Reddit reviews HIGHFINE Universal 9.5mm SATA to SATA 2nd SSD HDD Hard Drive Caddy Adapter Tray Enclosures for DELL HP Lenovo ThinkPad ACER Gateway ASUS Sony Samsung MSI Laptop
We found 18 Reddit comments about HIGHFINE Universal 9.5mm SATA to SATA 2nd SSD HDD Hard Drive Caddy Adapter Tray Enclosures for DELL HP Lenovo ThinkPad ACER Gateway ASUS Sony Samsung MSI Laptop. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
100% Brand New and High QualityAdd a 2nd drive to your laptop by replacing your optical drive(CD/DVD-ROM)This device accepts 2.5 inch 9.5mm / 7mm high or less SATA HDD / SSD.Compatible with: DELL HP LENOVO ThinkPad ACER Gateway ASUS SONY SAMSUNG MSI Laptop which has a 9.5mm high CD/DVD-ROM driver.Package includes: 1x hard drive caddy with universal bezel/faceplate + 1x screwdriver(The CD-ROM in the pictures is not included)
In mine, I replaced the DVD drive with one of these.
I then dropped a spare 120GB SSD in there for the OS.
I have two systems running FreeNAS in this configuration (120GB SSD for the OS, 2x3TB drives for storage, 10gbps Intel Fiber NIC in the open PCI-E slot)
If you're not using the DVD the system came with, replace it with one of these.
This cable adapter or PCB adapter might be what you're looking for. I'm surprised that I couldn't find a male slimline to female SATA cable on Amazon. If you're removing a CD Drive, then you could use a CD drive caddy. Make sure that you measure you CD drive to see if it's 9.5mm or 12.7mm as the caddy that I linked will only fit a 9.5mm CD drive slot.
Ugh. May you HDD rest in peace.
But it should be fairly easy to replace the HDD with a new 2.5" drive, which aren't too expensive now a days^[1] ^[2], or swap out the CD-drive (if it has one) with a 2.5" drive as well (with a converter like this one).
But if you don't want to spend any money on it at all, I would suggest installing an Linux distro on a USB drive and use it run something like pihole
This one
https://www.amazon.com/Highfine-Universal-SSD-HDD-Enclosures/dp/B01MRI8YFN/ref=pd_lpo_vtph_147_tr_t_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=VXSVKK97N9AYPCPT1W61
The HDD does show up in the bios
I've done this twice now, once for an Asus GL551 and once for a HP g6. This is the caddy that I used for both. It worked fine for the Asus. For the HP the plastic optical drive cover didn't fit properly as the clips didn't line up with the slots in the caddy.
Also it's worth noting that the SATA connector that goes to the caddy might be SATA II instead of SATA III, so might have slower transfer speeds on the HDD (although I don't know if its really noticeable)
As for software, I saved documents and such on a flash drive since I didn't want to deal with software and I didn't know what software to use (never again). I also added a 500GB SSD to my desktop, in this case the Crucial brand SSD that I bought came with a bit of paper that had a url to the download page of their software.
They can get a 9.5mm to 2.5" adapter for the ODD. AFAIK, Dell uses 9.5mm on their desktops.
As for the SATA ports, it only has 2 total; one for an HDD/SSD and one for the ODD. The SFF/USFF/DT variants typically have only two.
And I second the memory thing. While Skylake does work fine with standard voltage DDR3 (despite what Intel says), it wouldn't be crazy to assume the BIOS checks the voltage to make sure you're at least trying to pull Dell-validated RAM in it.
Is the one of the MicroServers with the slimline laptop DVD drive or the full size 5.25" one?
If it's the latter - and you've got an appropriate HBA installed - you can get up to eight 2.5" 7mm SSDs in its place: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TL4US8K
If not, you can swap the DVD drive at least for one extra, using those adapters people used to use for two drives in laptops: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MRI8YFN
Exactly. Used one of these
If the laptop has a dvd drive you can put an adapter to hold a HDD in it's place.
https://smile.amazon.com/Highfine-Universal-SSD-HDD-Enclosures/dp/B01MRI8YFN/
If your server came with a CD-ROM and if you so t intend on using it you could pick up one of these.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MRI8YFN/
You'll probably have to reinstall because it's not on the raid card anymore. Then you'll know if it's the card or drive.
Also, I agree, if your going to use ZFS then you do need an HBA not a RAID card.
In that case, you can use pretty much any laptop with a tray-loading optical drive: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MRI8YFN
You just take the outer trim off your optical drive and pop it onto that and it will look the same.
This one
Highfine Universal 9.5mm SATA to... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MRI8YFN?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share
Like others have said, Microsoft doesn't make running Windows from a USB external drive easy. However, if your laptop has a typical DVD optical drive that you're willing to give up then you can replace it with an HDD/SSD enclosure like this one which uses the optical drive's SATA connection. You haven't mentioned your laptop model so I wouldn't know if you have this option.
Then you'll have 2 hard drives on your laptop that you can boot a version of Windows from both of them if you want to.
You can use a SSD for Linux. Since you are removing the CD/DVD drive, you can get one of these to put the SSD in. Just get a standard SSD and it will fit the caddy. Last thing is when you install Linux, be sure to choose the correct drive. You wouldn't want to blow away your Windows drive on accident.
Because you can use one of these.
Other one was my PCs original hard drive. I've replaced it with an ssd. I was using it with this thingy. It was a 500 gb HGST hard disk.
Why a cable? If it's a regular laptop with a DVD drive bay, use something like that:
https://www.amazon.com/Highfine-Universal-SSD-HDD-Enclosures/dp/B01MRI8YFN