ASUS N56VZ: Hard drive caddy and external bluray enclosure.

Hi all,
I just bought the ASUS N56 R501VZ-S4177S and was wondering about a few mods I plan on making to it. The laptop has a Blu-ray drive and a 1TB SATA drive which isn't ideal.... especially since I just bought a 128GB SSD for my very old desktop which died this week. My plan is to take the blu-ray drive out, buy a compatible caddy and put the SSD in that empty slot. Then I plan on buying an enclosure for the blu-ray drive and connect it via USB whenever I need it.

A few questions:
1.) Are all caddies relatively the same? I see lots on ebay but since there's a billion laptop models it's hard to find which is compatible with the one I'm about to buy. I might also put the 1TB drive into the caddy and put the SSD into the slot the 1TB drive was. From what I can tell there are 12.7mm drives and 9.5mm drive sizes... I assume the one in my laptop is the 12.7mm.

2.) Same deal with the enclosure for the blu-ray drive. I can't find the dimensions of the one that comes with my laptop so I'm not quite sure on which size enclosure to get.

3.) Are the sata ports in laptops made equal? Are they all the same speed (ie. 3) and all capable of having a hard drive connected? I'm wondering if the laptop needs the boot drive in the slot the 1TB is in.... I guess I'll know soon enough when I buy it.

4.) Does ASUS provide a windows disk? I plan on wiping the 1TB drive and using it for storage... then just put whatever Windows came with the laptop onto the SSD.

I'm not sure on the rules but if you have links (ebay, etc...) that ship the exact item I need to Australia then feel feel to PM me or post here.

Thanks for your help.

 

1.) From my experiences they are all relatively the same aside from if you want a 9.5mm or 12.7mm drive to fit in them.
2.) Not 100% sure on this one but i believe that they are all relatively the same as well.

3.) SATA ports are not made equal, again from my experiences, the one for the Blu-Ray drive is always going to be slower than the actually one made for the hard drive. So it is advised that you put your SSD where your 1TB is currently and use the 1TB drive in the caddy.

4.) Should have came with the laptop, if not there should be an utility built into the computer you can use to create the discs themselves. All else fails contact Asus for them.

I purchased mine from ebay and have not any issues with any of them. Their usually cheaper on there anyway. You don't need anything expensive just make sure you get the right one for your hard drive. Hope this helped.

 

Thanks Evo, I think I've got everything in order now. I bought the Silverstone TS06. Comes with the caddy and matching enclosure.

 

Your welcome, and enjoy the extra hard drive space as well as a much faster boot time.

 

Hello there,

I just bought the N56VJ-DH71 und would also like to replace my Optical Drive. Could somebody point me in the right direction where I can buy the Silverstone TS06 online with international shipping to Mexico?

Thank you.

 

I believe NewEgg ships internationally.

 

Just for info, I purchased this extension and it works correctly:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Icy-Box-IB-AC642-Extension-Enclosure/dp/B007IXPQMY

SSD is installed in to the main port, factory HDD to the bay and both are performing at the optimal speeds. Also the package contained the casing for the optical drive, which fit in without issues and working correctly.