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Laptop optical drive replacement caddy quality?

O

.oO

n00b
Joined
Apr 27, 2013
Messages
31
Im wanting to remove the optical drive and put a caddy in its place to add an SSD (for a Dell e6430 laptop). Was wondering about difference in quality of different brands etc. Anyone have any experience or advice?...
 
I bought ones from newmodeus.com and was very happy with them. Light was blue instead of green (Lenovo) or white (Dell), so it didn't match the color schemes the manufacturers used, but I cared more about have space than I did an optical drive.

And, since the E6430 you have and E6420 I had would have shared the same caddy, you should be happy with it.
 
They're all basically the same, there's only like 2-3 companies in China that actually make 'em so they're effectively the same with very minor differences like the LED colors as already mentioned. Also, the E64x0 series use the 9.5mm height optical bay and not the older 12.5mm bays so make sure when you purchase one that a) it's an SATA bay specifically for one of the E64x0 series models and b) it's listed as 9.5mm tall. Made that mistake a few years ago when I got one from an eBay seller that wasn't specific enough with details and it wouldn't fit my E6400 with the 9.5mm bay height. Now that I have an E6420 I still use the one that I was sent as a replacement for the 12.5mm model for the E6400 going on 4 years now, no issues with any of the hard drives I've ever had in it.
 
Cheap electronics, basically, shoddy manufacturing, cheap soldering jobs, could be any number of things. Stuff does go bad for a variety of reasons so there's no way to say precisely what could go wrong or when but, sometimes stuff does just up and die.
 
If you had to get one again do you think the one in the link above (for instance) would be as good as any?
 
.oO said:
Thanks for the infos...

Ive heard of problems with some and drives being damaged though.

So you really think there is no difference in quality between the newmodeus one (besides the extra case) and one like this, for instance?:

SATA 2nd HDD HD Hard Driver Caddy for 9.5mm Universal CD / DVD-ROM Optical Bay
Click to expand...


I had an old dell 14" that I replaced the main drive with an ssd then put the oem 500GB into this exact caddy. worked perfectly fine and was still working fine when I sold it a couple years later. there should be no reason that this would damage a drive as its literally just changing the sata connector(theres no real electronics in it, just activity led) and housing the hdd/ssd. here's one without the shell:
9.5mm 2.5" SATA 2nd HDD SSD Hard Drive Caddy for Laptop CD/DVD-ROM Optical Bay
 
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It seems that cheap USB to SATA adapters have damaged quite a few drives though.. I guess that is the type of thing Im concerned about. But youre saying this is different enough that there is much less risk involved, even if using the cheapest adapter?
 
shouldn't be any risk really. its only going from reg sata to mini sata and giving an activity led.
ive also never had a usb to sata adapter kill a drive. only had them stop working but the drives were fine.
 
Makes sense, thanks for clarifying..

...But what if they were put together by monkeys.. and some of the leads are crossed or not connected...? :panda:
 
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