Anyone planning aftermarket hard drive upgrades for the Envy 14?

I'm thinking about replacing the slot-loading optical drive with a HDD. More specifically, I'm gonna order the Envy with the largest capacity HDD, move it to the optical drive caddy (see link), and install an Intel SSD in the main drive's location.

I've never done anything like this before, so my question is: What information do I need to know about the Envy 14 to make sure everything works and is compatible with the SSD?

http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...-ssd-hdd-storage-using-optical-bay-caddy.html

Thanks.

 

Gonna get a Momentus XT 500GB, assuming i have enough cash left. Very fast, due to its hybrid drive, yet big enough for lots of media. If I don't have enough cash, I'll just wait till next revision. Awesome drive though.

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

they only configure with 9.5mm drives but I'd like to see if I could squeeze a 12mm in there so I can get some terabyte goodness

 

Ideally I'm planning on replacing the included hdd w a sdd. Clean install of windows on the sdd, then replace the optical w a storage hdd. Hopefully it wont be too difficult.

 

Yeah, I wanna do this as well... But I have no idea where to get started!

 

replacing the optical?

how do you live without a cd/dvd drive?

...

though that's something I'm gonna have to look into. How to make my dvd drive region free (firmware and that regionkill thing I have to run). Firmware will be the tricky part.


I own some region 2 dvds but well, I'm in the US. and I dun feel like ripping and reburning 24 dual layer dvds as region free.


guess we won't know what the dvd super multi combo drive thing is until after the computer is out.

 

Samsung PB22-J going in.

 

I can't remember the last time I've used an optical drive. I get my games off Steam and I never burn CDs or DVDs anymore. Either way, I'm keeping my old laptop if I need to run a disc or burn something... just in case.

 

I hope to see some new hybrids with 8gb or 16gb.

 

I still rip a lot of dvds. (mainly of stuff I've recorded with that dvd-recorder that's hooked up to my tv)

 

And I'm looking at upgrading the optical drive in this thing (replace the guts with the guts from a panasonic uj232A to give me blu-ray power).

 

Yeap I was planning on waiting the 8gb SSD cache version or even 16gb one so that you have for sure the OS cached plus your frequent apps on every run.

If seagate or anybody else fails to deliver this I think I'll go for a sandforce 64gb ssd and turn the envy 500go hard drive into a fine external HDD with usb powered e-sata interface (as fast as usb3.0 for 7200rpm drives) enclosure.

Example:
Amazon.com: Eagle Tech ET-CS2XMESU2-BK 2.5" SATA to USB/eSATA Portable Hard Drive Enclosure (Tool-less): Electronics

 

interesting vid about the momentus XT vs SSD

YouTube - Seagates Hybrid-Festplatte Momentus XT im Vergleich