Pros/Cons of Adding a Second HD in Optical Bay?

I was planning on buying an external hard drive to increase my storage capacity , but im thinking maybe I should just take out and enclose the DVD Rom I rarely ever use and install a second hard drive. I never looked into it before and dont know too much about it.

What are the advantages and disadvantages to having a second internal hard drive?

 

Well, first, you must make sure that the enclosure that you are going to buy, is going to be bootable, or it can become troublesome at times.

I think the second HDD idea is better, because you can also use the external hard disk as an encrypted back up of your important stuff (there are automated software doing it)

 

advantages: space, performance.
disadvantage: battery life.

You could also replace your main hard drive with a 500GB or 320GB drive. That way you can keep your DVD drive.

 

I'm doing what you are proposing

Advantages:
More storage space
Second HDD can be used in conjunction with SSD... best of both worlds
I back up to my second HDD and this is MUCH faster than doing it to a USB drive
Second boot disk (ubuntu) without worrying about screwing with my main drives MBR


Disadvantages:
Decreased battery life (not something I have noticed as I frequently have a chance to plug in my laptop before it dies
Increased heat. This is not significant IMHO as there is nothing near the HDD that I need to worry about getting warm and the HDD itself doesn't get hot at all

*edit*
I upgraded because I never used my optical drive, and I have an external DVD drive attached to my docking station at home. Right now I am running 2 320gb drives

 

I really like the SSD with a second HDD idea, im a bit chicken to make the switch to a SSD for now, but when it becomes a bit more mainstream I can see making the switch.

How much battery life do you generally lose from adding a 2nd HDD? This is sorta a concern for me.

 

Not much, MAYBE 30 minutes (which isn't significant to me, but it could be for you).

SSD's have come down quite a bit in price, I believe that you can get a 30gb OCZ Vertex from Newegg for ~$120. I'm almost tempted to do it, but I think the 60gb model for ~$180 is a much better fit for me (my essential programs and files take up about 25gb so that doesn't leave much wiggle room with a 30gb drive). I think if I loaded my OS and MS office onto the SSD and moved everything else to the HDD I could squeeze into the 30gb model though.

 

Well, if the HD is just sitting there idle, will it really decrease battery life?
What would it be pulling? A watt? 2?

I really don't see much, if any, decrease in battery life or an increase in heat for that matter...

I mean, 10-15 minutes and a 2-3C bump.... but I don't think it would be anything more.

 

I think you might be right. My 30min estimate is a a guess because I have never run a side by side comparision of the computer with it vs without. When I talk about heat I mean that right side of my laptop is SLIGHTLY warmer than it was before. It in no way impacts my CPU temps.

 

This is a great idea. Can any laptop with a sata dvd drive put in a second HDD and put it into raid with the other?

 

What I could see doing is buying a second HDD (500 gigs) for now, installing it in the secondary bay and making the switch to the primary SSD whenever I feel comfortable. I think that would work out really nicely.

 

It really depends on the laptop. Some larger laptops have 2 drive bays so it makes answering the question really easy, but on others it really depends on the manufacturer. On my Toshiba there is a special HDD bay that slides where the DVD would normally go. Since all laptop optical drives (as far as I know) do not use a standard SATA connector a special adapter is needed to connect the drive.

 

How does putting the new internal drive in the optical drive bay work? Do you have to buy a multibay adapter?

 

I believe this is your best bet if your laptop doesn't have a specific form factor for removing the optical drive.
I was thinking about doing this myself a while ago.

 

It seems to me that it would be dependent upon your laptop. A good HDD would pull less than a watt at idle. My notebook typically consumes 15-18 watts now for most tasks, so adding a second HDD that idles would decrease the battery run time by 1/16 to 1/19. A 17" screen with GPU pulls a lot more power than mine, so it would decrease the battery run time by a smaller proportion. YMMV, obviously.

 

I wouldnt say its a decrease of battery life. I mean if you use an ODD SATA hard drive instead of a External USB HD, you are actually gaining more efficiency since there are no bandwidth bottlenecks.

 

That is an interesting device. They make it look so simple. I wish the Vaio Z had an easily removable optical drive. I would definitely consider using this in conjunction with an SSD.

I read in a thread about adding a second HDD to the Vaio Z that the optical bay uses a slimline SATA connection. :/ I don't understand much of the lingo, but there are a few different posts referencing similar caddies. I'll just try to follow what everyone is saying.

 

Alright, im gonna give it a shot.

Im using this HDD:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136314&Tpk=WD5000BEVT

and

This optical bay hard drive caddy
http://newmodeus.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=216

Ill be sure to tell you all how it works out.

 

Biggest advantage is you can swap out the supplied HDD in the primary HDD bay for a fast SSD. Thereby get the advantages that SSD offers: faster os response, faster app response AND better battery life. Optical bay caddy can house the supplied HDD in spindown mode until you need it. Can even hotswap the optical drive back in if you need it to load software or watch a DVD. I've started a thread to help others contemplating doing this at:

DIY: Adding SSD and/or HDD storage using an optical bay caddy