HDD Caddy for Clevo W860CU

I think a lot of people want to know how exactly to replace the DVD drive in a Clevo W860CU/ Sager 8690 with a HDD Caddy, I did my replacement yesterday so I'll just briefly explain how it's done.

The HDD Caddy could be bought on ebay, their usually variants are in size and connection type, 12.5mm and 9.5mm height for size, and connection type of SATA and IDE.
For our case, we will be using the SATA connection type caddy, as for size, I bought the 9.5mm height caddy as shown below, though later I found out that 12.5mm caddy might be more suitable.



Now, open up your notebook's back cover, as I'm sure you all know how to do. And it reveals the internals.



There is a single screw we need to remove to take out the DVD drive as circled.


After the DVD drive is taken out, just slot in your HDD Caddy, as simple as that. In my case, I've used the 9.5mm height caddy, and found it to be of around 3mm shorter in height compared to the default DVD caddy.



It's still usable yes, just that it's a bit loose, though it won't fall out, there is a gap top and bottom of the drive. I'll probably get another 12.5mm caddy for a better fit.

 

Thanks, good review, i did actually though it was that simple, i knew which screw to take out but i didnt know how it will look like, so thanks for putting up pics.

 

thanks i was just gonna post a question about this.
could you show me that link for the caddy and have you found an external enclosure for your bd/dvd rom?

 

eBay.com.sg: SATA 2nd HDD Hard Disk Drive Caddy For IBM laptop T400 (item 390176256309 end time Jul 27, 2010 16:53:56 SGT)

This is what I bought, but doesn't fit very well, I'm getting another 12.5mm one.

Edit: 12.7mm

 

do you need to trim the faceplate of the caddy that you bought with it?

 

No need, it fits in well. It has a small gap at the front end of the caddy as shown in the pic, but it's fine because that gap doesn't go all the way in and is covered up halfway through.

 

thanks. do post the 12.5mm link when you get one.
also what two hdd's are you using?
im a little concerned about the thermal impactof 2 hdd's before i go this route

oh and +1

 

New Laptop 12.7mm SATA TO SATA 2ND HDD HARD DRIVE caddy - eBay (item 250615687388 end time Aug-13-10 00:49:16 PDT)

Probably going to get this, oh and it's 12.7mm.

Didn't put in a HDD yet, waiting to get intel G3 and slot it in.

 

yea do give us the feedback of the 12.7mm caddy when you get one. I sure am interested in a caddy.

 

You'll defintely want to use the 12.7mm adapter - the 9.5mm one doesn't fit in the slot properly and means that the HDD has about 3mm of vertical play so it will move around in the chassis! The 12.7mm one also lets you use the proper optical facia panel so it looks nicer too

 

there are many choices of the caddy (pricing wise), should i go for any 1 of them will do or is there specific model for it?

 

As long as it's 12.7MM and sata connection will do.

 

any possibility that, by adding a second HDD, raid can be enabled?

 

Not just by adding a second HDD. You'd have to flash a W870CU bios on your W860CU. This way it could work, but someone has to test this.

 

The flashing of the 870CU over the 860CU board was already confirmed working by Chinoobic in the 860CU lounge thread. Someone has already confirmed that the RAID option is available after flashing.

 

I know, that's why I wrote 'could'. Otherwise it would have been mere speculation, but sorry for not being more precise. The thing is that 4-way RAID doesn't seem to work in the W870CU since the SATA controller for the drive bay is somehow different. Somebody who uses a 2nd HDD in the W860CU just has to test if it's possible.

I'm considering buying a HDD caddy myself, seeing that I rarely use my DVD drive, one quick question: Is it possible to take the front cover from the DVD drive and put it onto the 12.7mm HDD caddy?

 

fzhfhz

any updates on your caddy/hdd?

 

Still being shipped, not so quick because they use shipping by sea I think, my 9.5mm caddy arrived like 1 month after I ordered it... As for HDD, as soon as intel G3 is out.

 

@fzhfzh will your 12.7mm caddy be a SATA 2 connection? able to take full advantage of SSD speed...

 

Looking forward to further updates fzhfzh! I'm planning to do this setup myself but still cash-stripped at the moment. Waiting for SSD prices to go down as well. Hopefully I'll be able to save up and buy in October.

 

there's only sata and ide connection, sata 2 or sata 1 for the caddy won't be stated and won't matter, what matters is the sata speed your hdd and motherboard sata connection support, for W860CU's DVD sata connection, it's sata 2, so it will go up to sata 2 speed as long as your hdd supports sata 2 speed or higher as well.

 

@fzhfzh

Thanks for this post. I am now pulling the gun on a a WD 750GB HDD for a 2nd HD. I found that I always had to connect an external drive due to work. The 128GB SSD can't cut it. This would be a better alternative.

Note to Others:
Using the 12.7mm Caddy lets you use a 12.5mm HD the 750GB and 1TB non-standard dimension 2.5 WD HDs

 

I can confirm that the 12.7mm caddy from Ebay fits perfectly into the laptop with no moving around and a very snug fit. As Neil mentioned, I was also able to use the original facia from the DVD outside. I put an old 500GB 2.5'' Sata Drive in it for all of my movies and emulation.

Edit: As jojo_b2 mentioned, there is clearly more space for a non standard sized 2.5'' HDD. I have a piece of plastic that came with the caddy that fills in the gap / space left.

