So here's what you need to do, point by point:

1) Disconnect the cable leading from the battery to the board;

2) unscrew the two screws and pull out the clamping bar;

3) gently pull the hard drive by the special tab and with your fingers (pick, special plastic spatula) disconnect the cable from the hard drive.

The hard drive cable is very fragile, it is not recommended to pull, tear and twist it strongly.

Why you need to change the cable to a new one: sometimes (rarely, but still) after replacing an ordinary HDD with an SSD, the MacBook drive starts to behave strangely. Like disk utility sees a new SSD, formats it and does not find any errors; The operating system is downloaded, but all installation attempts are interrupted by a gray screen with a flashing folder icon or a question mark.

In this case, replacing the hard drive cable helps. The operation is very jewelry and requires confident movements and some skill in such actions. Here is how the HDD cable is replaced:

1) Carefully disconnect the cable connector from the board, unscrew the two screws that fix the cable in the case and the two screws that fix the black bar on the front inner wall of the case.

Using your fingers, carefully pull out the black bar to which it is glued. cable HDD and be horrified by the miniature size of the connector, which must be carefully removed.

At this stage, you need to gather all your concentration into a fist and disconnect the connector from the HDD cable with tweezers. You can’t swear at your mother, it’s desirable to breathe every other time.

After this dangerous procedure, you can exhale and relax, the HDD cable is completely removed.

So, at this stage, we have removed the native hard drive and completely disconnected its cable. To install a new cable, all the above steps must be repeated in reverse order. Again, the hardest part is connecting the small connector to the connector on the new HDD cable.

Replacing an optical drive with an SSD drive

Carefully disconnect the cable responsible for Airport/Bluetooth and the camera cable from the board. These cables (like most others) are very fragile and brittle.

Then carefully remove the cable around the perimeter of the CD drive and disconnect the antenna connector.

The easiest thing left is to unscrew the three screws holding the optical drive, carefully remove it, and disconnect the cable connector. Everything, half the work is done, now you need to insert an SSD drive into the resulting void.

SSD and Optibay

Everything is simple here. An Optibay tray is taken, a new SSD drive is inserted into it, two fixing screws need to be tightened on the side, a short cable from the CD drive, which was removed in the previous step, is inserted into the tray, and the entire resulting structure is inserted into place. In conclusion, repeat all the above manipulations to remove the drive in reverse order.

At the very end, the main thing is not to forget to reconnect the battery cable, which was disconnected at the very beginning of this instruction article.

Note to the owner

After “pumping” the MacBook wizard from modmac can set up something like Fusion Drive.

Fusion Drive is a technology that combines a conventional hard disk drive (HDD) and solid state drive (SSD) with 128 GB of flash memory into a single logical volume. Mac OS X automatically manages its contents, so frequently used files such as applications, documents, photos (and so on) are dynamically moved to flash memory for faster access. For example, if a program is used frequently, it will automatically be moved to an SSD drive to speed up access to it. As a result, startup time is reduced, and as the system accumulates information about the computer usage profile, programs start up and access files faster.
– Wikipedia

Through cunning manipulations with terminal commands, the guys from modmac can configure the MacBook so that the system will see one shared drive, with a capacity of 768 gigabytes (total capacity of SSD and HDD drives) as if it were a single SSD drive.

Productivity grows, nerves are protected, the owner is happy. I highly recommend. The only caveat is that during the operation of the laptop, you need to avoid emergency shutdowns, the Fusion Drive may “crumble”, and you will have to restore all the information again ( so you should always remember about backup!).

Why do I need to install a hard drive instead of a floppy drive in a laptop? Increasingly, the solid state drive is being used as the main storage device. Installing an SSD in a laptop makes the system boot up and run faster. However, such devices, as a rule, have modest volumes - to store hundreds of gigabytes of movies, games and other important information becomes nowhere.

With a desktop computer, everything is simple - you can put at least a few additional drives. The laptop does not have free space. However, it is quite possible to remove the disk drive, which is becoming increasingly useless, and install an SSD or HDD () in a laptop instead of a DVD drive. It will not work to connect the hard drive directly - in laptops, disk drives and drives use different connectors. Adapters from DVD to HDD-SATA come to the rescue (You can also find adapters for HDD-IDE, but they are only suitable for old laptops).

