Guide to adding SSD to a HDD-only vpc-z1 laptop + newmodeUS HDD caddy review (with photos)

i was on vacation in hong kong when i saw the vpc-z half a year ago (early 2011). to me storage space was more important than a fast ssd, and i was happy to see a HDD-only vpc-z because i was on vacation and it was difficult for me to do data backups. so i skipped the ssd models and bought a hdd model which is of course relatively cheaper than a ssd model. it had a 500gb 7200rpm toshiba 2.5" sata HDD

now that im back home and being able to do daily backups to my server, i can start thinking about the possibility of adding a ssd to it. the idea was to have the raid0 ssd for windows and programs with minimal personal data stored, and a separate HDD where i actually store my data.

just so happens a nbr member (qwaarjet) was selling his raid0 128gb ssd so i took the plunge bought it for the upgrade. with most members owning a ssd model with an optical drive i think it will be interesting to show what's inside a HDD-only vpc-z laptop so here it is. a samsung 640gb HDD is planned to be swapped in as the storage drive


further down the road i also had to purchase a hdd caddy from newmodeus. you may be thinking by now "why do you need yet another caddy when your vpc-z can already hold a 2.5" drive? what a waste of mmoney" i will explain all the obstacles and dilemma as i disassembled the vpc-z, and will also provide a review of the caddy itself. it will be step by step for the most part wth photos attached. click on the thumbs to view bigger image

my vaio is a vpcz115gg running windows professional 64-bit

01. the first photoless step is to powerdown the vpc-z and remove the battery. flip it upside down, and unscrew all the screws that you see, including the hatch cover for accessing the ram (but there's no need to remove the ram modules themselves)

02. flip the laptop back to its upright position, lift off the aluminum keyboard piece slowly but do not forcefully pull anything. slowly/gently remove or unplug the keyboard ribbon that is connecting the motherboard and the keyboard piece.

and this is what my hdd-only vpc-z looks like


a closer look at how the stock HDD is connected to the motherboard: via a ribbon cable from the HDD's sata port onto a ribbon connector on the mobo


here's the stock raid0 ssd part i bought from the nbr member, placed on the side:

by now you probably realize that the ssd and hdd share the same connection to the mobo. which means i can only have either the ssd and hdd but not both under my current situation. you may ask: "isnt there an additional sata port that plugs in the optical drive for ssd models, use that". more on that later

03. so for now lets just take the hard drive out. remove the 3 screws as shown at the bottom right corner of your laptop and remove the first bracket piece that holds the hdd in place


04. on the other side of the HDD bracing, there are 2 screws covered by 2 little pieces of tape. remove the tape as shown, and remove the screws underneath


05. next we will unhook the ribbon cable attached to the mobo. carefully lift the black plastic piece and the ribbon should be come loose for removal


and now you can remove the hard drive from the assembly, also revealing the sata port that would normally be used by an optical drive:


as it turns out, the extra sata port is NOT being used, with the dummy connector on the caddy connecting it and not doing anything. dang sony!


here is what the hdd and caddy assembly looks like after removal. the HDD is connected with a ribbon cable and 2 anti-shock rubber ends on each end. the black caddy (frame would be a better term) with the cursed sata dummy connector is mostly plastic with some metal parts.


here's what the inside looks like with the hdd assembly taken out. since i have bought the ssd anyways lets install it for now. with the original caddy effectively blocking the extra sata port i cannot use it again if i were to put in a second HDD for storage. therefore i have decided to order a 3rd party HDD caddy from newmodeus which is supposed to be designed for the vpc-Z. i will be running the vpc ssd-only for now while i wait for the caddy to be shipped to my place.


06. there is also a dummy bracket where the ssd would sit so we will have the take that out. be carefull not to trip over the blue antenna cable (i think its bluetooth?) while removing it


07. insert the stock raid0 ssd just like you removed the ssd dummy bracket. reconnect the ribbon cable to the mobo just like how it was connected when the HDD was there and push the black plastic piece down to secure the ribbon


08. while i cannot use the HDD space for another hard drive for now until i get a new caddy, the HDD frames makes an excellent space/weight saver, so i just put the black plastic piece back where it was, reconnecting the dummy sata connector into the extra sata port


