HP Notebook - 15-ba021ax optical drive

[surya_kant]

I want to install SSD Caddy in my laptop (HP Notebook - 15-ba021ax) enstead of optical drive. 

Please help me with these questions

1.  I'd need to know the height of the drive to buy a ssd caddy,
2.  I'd need to know the type of port to which the optical drive is connected to whether its msata / m.2 or a sata port?

Thanks

Surya

[Huffer · Accepted solution]

Optical drive Fixed, serial ATA, 9.5-mm tray load

You do NOT want to use an optical caddy to install an SSD in your laptop? Why? Because the drive in such a device will not be bootable so can't be used to hold the operating system and the drive interface is different and slower than the SATA actually designed for connecting a hard drive or SSD. The mini-SATA port used for the DVD drive is usually one SATA grade below the hard drive port so SATA-2 if your hard drive is SATA-3. 

mini-SATA on adapter

Your Manual

So the DVD adapter will connect inside the laptop to what is called a mini-SATA port. The connectors are slightly smaller than a regular SATA port. Inside the square bay in the adapter will be a regular SATA port for connecting the drive. 

Bay to place 2.5 inch SATA disk in adapter

You are correct that your laptop has no dedicated M.2 port. An M.2 disk can only be mounted in place of the 2.5 inch SATA disk by using a special adapter which connects the M.2 to the same zif connector on the motherboard used to connect a 2.5 inch disk. 

You can definitely use an optical (DVD drive) caddy, but put a regular spinning hard drive in there. Much cheaper and the disk will only be good for storage anyways. 

See pages 39-40 for "how to" on removing the DVD drive from the computer. 

Post back with any questions but please accept as solution if this is the answer you needed. 

[surya_kant]

Thanks Huffer, I will put HDD in caddy for storage and SSD in main slot for speed.