About to buy a Sony Z from Japan with 500gb HD, is it possible to add SSD HD later?

I have a friend who's going to be in Japan for business for a while, which is a golden opportunity to buy a Sony Z with 1080p screen.

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SSJapan's configuration options are MUCH BETTER than USA's options! I am planning to configure it with a 500gb hard drive and 1080p screen (2 main features I'm looking for), however, since most of USA's models come with 128gb SSD, how hard would it be to add that in afterwards?

My ideal setup would be:

128gb SSD HD = OS + apps volume
500gb 2.5" HD = User data*

*which I would actually split into 200gb for work & 300gb for personal

Any ideas if this would be possible? The Z is such a perfect laptop, if only they offered this storage configuration and 1080p in USA.

 

I would suggest you get the 128GB SSD option and add the 500GB HDD later using a optical bay HDD adapter as I understand 128GB Sony SSD part is hard to come by.

 

Hmmm, okay, good advice!

BTW, how did you get 1080p in your CTO'd Z in your sig? From what I understand, 1080p is not a CTO option in USA market?

 

It's a CTO in Japan

 

I was also thinking about this option, because at the moment I don't really need an SSD, but would like to have the option to upgrade in the future.
From your answer I suppose that there is room for an extra Sony-specific SSD raid, and the possibility to connect it is given.
Is the situation gonna change that the Sony SSDs are gonna be available in the future?

 

I hope this Z model becomes a dud, like the PSP Go (what a failure...)
Sony trying to change the market again with their own SSDs... just like MiniDiscs. Blu-ray is going pretty swell though.

 

That depends on how you define "swell", I guess. According to the latest statistics, Blu-Ray sales account for 12% of sales and DVDs 88%. With the average BD price being around 50% higher than for DVD, it means that only ~8% of the combined DVD+BD sales are BDs.

After over 2.5 years on the market, that's not too impressive.

The main reasons are likely (a) electronic delivery taking over, (b) DVD is "good enough" for most, and (c) there are a lot of movies you can't yet get on BD.

 

How difficult is it to add a HDD into the Z? I'm thinking of doing it but have no experience opening up my laptop and adding new internals.

 

I'm guessing if the market demands it, some creative individual/company will fabricate a replacement cable to allow us to swap the custom ssd's with a more standard ssd at some point. I think, but not certain...there is room for a 1.8" or even a 2.5" in the ssd bay if you remove the ssd pcb from the casing. I thought someone on the forum here had done some research on this.

 

If you are getting the Japan or Europe model that comes with regular HDD+ no optical drive ption, it is a 2.5" drive that you can easily swap yourself and put an any standard SSD instead. In that scenario there is no room for another 2.5" drive of any type.

However if you order it with SSD from factory, even the Japan and Eupe versions, then you can only add a standard HDD by doing the optical bay mod. However from what I recall that isnt flawless.

So if you whole point is to pick and install your own choice of SSD then you'll want to order it as a CTO with HDD and then just take that out and add your own SSD>