Solved HDD in laptop CD drive bay

[Tomtom111]

Hi,

I have a few questions about putting HDD's in the slot where a cd drive normally goes in a laptop.

1) How are they cooled? Surely because cd drives don't make much heat and hdd's do there is a heat build up?

2) Linking on from that, would getting a HDD with slower rpm produce less heat, having numerous benefits.

3) If there is a heat build up, would it be wiser to put a SSD in the cd bay, and leave the HDD where it is meant to live, with all the cooling aids?

I may have other questions along the way.

Thanks in advance.
Tom

 

[FuturDreamz]

Traditionally laptops aren't designed for installing a HDD in the optical drive bay, and I believe the connector is slightly different.

I do believe the heat produced is negligible though...

 

[Tomtom111]

Yes that's why I need to get an adapter for a hdd to fit into the cd bay.

 

[bobafetthotmail]

1) the same way they are cooled if in their own slot, by passively heating up their surroundings. I've never seen a dedicated HDD cooling system, only idiotically placed CPU/GPU cooling pipes heating up HDDs in laptops. Theoretically, since you will be using the proper adapters aren't you? these things provide plenty of free metal around it to heat up (as a HDD is smaller than a CD drive).
Such low heat is then carried off by the airflow of the fans, or by conduction on the underside of the laptop. But HDDs aren't usually a heat issue. I had seen some of such laptops with HDDs in CD bays, and they generate less heat than if someone installed a secondary battery there (some models did offer that choice). You'll notice that there is a HDD from the heat under it (or maybe on the keyboard depending on models, as some have the CD bay higher or lower), but it's not much different from the heat from the HDD in the HDD slot.

2) not sure on either. I think it's not worth it.

3)SSDs of course have much less heat output. Again I don't see the point.

 

[Tomtom111]

1) the same way they are cooled if in their own slot, by passively heating up their surroundings. I've never seen a dedicated HDD cooling system, only idiotically placed CPU/GPU cooling pipes heating up HDDs in laptops. Theoretically, since you will be using the proper adapters aren't you? these things provide plenty of free metal around it to heat up (as a HDD is smaller than a CD drive).
Such low heat is then carried off by the airflow of the fans, or by conduction on the underside of the laptop. But HDDs aren't usually a heat issue.

2) not sure on either. I think it's not worth it.

3)SSDs of course have much less heat output. Again I don't see the point.

Ok thanks. A few follow-on q's

1) Another point of this is: IDE is used for in the cd bay,and sata for the hdd. Is IDE slower, or are they fairly equal.

2) So are you saying that there would be no heat difference between a hdd spinning @ 7200 and 5400rpm?

 

[bobafetthotmail]

1) IDE is slower. Should be a bit worse than sata I (and a half of sata II). But it's not something you should care of as long as you don't want to boot from it. That's 133 MB/s for IDE, 150 MB/s for SATA I and 300 MB/s for SATA I. Of course this rules out SSDs as it's a bottleneck.

2) RPM isn't the main factor in heat. You need to look how much Amps they need to run (usually clearly indicated on the label). Usually the faster ones require more amps, but it's less and less the case nowadays. The less the amps they require the less heat they generate, regardless of speed.

 

[Tomtom111]

Ok then. I'm particularly interested in this one, but I can't find where it says the amp requirements. Can you see if you see them? Thanks

Addition
I've just seen that it does actually say the watts required, but still not the amps.

 

[Tomtom111]

Continuing to look into solutions, whats your opinion on hybrid drives,
Like the seagate momentus xt?

http://amazon.co.uk/dp/B0068QO82G

 

[bobafetthotmail]

Ok then. I'm particularly interested in this one, but I can't find where it says the amp requirements. Can you see if you see them? Thanks

There is nothing linked. Where am I supposed to look at?

Anyway, it should be clearly stated on the HDD, close to where it says the voltage, like this one, in the line under the SAMSUNG name.

I've just seen that it does actually say the watts required, but still not the amps.

If you have also voltage required (and really, it should state it) you can calculate the amps following this equation.
amps = watts/volts

As a general rule of thumb, 0.5 amps (or less) at 5 volts is good. Actually if you can scavenge a HDD from an external enclosure that was operated by a single USB 2.0 cable it will do pretty well (as that's the max amps that a single USB 2 can give).

Of course, this does impact the time you can run on battery.

whats your opinion on hybrid drives,

Uhm, no. Since it's connected through an IDE along the way, it makes no sense whatsoever to have anything better than a conventional HDD, as otherwise it's banging its head against the IDE bottleneck. Again, as long as you don't want to boot from it you won't really notice. Actually, you may not notice even if you boot from it, given that 5400 laptop HDDs are slower than that anyway. IDE is more than enough for music, movies and dumb data.

If you really want to place a better storage device (why anyway? SSD RAID for lulz? ), look if you have another sata connector placed in odd ways on that mobo, that you could pipe around with a simple sata cable.

Otherwise, if you feel brave and don't mind risking to blow up everything, you still have an e-sata port in that laptop I believe? With a bit of easy soldering you can re-route its sata II connection (yes, it's exactly the same as if the drive was internal) through a e-sata to sata cable that you will move around the laptop's internals, then connect to the additional HDD in the CD bay.

