Upgrading the optical drive on my laptop

Joined
Jan 3, 2009
Messages
644
I have a laptop with a DVD-RW drive, and I noticed that many laptops have pretty similar optical drives in them. I know that not all laptops are the same and many have custom components, but is there a standard type of optical drive that some of them use?

I would love to upgrade it to a Blu-Ray burner if I could.

My laptop is a Lenovo IdeaPad G780 (59352497), and the DVD-RW drive that I took out of it has the model Philips & Lite-On DS-8A8SH20C.

This is what the port and drive look like:
http://i.imgur.com/AD4Njqv.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/PZtCtOk.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/mCkO3Cj.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/sVvg0aB.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/K91xEdd.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/5TgQxxb.jpg

Visually, most of the laptop optical drives I see appear to be similar, though looks can be deceiving, I wanted to know if these are some standard design or not.

I also noticed that little tab (noticeable in the last two photos) that seems to be designed to allow the drive to screw into my laptop's chassis. Is this standard too, or was this some custom addition added to my laptop specifically? Would this tab be something I could de-attach and screw onto the new drive? I saw what looked like screw holes in the same areas on some of the drives I looked at.

And finally, the drive has some custom plastic attached to the front so it pretty much matches up with the rest of my laptop's design/casing on the edge. Is this also some standard in that I can detach it and re-attach it to the new drive? I couldn't figure out how to take it off.

So finally.... if this would work and I can upgrade the drive, any recommendations? There aren't a lot of options out there, especially if I want a Blu-Ray burner. These two were ones that seemed ot come up often:

Amazon.com: LG Electronics BU10N 6X SATA Slim 9.5mm Thickness Tray-Loading Internal DVD and Blu-Ray Disc Burner Rewriter Optical Drive with 3D Support for Small Laptops / Notebooks: Computers & Accessories

Amazon.com: LG Electronics Internal DVD Writer Drive BU20N: Computers & Accessories

(Hmm, prices seem to have gone up, that first one was about $35 a few days ago)

Are these any good? The second one seems to just be a newer model of the first one, but I am not sure the extra features warrant the higher price. I tried to google it, but couldn't find much solid information on what this M-Disk support is other than something that somehow increases longevity? Seems the biggest advantage is that the newer model supports BDXL... though it mentions 100gb triple layer, I thought BDXL could go up to 128gb quad-layer?

Any advice on all this?
 
As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
The tab on the back is not standard to every laptop, so probably want to keep it for a replacement drive. I'd check ebay to see what is listed there for compatible drives.

This is what I put into an older dell lattitude 6420 last year:

Amazon.com: Panasonic UJ-272 UJ272 9.5mm SATA 6X 3D Blu-ray Burner BD-RE BDXL DL Dual Layer Bluray Recorder Super Slim Internal Optical Drive Supports 100GB 128GB: Computers & Accessories

It can be tricky but usually there are little tabs or screws to pull off the front face of your drive and put it on the new one. Some new drives will come with a front face on that you can leave on or have to swap out, depends on the drive and the laptop.

M disk is exactly what you read, discs that are rated to last decades. I also ended up getting a hot swap bay unit that had a front face that worked as well. It is a potential source for spare front face if needed.
 
As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
Hmm, going to have to measure my drive. The one I listed on Amazon is 0.3 inches, the one you listed that I like more is 0.4 inches, I wasn't aware they could have different heights, not sure what height the one in my laptop is.
 
So, most of the drives I saw were 0.3 inches, and a few 0.4 inches. I measured mine..... and it was about 12.8mm/0.5 inches! I didn't even see any other 0.5 inch drives. Does this mean only a 0.5 inch drive will fit, or I can get any 0.5 inch or smaller drive?
 
Back
Top