SSD + Caddy compatibility for HP 15 Pavillion notebook

[Arif7]

Hello,

I wish to install this SSD via caddy to my HP 15-au114tx notebook. I want to know if such an operation would be successful and if so which caddy size would be compatible with my model ?

--Regards

Arif Ahmed

[Huffer]

Do you mean a caddy that replaces the optical (DVD) drive? If so, that is not a good idea as a drive in such a caddy will not perform to its full ability. The cost of the SSD will be wasted. The system will not boot from it and you will not get very fast read and write operations. SSD should be the main drive and put a cheaper slower hard drive (mechanical) in the DVD caddy if you need more storage. 

Post back for complete instructions if you wish. If you insist on putting an SSD in a DVD caddy we can even help with that. 

[Arif7]

Thanks for replying !

My laptop seems to be Type 1 as mentioned here.For my model(HP 15 au114tx) can I replace the original HDD with SSD as primary drive ? I can do without the extra space as well.

[Huffer · Accepted solution]

Here is the Service manual:

Manual

See page 30 then 32-34. Your laptop has a single 2.5 inch drive bay that can house either a mechanical hard drive or a solid state drive. Externally, a solid state 2.5 inch SATA drive and a laptop hard drive are thre same and this is why they can physically swap for each other. 

You also MAYBE have a port that will hold an M.2 "gumstick" type disk and if you look on page 30 you can see just to the left of the hard drive there is a thing that looks like a long wireless card. That is a hard drive believe it or not. Don't monkey with an optical drive caddy. As I said they are not an ideal solution except when all else fails. 

If you do have an empty M.2 slot this is where you want to add the SSD. If it has the slot, your laptop uses a drive like this:

https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-256GB-Internal-Solid-CT256M550SSD4/dp/B00ITFZTLI

You can also place an M.2 disk in a caddy and use the same bay and connector as a hard drive. But this would mean buying an adapter and a cable and you may or may not be able to find that part. 

If the M.2 slot to the left of the hard drive is absent from your computer, and you want an SSD it is best to just replace the hard drive with a 2.5 inch SATA SSD like this one:

https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-2-5-Inch-Internal-MZ-75E500B-AM/dp/B00OBRE5UE/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8...

Post back with any more questions as I am sure this is a bit confusing and you also need to plan for migration of Windows to the SSD if you go that way. 

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