Now let's figure out how to put a second hard drive in a laptop using an adapter?

It makes no difference what type of disk to install in the laptop's optical drive bay - and HDD instead of DVD, and SSD - will be connected in the same way. It should be borne in mind that computer manufacturers do not provide for such a modification - there are no official adapters, only Chinese models (for example, Optibey). However, due to very simple device adapter to worry about its quality is not necessary. But the user assumes all responsibility for possible malfunctions - he will lose the guarantee for the laptop.

Before connecting an additional SSD to a laptop or installing an HDD in the DVD drive bay of a laptop, you must ensure safety: disconnect the battery, as well as ground yourself - touch, for example, the battery to remove static electricity from your hands, which can destroy components motherboard computer.

Adapter selection

Many manufacturers are engaged in the manufacture of HDD sleds for laptops. There is no significant difference between them - you just need to choose the right HDD adapter. One of two types of drives can be installed in a laptop:

• 12.7 mm high - in older models;
• 9.5 mm - in modern ultra-thin computers.

It's okay if you use a thin adapter for a laptop with a high bay - the installation will go smoothly. But it is better to choose a suitable adapter so that replacing a CD drive with an SSD in a laptop does not cause difficulties. In addition, it is worth buying a sled with special brackets with which they cling to the outer part of the computer case, it will be easier to remove the device if necessary.

Disconnecting the drive and HDD

Creating a laptop with two hard drives is possible in any case, the differences will only be in how the computer case is disassembled. Models from different manufacturers may have their own characteristics, but the general procedure is as follows:

1. The battery is disconnected. If it is non-removable, the battery connector is disconnected from the motherboard.
2. On the bottom surface of the case, the screws holding the drive are unscrewed.
3. The DVD drive is removed.
4. The cover is removed, covering the main parts of the laptop. If the drive has a separate drive bay, as on Sony computers, you do not need to completely disassemble the case.
5. The HDD is removed from the device.

If you are installing a second hard drive in a laptop without replacing the old HDD, you do not need to turn it off.

Unlike desktop computer, wires and plugs do not need to be disconnected by hand. They are rigidly fixed and will turn off by themselves when removing devices, so no problems should arise.

Connecting a hard drive to an adapter

1. A solid-state drive is installed in place of the old HDD, and the removed hard drive is connected to the adapter;
2. SSD drives are placed in both bays;
3. With the help of a sled, the drive is replaced with an SSD or any other hard drive, old drive stays in place.

In any case, you need to install the operating system on a faster drive - either an SSD instead of a DVD, or a drive installed in the main place. This is due to the fact that the SATA cable designed for the DVD drive is 4 times slower than the cable connecting the drive to motherboard. Therefore, with an HDD installed instead of a drive, the system will boot much longer and, in general, the laptop will work more slowly. The speed of the SSD somewhat compensates for this difference.

Replacing a DVD with a hard drive is done as follows:

1. The disk is detached from the native sled, to which it is screwed with 4 screws;
2. The hard drive is inserted into the Optibay adapter, it is connected to the connectors. On the opposite side, a plastic spacer is inserted, which comes with the adapter;
3. Screws are tightened on the underside of the sled to hold the drive in place;
4. Fasteners are removed from the native drive and screwed to the adapter;
5. A plug is placed on the outside of the adapter;
6. The device is inserted into the laptop's drive bay;
7. After that, it remains to insert the SSD into the sled from the old hard drive, tighten their screws and install the device in its place. Next, the computer case is assembled in the reverse order

Problems detecting a second drive by a laptop

In some cases, the BIOS does not see the second hard drive. It's not a problem. This is due to the peculiarities of the BIOS itself. The system will boot up normally. If an SSD is installed instead of a drive and you want to install a system on it, the program will normally detect the disk.

If the existing OS does not see the second disk, the reason may be that it is not formatted. If you go into the Disk Management system utility, the new hard drive will be detected. You need to format it to file system NTFS and it will show up in File Explorer.

Thus, even an inexperienced user can replace a DVD drive with an SSD, since installing a second hard drive on a laptop is very simple. The main thing is to choose the right adapter and not lose the screws when disassembling and assembling the computer. Below, you can watch a video on installing a hard drive instead of a DVD drive in a laptop and macbook.