HP Drive Bay Hard Drive??

I am thinking about getting a new DV4T and then upgrading the hard drive to an X-25 ssd, but obviously it'll only be 80GB which is an issue. I just read the NBR review of the DV4 and it seems that there is a special hard drive you can plug in into the optical drive bay to boost your storage space... i've been searching everywhere but I can't find the thing... anyone know where/if this thing does in fact exist and if it's compatible with the "new" DV4s? Thanks....

 

The swappable drive bay you are talking about was, until recently, listed under Mobil Storage Devices when you configured a custom ordered DV4t via HP. I think when HP changed the color options from Onyx & Bronze to Black & White the option was removed or has yet to be updated, but that’s just a guess.

At-any-rate, though the Mobil Bay option has been removed, if a person really wanted one the standard (chrome) or Bronze swappable bays are listed in the DV4t users maintenance guide and are hot swappable with the DVD drive with a latch release under the unit. I'm assuming the newer units still have this?

Part Numbers - Swappable bay hard drive hardware kit for use:
in standard computer models 488128-001
in bronze-colored computer models 502597-001

The price for the bay is $80.75 via HP. Kind’a pricey and no hard drive but if I remember correctly the bay with a 160GB drive was about 140.00. If you ordered a new Black unit the standard (Onyx) bay might work…. It looks like chrome on the side anyway.... just like the new units do, so I can't really see where it would matter. Just a thought.

http://h20141.www2.hp.com/hpparts/part_search.asp?mscssid=7A74B6C1C5E144A9920A6C82CE58F547

Hope this helps and keep us posted if you actually do this. I’d like to know how it goes. It's a nice option, especially if you install a SSD and need the additional drive space.

 

Thanks for the information! I will look into it and see, need to make sure the new ones have the latch, although I highly doubt they did anything besides change the color...

I will let you know if/when I do this. Thanks again.

 

If you go to the HP DV4t main page, under “Overview” scroll down to “Great Experiences” and read the 3rd bullet. It currently says:

· The option of lightening the notebook's weight up to half a pound with the included weight saver and optional HP SmartBay.

The “weight saver” is an empty tray that fits in the bay where the DVD drive fits to close the space and give it a finished chrome look when the drive is removed. As far as I know, it comes as a standard accessory with all DV4t’s, ours did. The SmartBay, that’s described in the users manual as the swappable bay hard drive, is what you were looking for. So, Yes …. It looks like the new Black or White units still have the latch to release the drive and are designed to work with the “weight saver” and optional "SmartBay".

Additional User Note:
On our unit, if you install the Intel Matrix Storage Manager, the DVD drive shows up in the system tray as a removable drive (like a USB device). Without the Storage Manager installed it doesn’t show up. As a comparison the DV2700tv we have doesn't do that with it's fixed DVD drive. I’m not exactly sure what the difference is, but you might want to keep this in mind should you decide to do the SmartBay option.

Best of luck....