Sometimes, having bought a laptop, a person wonders why this DVD-drive is needed. Currently, everyone uses flash drives, the price of which is quite affordable. You can find out how to benefit from a DVD drive and get a decent bonus in performance or in the volume of an HDD-drive in this article.
The purpose of replacing DVD to HDD / SSD
Advanced laptop users are well aware why install an additional HDD and do it without advertising the bonuses they use. In fact, the reasons are simple and any computer owner can understand them. The main advantage of replacing the HDD instead of the DVD drive in the laptop is the extra space on the laptop and speed. Manufacturers of such equipment often install small-capacity HDDs and you can add it either by replacing the hard drive or by installing an additional drive instead of a DVD drive.
After the SSD-drives appeared on the market, such a replacement became simply mandatory, since the computer runs many times faster on an SSD-drive. Thus, by installing an SSD instead of a standard hard drive, you can speed up any system. The main disadvantage of this solution is the small amount of SSD-drive and the high price. For this reason, connection adapters were invented that replaced regular DVD drives with HDDs, which are more voluminous and affordable.
HDD adapter
There is only one way to connect an additional hard drive to a laptop. Special adapters for connecting a HDD instead of a DVD drive in a laptop are a copy of the DVD drive itself, but with a compartment for installing a hard drive, usually 2.5. Such adapters are manufactured for any brand of laptops and there should be no problems with selection.
Adapters are made most often in China, and even if it says: “Made in Japan,” then this is most likely a hoax. Officially, laptop manufacturers do not sell adapters for connecting a second hard drive, so you need to buy these devices from trusted sellers with many positive reviews.
Choosing an adapter to replace a DVD drive
First of all, you need to determine what size of the HDD adapter fits the laptop. At the moment, there are two types of adapters - 12.7 mm and 9.5 mm. The difference is due to the year of manufacture of the laptop. For older models, the height of the adapter for installing an HDD instead of a DVD drive in a laptop will be correspondingly larger, and for newer models ultra-thin - less. As a rule, the interface of adapters is never higher than SATA II, therefore, the data processing speed will be an order of magnitude slower than the main SATA III interface for connecting a hard disk in a laptop.
Why the laptop does not see the second HDD
It happens that after installing a second hard drive, the system does not see it. A problem may occur in those people who have not formatted the new HDD. In this case, you need to use the utility to manage system disks on the laptop and perform formatting. In this process, you should select the NTFS file system and the problem will go away.
If the drive is still not detected by the laptop, you should check the new HDD for performance. Another reason that the laptop does not see the HDD instead of the DVD drive may be to buy a defective adapter. All adapters (adapters) are made in China, and as we know the amount of marriage in this country is quite large. In the event of a marriage, it is best to return the product or make a replacement.
The difference between SSD and HDD
The choice between installing an additional hard drive is determined by the needs of each person. Some users want to increase the total amount of memory on a laptop. Others are chasing the speed of the system as a whole.
The difference between SSD and HDD is determined by the price and processing speed. As a rule, SSDs are more expensive and not everyone can afford to buy an SSD-drive of the same volume as an HDD. For this reason, small-capacity SSDs are installed as the main disk for quick operation of the system, and all media files are stored on a second HDD-drive connected by an HDD adapter instead of a DVD-drive in a laptop.
The speed of an SSD drive is on average 3 times faster than a regular HDD. This is due primarily to the fact that the HDD has not changed much since their invention in the 1990s. In the early 2000s, there were attempts to increase the speed of HDDs from 5400 rpm to 7200 rpm. There was an increase in speed, but it was possible to see it only in synthetic tests and there was no question of any increase in speed in performing tasks. SSD is a new product, and no HDD can compare with the simplest and cheapest SSD.
The disadvantages of the new SSDs are the limited number of data overwrites. True, a regular computer user will not always be able to achieve this number. Overpriced compared to a conventional HDD-drive is also a minus. A 1 terabyte HDD is comparable in price to a 120 gigabyte SSD.
Installing an SSD as the primary
For the system to work faster, you need to replace the main HDD-drive with a new SSD. This is due to the speed of the adapter. The speed of the adapter is 4–5 times slower than the cable that connects the main hard drive to the motherboard. At the same time, the HDD is several times slower than the SSD, so it will be correct to install the SSD as the main one. Thus, the complete HDD of the laptop is connected to the adapter HDD instead of a DVD-drive in the laptop, and the SSD is put in place of the HDD-drive. After the replacement, you need to install the system on the SSD. The main working drive will be an SSD, and an additional one for storing voluminous files (movies, games and music) will be the HDD.
In order for the SSD to work at full capacity, you need to check which drivers are installed on the system and whether functions are enabled that will fully reveal the speed of the SSD drive. First of all, you need to check whether the TRIM function is enabled. When deleting files, this function informs the SSD that the drive area is not used and can be prepared for the next record of information. In a regular HDD, this does not happen, and when you delete, for example, a movie, the data remains and is overwritten from above. Checking the TRIM function is easy. At the command prompt, type fsutil behavior query disabledeletenotify. If the result is DisableDeleteNotify = 0, then the TRIM function works. Typically, starting with Windows 7, this feature is automatically enabled.
Procedure for replacing a drive
When replacing a drive:
- First of all, disconnect the battery. Find the drive icon on the back of the laptop. If there is no icon, then unscrew the screws that hold the drive.
- We remove the DVD drive that we want to replace.
- Remove the back cover of access to the HDD-drive. If there is no such cover, you need to disassemble the entire laptop.
- The HDD is bolted with 4 screws. You need to unscrew them and disconnect the drive from the wires.
- After we connect the SSD to the plug from which the HDD was disconnected. We install the HDD instead of the DVD-drive in the laptop and spin everything in the reverse order.
In cases where there is no lid with access to the drive and you need to disassemble the entire laptop, the right solution would be to contact any laptop repair service center.
Laptops with two slots for HDD
Of the variety of laptops, it is worth highlighting special models with an additional slot for installing a second drive. In this case, before buying an adapter for the HDD, instead of a DVD drive in a laptop, you need to check how many slots for installing hard drives a laptop has. To check the number of slots, you need to unscrew the back cover on which the HDD is drawn. This way you can save money and time.
A big advantage (if the laptop has a second slot for the drive) will be the speed of work. The standard interfaces for connecting HDDs and SSDs, as mentioned above, have a SATA III interface. The adapter for changing the HDD instead of the DVD drive in the laptop has an interface for connecting the drive only to SATA II, which is an order of magnitude slower.
Safety precautions when replacing components
In order not to break anything or burn, first disconnect the device from the power supply and remove the battery if it is removable. If the battery is built-in (and it happens), disconnect the connector from the battery by unscrewing the intermediate cover from the bottom of the laptop.
Before installing a second HDD instead of a DVD drive in a laptop, always read the instructions, if any. If to replace the components you need to disassemble the model completely, and you are not sure that you can handle it, contact a service center. You can do much easier. Call a friend who at least once disassembled such a technique and installed a HDD instead of a DVD-drive in a laptop.
When unscrewing the screws, be careful, as the screws come in different lengths. If during assembly you tighten the long screw where it should be short, then with a high probability you will break the motherboard or any other components. To avoid any breakdowns and problems during assembly, draw the bottom of the laptop on a piece of paper and write down which holes you removed the long and short screws from.
Final tips. Never attempt to install the wrong adapter for the HDD instead of the DVD drive in your laptop. The adapter, designed for fine technology, will not fit a laptop with a thickness of 12.7 mm, and vice versa. If something does not twist or snap while assembling your model, do not use force. You can break the plastic. It’s better to double-check everything and reassemble the laptop again.