do they make hard drives to go in the cdrom slot?

[hulkhelton]

do they make any hard drives that are made to go into the optical drive slot of my laptop, without buying a caddy?

obviously i would want it to fit flush...

 

[tcsenter]

No, you'll need to buy a caddy/rack of some sort, or at least some drive extension/adapter rails.

 

[corkyg]

Depends on what type of machine. A desktop with full 5.25-in optical bays can also accept HDDs in the same bay. Laptops require an adapter or caddy. The original optical in a laptop is mounted in a caddy or adapter. Thinkpads equipped with Ultrabay can use a directly swappable adapter and optical drive is directly replaced by a HDD or second battery using the adapter. Sample:

 

[hulkhelton]

the damn caddys are like $40 extra...
guess ill stick to what ive got.

 

[tcsenter]

You could go with cheap brackets/rails instead of a full removable drive rack/enclosure:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817997015

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16816215156

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811993004

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817994103


There are cheaper removable drive racks/enclosures than $40 but the very cheapest ones are flimsy junk. The decent ones start around $15.00 ~ $20.00.

 

[Muse]

Depends on what type of machine. A desktop with full 5.25-in optical bays can also accept HDDs in the same bay. Laptops require an adapter or caddy. The original optical in a laptop is mounted in a caddy or adapter. Thinkpads equipped with Ultrabay can use a directly swappable adapter and optical drive is directly replaced by a HDD or second battery using the adapter. Sample:

the damn caddys are like $40 extra...
guess ill stick to what ive got.

I bought one of those 2nd HD caddys for my Lenovo Thinkpad T6x machines yesterday off ebay, the cheapest one they had, $11.79 shipped, from Kowloon, Hong Kong. Seller is rexchg. I looked over the listing very carefully. The seller and the item are obviously entirely legit. The swap should be a snap, the optical drives pop right out.

 

[hulkhelton]

You could go with cheap brackets/rails instead of a full removable drive rack/enclosure:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817997015

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16816215156

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811993004

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817994103


There are cheaper removable drive racks/enclosures than $40 but the very cheapest ones are flimsy junk. The decent ones start around $15.00 ~ $20.00.

i dont see how any of them help me replace my optical drive in my laptop with an ssd...

 

[tcsenter]

i dont see how any of them help me replace my optical drive in my laptop with an ssd...

They wouldn't, since that was not made clear in your original post and you just edited to clarify this was a laptop, smart ass.

 

[hulkhelton]

my original post said laptop, then i made an edit the night i posted and accidentally edited it out, then after i read the post with all the desktop parts i realized and edited it back.
i wasnt trying to be a smart ass. also i would have to be a dumbass to ask about a way to put a hard drive in a 5.25" bay on a desktop.

all the laptop ones i looked at looked be model specific, but arent all laptop optical slots the same?

 

[corkyg]

"all the laptop ones i looked at looked be model specific, but arent all laptop optical slots the same? "

No. The actual drives can be common, but laptops are very proprietary when it comes to adapters and caddies.

 

[hulkhelton]

okay, maybe is it possible to just gut the dvd drive and hook the hard drive in there somehow?

 

[Lanyap]

okay, maybe is it possible to just gut the dvd drive and hook the hard drive in there somehow?

You might be able to if your optical uses standard SATA connections. What model laptop do you have?

 

[hulkhelton]

http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-Satell.../dp/B0038VAVQQ

 

[Muse]

arent all laptop optical slots the same?

Hardly. The optical drive I pulled out of my dead Acer Aspire laptop is considerably thicker than the ones in my Thinkpads and I have no current use for it.

 

[hulkhelton]

when my acer drive went bad i just went to microcenter and bought a sony optiarc laptop drive and took the little adapter off the old one and put it on the new one and slid it right in, same with my hp.
i just assumed that what microcenter sold was the standard.

 

[hulkhelton]

so i went ahead and pulled it out and it is actually the same as the old one from my acer, so now i just go buy my ssd and figure out how to mount it inside this one and see how it goes from there.