Reddit reviews WoneNice New SATA 2nd HDD Caddy for 9.5mm Universal CD/DVD-ROM ACER BENQ HP DELL ASUS

I have put additional HDDs in two laptops using ODD bay adapters before. They both worked great. One was a Sony Vaio and one was an MSI gaming laptop. Regardless, I can almost guarantee that it will work.

I bought from this site. It's a bit overpriced but they guarantee compatibility.

Here's the link to the adapter for your laptop.

However I think you can buy a standard 9.5mm ODD HDD SATA to SATA adapter and be fine.

 

Here are some cheaper ones:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/271129786328

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004Y8SGXW/

etc...

Does your laptop have a DVD drive? If so, you can probably use a DVD drive to SATA drive converter like this so you can have both your HDD and the SSD. Use the SSD for the OS + programs and use the HDD for your media files. I've used the above converter on a Acer, Asus and Lenovo laptops.

The ASUS N550JV-DB71 is like the N550JK the other poster suggested, except with a non-touchscreen matte screen and a weaker GPU. You're not playing any games, so you'll be fine with the GT 750M. With the cash you're saving, you can put in an SSD with an HDD Caddy and a Samsung 840 EVO.

You can do this. as long as the OS on the new HDD is good to go. I highly recommend getting something, anything, to back up your current drive to. USB sticks are cheap and plentiful.

If your laptop has a CD/DVD drive you can get one of these and you won't have to swap the drives all the time. Using this you can choose which drive to boot to. I have a laptop set up using Windows on the main drive and Linux on the second drive, in the caddy.

I did end up going with the N550JK, and I'm happy with my choice. I did exactly that and added a 256 GB SSD and an additional 8 GB of RAM. It absolutely slays with those upgrades and runs quite fast.

I also ended up using a caddy to replace the optical DVD drive with the 1 TB HD that came with the laptop. This is the caddy I used, if you're interested in doing the same. It fits perfectly and you are able to attach the bezel from the DVD drive to it so that it doesn't leave a hole in the side of your computer.

I didn't really use a guide. Just unplug the battery and unscrew the 18 screws on the bottom. Take a pry tool and go around the edges to separate the keyboard. Once it comes off disconnet the three flat ribbon cables underneath. You'll now have access to the HDD. Once you remove the HDD replace it with a SSD and order a Caddy for the old HDD. Slide it in the empty optical disk. Use the cover they give you to fashion a side panel cover for the caddy.

I'd go for the ASUS N550JK. It has a really beautiful 15.6" 1920x1080 IPS touch display, Nvidia GTX 850M graphics for your games, a powerful i7-4700HQ, decent battery life (it'll get what you want), and is very high quality with an aluminum body.

If you want an SSD, you can either replace the current HDD with a Samsung 840 Evo or swap out the optical drive for a hard drive caddy and put the SSD in that. It's really, really simple to do.

It's very easy to replace the HDD. I got this SSD for $130 and put it where the 1TB HDD is. You'll need a T5 Torx screwdriver.

If you don't need an optical drive, you can also get a caddy and put the original HDD in the optical drive bay for extra storage.

This is what I used. There is a screw holding the drive in place. After that this fits in nicely. WoneNice NEW SATA 2nd HDD caddy for 9.5mm Universal CD/DVD-ROM ACER BENQ HP DELL ASUS https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004Y8SGXW/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apap_9k17QMbqRmmm5

This is pretty much exactly what I did. I put the old 128GB SSD into the hdd port of the laptop, then put the hard drive from it into the disk drive with one of these

it was thick.....I just found this one http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004Y8SGXW/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=AJOF17FFTCZZD...... and I guess the one I bought was the 12.7mm motel. Would the 9.5mm work?

Here's a totally different idea that would allow you to leave your Ubuntu drive untouched. Remove your optical drive from the laptop, and install one of these hard drive optical bay adaptors with a new ssd or hdd
http://www.amazon.com/WoneNice-caddy-9-5mm-Universal-DVD-ROM/dp/B004Y8SGXW/ref=pd_sim_pc_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=0KJ9B6ARVWWAFJ1ZYB3X

I would unplug your normal hard drive if you decide to install windows and then plug it back in after the install. The windows OS installer is quite inferior to all other OS installers and will refuse to go through unless it is either the #0 or only hard drive within the system.

So unplugging the main drive is a good call at first. After that, repair grub and you are then all set.

Yes, it is worth it. Especially the ssd. Then chuck the hd into a caddy and replace your disc drive:
https://www.amazon.com/WoneNice-caddy-9-5mm-Universal-DVD-ROM/dp/B004Y8SGXW

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00KOUILK2/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?tag=linustechtips-20&ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00KOUILK2&linkCode=as2&linkId=UNU4AFU6LYLTU634

Plus

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00E3W1726/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00E3W1726&linkCode=as2&tag=gameaholicorg-20&linkId=GJKM4TLTBT3S7BWC

And

http://www.amazon.com/WoneNice-caddy-9-5mm-Universal-DVD-ROM/dp/B004Y8SGXW/ref=cm_cd_ql_qh_dp_t


G550JK with 500GB SSD and remove optical drive and replace with a caddy for the HDD for extra storage.