Speed of SSD inside DVD drive caddy ?

[UserKalle]

Hello ( HP Pavilion 17.3" 2015-model )

What is the speed of a new SSD if put inside DVD drive caddy ?

I have a original main 5200rpm 1000gb HDD inside the laptop. ( => Unable to open the bottom cover: 2 pcs brass nuts are spinning because breakage due to low quality plastic and design errors in plastic's depth. )

So... Is the new SSD inside DVD drive caddy: Samsung 860EVO 500GB still faster than the 5200rpm when used as a main drive inside DVD caddy ?

[Huffer]

Any kind of drive in an optical caddy cannot be the main drive as it is not bootable. 

If we had your exact model we could help with accessing the hard drive bay if it has not been damaged. 

[UserKalle]

Similar as in this review:

https://www.notebookcheck.net/HP-Pavilion-17z-Notebook-Review.124669.0.html

HP Pavilion 17.3" 2015-model. European EU.

- CPU= AMD A9.

- GPU= AMD Radeon R5.

- 1000GB HDD 5200RPM.

- 8GB RAM.

- Beatsaudio.

- Black\Silver plastic color.

So there is no selection in HP's BIOS to boot from harddrive caddy connected to optical drive's SATA-connector ?

[Digerati]

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@Hufferwrote:

Any kind of drive in an optical caddy cannot be the main drive as it is not bootable. 

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I signed up to this forum just to respond to the above.

Huh? Please clarify. What do you mean it is not bootable? Why not? Bootable CDs and DVDs and now Blu-ray optical disks have been around for decades and used almost exclusively for many years as OS installation disks. Windows 10 is still available on DVD. Backing up to "bootable" optical disks is still widely done.

How are users supposed to install an OS, or restore from an image/backup file from an optical disk if not bootable?

While more common from flash drives, it is not unheard of to boot to optical disks to create an insolated environment from which to run anti-malware scans. How are users supposed to do that?

Are you saying HP does not allow users to change the boot order in the BIOS Setup Menu so the optical drive is accessed before the hard drive? If so, that's hardly user friendly.

[Huffer]

@Digerati

You are so correct. An optical disk in an actual optical drive is as bootable as can be. But notice I said in an optical "caddy" which means if you alter the hardware the BIOS (and HP) expects to be there by putting a 2.5 inch HDD type device in the CD bay then the HDD or SSD is not bootable. Now, to be 100% accurate we have seen a few reports from the very most recent hardware owners that the old regime may have slipped away. That is , if you put an optical caddy in place of the CD drive and put a 2.5 inch HDD or SSD in it you still get SATA-III transfer speed and it can be bootable. 

But in even more cases the old rules apply: a 2.5 inch storage disk placed in an optical caddy will run at a lower transfer speed and will not be bootable. 

Future trial and error will hopefully give more information to advise Forum Users of their options but HP is never going to provide any kind of information about what happens if you replace their CD drive with a third party optical caddy. And fewer and fewer laptops even have an optical drive or a bay to install one. 

[Cheyenne4]

"Unable to open the bottom cover: 2 pcs brass nuts are spinning because breakage due to low quality plastic and design errors in plastic's depth."

One solution to fix captive brass nuts that spin:

Drill two 1/8"  holes on the periphery of the nut, 180° apart, and fill with epoxy.  (Don't try this unless you are mechanically skilled.  Also, this modification will probably void your warranty.)

[Digerati]

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@HufferBut notice I said in an optical "caddy" which means if you alter the hardware the BIOS (and HP) expects to be there by putting a 2.5 inch HDD type device in the CD bay then the HDD or SSD is not bootable.

But in even more cases the old rules apply: a 2.5 inch storage disk placed in an optical caddy will run at a lower transfer speed and will not be bootable.

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A "caddy" is simply a mechanical device that holds the optical disk in a similar manner an enclosure typially holds a hard drive. So if you meant an empty caddy is not bootable, then I agree - but I don't think anyone would suggest or think a caddy with no disk inside would be bootable.

The point is, if you have an optical disk caddy, and it has a "bootable" optical disk inside, there should be no reason the computer cannot boot to it. The user should be able to modify the BIOS Setup Menu and change the boot order so the system looks to the optical drive first to boot from. I can see no reason why HP would prevent that.

As far as what the BIOS "expects" to see, this should not be a problem either. When you set the optical drive ahead of the bootable hard disk, then reboot, the system will first look for a bootable optical disk. If it does not see one, it will simply move on to the next disk in the boot order list.  In fact, what will happen if the system does indeed see a bootable dis is the user will be prompted to press a key to boot from the optical drive. If no button is pressed within a few seconds, the prompt will time-out and the system will move on to the boot drive.

As for data transfer speeds, that of course depends on the lowest (slowest) common denominator.

[Huffer]

@Digerati

Thanks but nobody is discussing an optical disk here; the discussion is about sticking a storage disk in a device which replaces the optical disk drive and for all your theory, in actual practice such devices behave differently than an optical disk in an optical disk drive even when located in the same bay. 

[Digerati]

Not meaning to run the thread OT. Just wanted to clarify the issue about bootable opticals. And that is done. 🙂

Thanks.

[indkan]

Hi, I bought an SSD and used a dvd caddy. I used minitool OS clone and it took ages to copy from HDD to SSD and even after that I was not able to boot. Then after few tries, I dropped that plan and wanted to at least used the new SSD as storage, so tried to copy the hdd to ssd, it was giving me only 2MB/s. Very frustrated and disappointed, finally saw this thread and got some solace. So a dvd caddy in hp laptop will not give SSD speeds? I guess I would rather use the SSD with an enclosure as external usb then.