In either case of the two above hacks, the new HDD will need power and will be taking that power from the laptop's IDE connection, which is different from normal IDE as it does feature a few additional lines for power (so you have to take the soldering iron again and work on the CD bay adapter, to remove the double power/data SATA connector and place a power-only connector you can take from a ide to sata power connector).
Just find each interface schematics and you're ready to go. At your own risk anyway.

 

[Tomtom111]

Sorry, the hdd I didnt mention is this one:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B00...bile?n=340831031&ref_=dp_return_1&s=computers

I've looked again, only watts- no volts or amps that I could see.

And when I said about a hybrid drive I meant to go in the hdd bay, not the cd bay. So replacing the current hdd with a hybrid while keeping the cd drive where it is now.

Sorry again- sloppy posting...

 

[FuturDreamz]

You problably could go with a hybrid drive, but unless your mother supports Sata III hard drive I'm not sure how much better it will be than a basic higher rpm drive.

 

[Tomtom111]

I have realised that already, and mine is sata2 but it was data transfer speeds I'm really looking for, it's acces times which I know link with transfer speeds, but even with SATA2 a hybrid drive will make a noticeable difference. That's my thinking anyway, which may be completely wrong but hey.

 

[bobafetthotmail]

Ah ok, but I have never favored hybrids. Will be faster than a spinner in some tasks, and you may like it, but imho it's an overall "meh" for the price.

As for the device linked, they do state the model name, which you can use to look for more data about it. Newegg has some pics and they state 0.85 amps at 5 volts. A tad high.

You need to google a bit to find something that has less amps, and if they don't state amps nor watts, you have to look at reviews like this where they state real-life power consumption.

For example in that review they say it uses up to 2.93 watts when at max load (doing intensive writing, say when you are copying over a movie)
since it runs at 5 volts the amps are 2.93/5 = 0.586 amps. This is better than what you linked, but it's just an example, there may be better ones.

As a general rule, look for storage-oriented drives, whose speeds aren't stellar, but since data has to go through an IDE, you won't do much better with others anyway.

 

[Tomtom111]

Ok, I'll look into hybrids when I get a SATA3 PC.

So for how I would use my PC (Fair amount of web browsing, YouTube, word processing, listening to music (usually iTunes), movies and downloading files an then moving/deleting them a month or two later)(and I tend to hibernate rather than shut down, if that changes the choosing process in anyway)
which would you say would be the best way forwards?
-just an ssd(for OS and personal files)
-ssd and hdd(ssd (sata2 for OS hdd(IDE) for personal files)
-one hybrid drive
-one hdd
-or maybe two hdd's

 

[bobafetthotmail]

dunno, when it goes in hybernation the HDDs are shut down if I'm not mistaken. It just keeps ram powered or somesuch.

If money isn't an issue, there are 500 gb SSD, that cost probably more than your whole computer, but that is.

If you care about using it on battery but want a decent storage without coughing up a lot of bucks, then one SSD for system/programs/most used files + one HDD for bulk data. This way the power consumption will be overall the same as SSDs don't need a lot and the storage HDD will only be drawing power every now and then when you need its data. If you are cheap you buy a good SSD and just use your current HDD as the additional storage, but 320 GB may not be a lot.

If you don't care about battery use and can do without the SSD's other features (FAST speed, so faster booting/gaming whatever, but with your needs is kinda superfluous), then buy an additional storage HDD and place it in the CD bay. Again it's not a huge battery impact, but you'll notice it the more you use the files on the second HDD.

You can also simply upgrade your single HDD with its newer bigger brother, which is still regarded as the top in class as the 320 GB one you have but is 500 GB.

 

[Tomtom111]

Ok. Just a couple of questions, will I acctually benefit from having an ssd because my laptop only has SATA2? Secondly, is the drive I've got in at the moment a good one?

Btw I am on a bit of a budget <£160

 

[vaidas3]

Ok. Just a couple of questions, will I acctually benefit from having an ssd because my laptop only has SATA2? Secondly, is the drive I've got in at the moment a good one?

Btw I am on a bit of a budget <£160

yes in most cases you will benefit from ssd even on sata 2. system on ssd feels more responsive and programs load faster because.. ssd has very small seek time and can do many iops..windows and many software dont write/read large files.. but rather many small files.
my recommendation replace main HDD with ssd. 128GB or so should be enough, for os and most used software.
and replace optical drive with hdd for data (movies, music, etc)

 

[Tomtom111]

That was one of my initial plans on how to put in an ssd. Some people say that crucial drives are good, and others say Samsung 830's are good- but which one would you guys recommend?
Also is this cd bay dock a good one, or should I pay a bit more for one?

http://amazon.co.uk/dp/B004ZXU72Y

And I know it says MacBook but its got the same IDE port i think.

 

[vaidas3]

Also is this cd bay dock a good one, or should I pay a bit more for one?

Bipra 2nd Hard Drive/SSD Bay Caddy 9.5mm SATA to SATA for Laptop/Macbook/Macbook Pro - Expand Your Data Storage: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

And I know it says MacBook but its got the same IDE port i think.

its not IDE its sata to sata

 

[Tomtom111]

Damn.

This one any good? It's IDE and comes with hdd screws which I wouldn't otherwise have.

http://amazon.co.uk/dp/B009AMFE4G