Inspiron 1720 - Optical Drive

My infamous TSSTcorp DVD+-RW TS-L632H will of course not work, so I am thinking of finding something else to put into the optical bay.

Any good ideas what the optical bay can be used for?
I am thinking of putting an harddrive there instead.

If you know about any good CD/DVD/BR alternatives, please mention it.

If you have a third, or fourth option to what the bay can be used for, i'd be happy to lend an eye to your ideas.

Being a smoker, I have already played with the idea to convert the bay to a cigarette dispenser...

No idea is to crazy.

 

Other than HDD caddies and optical drives, there isn't really anything else they make in the shape of an optical drive. You could conceivably strip a D-Series media bay battery and somehow wire it into your power circuitry, but that's definitely not something I'd do...

Or a floppy drive XD

 

lol...cigarette dispenser. Hey you could try to entrepreneur that. The 1720 is a PATA interface so not much but the biggest thing is a 2nd HDD caddy.

 

Yup, thanks for the input people. I believe I'll stick with either a cig dispenser or an extra hdd. One cannot get too much storage.
I'll rip the intestants out of my currrent drive, and make the eject trigger a spring that shoot out cigarettes.

 

Before you whole-heartedly commit to a cancerous lifestyle, you should know that it's possible that heat generated by your laptop alone will be enough to take away from the pleasure of smoking those cigarettes by igniting them. However, an alternative less destructive but seemingly pricey solution I have discovered is:

Brand New UJ-220 PATA Blu-Ray Writer Burner drive - eBay (item 180627855391 end time Mar-20-11 00:10:15 PDT)

I wouldn't recommend this, if I wasn't going to do it myself either. However, for me I have to wait until a few more paychecks as this drive is on my to do list but a little further down. I look forward to watching BluRay Movies and although I have lost my touch for burning CDs, the player itself is what attracted me.

Also, just curious but doesn't the 1720 come w/two hard-drive bays to begin with? You'd be better off using one of those as the connection would be SATA and the drives would probably be larger and easier to afford. I recently sold a 1720 with dual-drives, that's how I know about its existence but perhaps yours is a different type.

 

Oh, my drivebays are already filled up.
-and I cannot get enough storage space. Movies are getting larger in size, as time goes by. The blueray-drive is an interesting option, although i never rent blueraymovies, or dvd's for that matter. Afaik, OS's and other programs are not yet being pushed by other means than DVD's.If feel that some sort of drive is neccesary, but I could just as well go for an external drive. I am not very likely going to install anything of importance on the train, or something.
The same could actually be said about storage devices. with 1TB, it is pretty adequate for most usage. i will have to give it another thought what to use the relatively huge dead compartment for.

Oh, I am not worried about preigniting the cigarettes, more worried that they would dry out (not very likely that either, due to my smoking habits). It was a good thought you gave me. i must consider making the dispenser work as a humidor too. details are important.

 

Oh woops, I hadn't even considered looking at your signature when I wrote that reply, probably because I was too tired. How are the dual-momentus drives working out for you? I was planning on upgrading to that but someone told me that I should simply just wait for a straight-up SSD. I like modifications you have made to your computer, I am planning making similar ones as I have gathered, I'll either be getting a T9300/T9500 for a processor and upgrading to Windows 7, afterward. I have already gotten the 256MB 8600GT but I'm currently waiting on the processor so I can make all the adjustments all at once. I really like the original concept specs for our Inspiron's because they have adequate room for upgrades and still be decent machines. Also, I recommend getting the Dell Truemobile 360 Bluetooth 2.1 Card, I got it to work w/my Inspiron as I'm sure you will be able to.

I believe you can download the movies/episodes in BluRay quality and watch them that way. My goal is to simply keep up with time and as I have started out with a 32-Bit Processor (Vista), I'll be making the switch to the 64-Bit Processor, simply for keeping up with time. But this update I will make towards the end, probably the last thing I will do as time goes on. I may install 32-Bit first and run with until I feel I am full ready for the 64-Bit version.

 

Will the UJ-220 work on our machines? Our drive bay has that little kick up to get over the SD card reader, and it takes that 45* angle about halfway down, were the UJ-220 are straight and square all the way.

 

I don't know the schematics but I've asked around on E-Bay form sellers that sell Inspiron 1720s w/Blu-Ray drives and that's the only model available. I'm not sure about how it'll fit with the 1520, I assume its the same.

 

@Mihael Keehl;

The Momentus'es are very good.
Originally, the 5400rpm needed to be exchanged, due to being a 5400.
The Momentus' being 7200rpm makes a tremendous difference.
What positively surprised me, was its ability to speed up everything i use, from booting up windows and the programs being automatically started up.
with its 4GB of NAND it covers this part very well. It also takes care of loading other programs (often used) quite quickly.
For instance, in periods I use Photoshop CS5, and it starts it noticably faster, than on an ordinary 7200-drive. If I have used other stuff for a while, so photoshop isn't cached in the NAND, and then start up PS, it feels like an eternity before it is run. Returning back to PS several times, the program responds quickly again.

I'd say the Momentus should be able to cover most peoples use of a laptop.
I cannot imagine many people choose to run Autocad, Photoshop, Premiere Pro, 3DStudioMax, Word, Excel, and Visual Studio simultanously in a random fashion.

I was for a long time considering to buy Seagate Barracuda instead, but curiosity drove me to buy Momentus XT. -Haven't regretted yet.
The 4 GB NAND of the XT takes care of the bootsequence, and the 7200 is quite an improvement from the 5400.

On the side note:
The Intel 4GB 'Turbo memory', or 'Bitstream Injector' as i prefer to call it, cannot be compared to the XT's 4GB NAND. The XT have a closed algorithm that figures out by itself what is to be cached for faster performance, while the Intel is a sort of a RAMDISC where you yourself can choose what you want cached. The negative side of the Intel NAND, is that after windows has booted, its preconfigured cache must be rewritten from the HD, which may be a slow affaire, depending on how much you are caching. 4GB takes a few minutes. It doesn't bother me though. -I'll be out for coffee while my PC boots up anyway. -And I have actually started to use the hibernation alternative, instead of shutting down the computer completely. By hibernation, it doesn't flush the cache.