 

@LaptopNut would you post the link to the caddy you bought from ebay, since there seems to be no problem with yours, i would like to get the exact same one =)

 

There was no problem with it but it was not packaged with anything that would protect it from impact on the inside during transit apart from a really thin white sheet wrapped around the plastic so I don't recommend them 100% but here is the link

Since it was an international shipment for me, this was more important.

 

^Well, yes but you recieved it with no problems right? Anyway if i encounter any i will get a replacement from them, thanks for the link anyway.

 

Yea I received it with no problems. I also have the temperature readouts showing for both hard drives in Rivatuner now as well. It shows 37C and 39C although I am not sure which one is the caddy. The cooler readout is probably the caddy hdd.

 

what was your hdd temp when you had a single on?

 

will you try a RAID configuration? RAID 0, maybe.

 

My hdd temps were the same when I had a single one but my laptop had been in use for quite a while at that time. At the moment my laptop is idle and both hdd's show much lower temps of 31C and 29C.

Defragging brings the new hdd up to 38C right now but the other one is still at 34C.

I can't try RAID since both disks already have lots of Data on them. I can't see why it wouldn't work though. Maybe some one else will try it.

 

@fzhfzh and laptopnut

what psu's are you using with your 8690's?
are you guys planning on using a 920xm or higher in the future? i may be palnning on getting a 920 in the future and im a little concerned about power draw and heat with the regular psu and cooling if you have a 920xm with 2 hdds and a hi end gpu

 

Most of the time I use a 160 watt psu but occasionally I use the original 120 watt one. I am not sure if there will be any power draw issues but since the same type of caddy is also offered by the reseller of my laptop they must not have any worries I would assume.

 

i think there could only be power issues with the 920xm.
i believe that the 820/840 would not pose any power issues with the standard psu.
but since you got the 160w you may have enough power for the 920 also.
what two hdd's did you install?

 

I had a 500GB Western Digital 7200 RPM 16MB Cache that I was using to store all movies, TV series and DVD's in an external USB caddy. I took it out and just installed that alongside my current 640 GB. It is great and makes the laptop so much better because you have real storage space now. I am sure some will install one of the bigger higher capacity HDD's as well since there is more space available now.

 

sweet. thats 1.14tb internal storage. what external enclosure do you suggest for my bd rom.

wonder how fzhfzh is going with his installation...

 

I have never used any external cases for laptop DVD or BD Roms so have no idea on that one. Mine was a standard DVD but since I never used it, I haven't bothered to put it in an external caddy. Our resellers should have an idea though.

 

no worries found a few enclosures on ebay.

 

Which ones did you find?

If they work I might get one myself!

 

heres the list courtesy of nando

DVD SATA USB case, enclosure, external laptop items - Get great deals on Computers Networking items on eBay.com!

 

^yea i should get a caddy for my dvd drive, thanks for bringing it up trvelbug.

 

Thanks, those look pretty neat so I will get one.

 

just making sure-
if we install our bd-rom/dvd players on an external enclosure and connect thru usb or esata it would be plug and play right?

 

I can confirm that it is plug and play and it works straight from the USB power with nothing extra needed. Mine has a power input to USB plug as well but I don't need it. I just did a test CD copy and it worked fine. I got mine from here but they assume that you have the old Drives face plate / bezel to re use but mine is being used on my other Caddy so I will get something like this once I confirm the exact dimensions and space of buttons etc.

 

nice find.
still deciding whether i should go ssd/hdd or hdd/hdd with the momentus xt.
ssd would be preferable especially with the cheaper 128gb wd ssd at 199usd.however im not keen on spending a few days to a week reinstalling everything. i dont think there is a way to copyclone part of my 500gb hdd into the ssd and leave the rest as is.

 

How u start that CD\DVD in the external caddy?
I've got mine from e-bay's link above.
But there is no drivers.

I have win 7 x64, and it's not understand this device.
Uknown new deivce. That's it.

Edit:
After reboot and switching cable 20x times here and back it installed. But device can't work with disks. It trying to read it for 1-2 seconds and then disabling device.

 

Sounds like you might have a broken caddy. They should just be plug and play. Assuming the drive works fine when inside the latop that is.

 

Hmm. After 4x reboots and paralleling power and usb to different usb part it start to work but like usb 1.1 cos extremely slow.

will try tomorrow with other nb, with win xp.

Edit:

Tested more. Work fine with CDs. Almost no how with DVD-R (tried different) and no problem with DVD-RW.
Hmm, strange. Well, anyway.
Gentelmen, let's call it a day.

 

i plan to get the momentus xt as my primary drive, and plan on cloning my present hdd via arconis tru-image to this new hdd.
can i update firmware and clone the XT via this hdd caddy instead of using an external caddy? or should both these processes be done using an external enclosure first?

edit:
also will i be needing the optical drive for the tru-image cloning procedure?

 

It will be easier to clone your current hard drive via Acronis True Image using your existing CD drive with the bootable Acronis CD and saving the image to an external USB HDD. It is a good idea to save the actual image just in case you need it in the future as opposed to doing a direct clone from one hard disk to the other.

After this you can install your new hard disk as primary, boot up Acronis via the CD with the external HDD connected that has your image on and then write the image to the new hard disk.

Then you can install the old hard disk into the new caddy in place of your CD Drive and then install your CD drive into an external USB caddy just in case you ever need to use it.

 

how big will this image be if my drive is 500gb and almost full?