09. re-apply all the screws back to where it was before (refer to step 03 and 04), as well as the metal bracing that you took out from the bottom right portion. here is one last view of what it looks like before reassembling the keyboard back: with a 128gb raid0 stock ssd and a hdd frame acting as a weight saver, no optical drive


10. gently plug in the keyboard connector to the mobo, place the keyboard aluminum piece back, flip the laptop over again and re-screw all the screws back in. insert the battery and its all ready to go!

bios detected the 2x64gb ssd so its all good, and crystaldiskmark tests for 2000mb and 4000mb respectively


but god, with the hdd taken away, the vpc-z surely feels alot lighter thanks to the frame acting as a weight saver! for those who do not need to use a 2nd hard drive or an optical drive, this is one sure way to make your vpc-z even lighter to carry around as im sure the piece of plastic framing is lighter than a slim optical drive assembly. the ssd is fast, a powerful laptop but even lighter than the most expensive vpc-z1 configurations.....too bad for the limited ssd capacity, but storage is an important thing for me so i will have to use a 3rd party caddy unfortunately. its a waste of money if you think about it but blame it on sony for blocking the extra sata port, but i guess i have myself to blame as well on assuming that the hdd will use the optical sata port but of course i was mistaken

the next post will concentrate on the newmodeus 2nd hard drive caddy upgrade and review, so i will have to disassmeble the laptop again, but belive me this wont be the last time as even more issues arise then....

 

so after spending a few days happily (and spoiled) with my faster and lighter vpc-z, the caddy i ordered from newmodeus has arrived. contents include the caddy itself and a bag of tiny scews, of 2 different sizes. to my surprise, other than the black plastic bezel and the electronis, the whole caddy is made of metal. the back has a mini sata connector which will connect directly to the extra sata port in my vpc-z


the front bezel is nothing extraordinary but it's supposedly designed to be flushed with the edges of the laptop, as newmodeus claims. however, one change that is different than the stock photos on newmodeus website is that it has a HDD activity LED light on the bezel as well. a nice touch in my opinion but we will get to that later when we power it up


instead of putting the stock toshiba 500gb 7200rpm hard drive back as a secondary drive, i will instead put in a samsung 640gb 5400rpm hard drive since that's the biggest capacity hard drive i have in hand right now. while it would seem that one can just slide the hard drive right into the caddy, i do not think its doable without breaking the HDD sata connector because space is so tight. so we will have to disassemble the caddy in order to safely mount the HDD


01. remove the 3 screws on the top as shown to remove the top metal cover, revealing the electronics inside. inside we have a sata circuit board and a red and black electrical wire running on the left side which lights up the HDD activity light


02. the HDD connector might be a little tight for you to slip in the hard drive even with the cover removed. from here you have 2 options: remove the top end (circuit board) or remove the black bezel by removing the 2 screws as shown. just be careful of the red and black wires as its glue-gunned to the side of the caddy. after removing either end, you should be able to easily insert your HDD. take note, however, that for some reason the sata connector, for mine at least, is extremely tight to insert, so take things gently and slowly


03. with the HDD inserted, re-screw the ends and top cover back. now, to properly and securely mount the HDD on the caddy, flip the caddy over and you will see 4 holes. those 4 holes should correspond to the scew holes at the bottom of a laptop HDD. open the little bag that came with the caddy and take out 4 of the bigger screws and screw all 4 in.


04. now you are ready to put this baby into your vpc-z. remove the aluminum keyboard piece from the laptop like in the first post


05. just like in the first post, remove 3 screws at the bottom right to take out the metal bracket (you will need that bracket later so keep it handy), as well as 2 screws at the top right that is covered with 2 little pieces of insulating tape. that will allow you to take the plastic frame out


06. go to the little bag of screws that came with the caddy, and take out 2 tiny screws. use them to mount the metal bracket you just took out onto the caddy as shown


07. plug in the mobo's second sata port onto the back of the caddy and you can place the caddy back into the laptop


08. take extra care and note that the only way this caddy can be secured to the laptop is with the metal bracket that you just mounted onto the caddy. make sure that the tiny black pegs are properly aligned and inserted as shown in red). with the caddy you will not (or cannot rather) be able to re-screw the areas labeled with a blue X. you only have one screw to secure the caddy (green circle) so make sure the screw is tight


09. you can now reassemble the keyboard back just like before and you are done. everything works and when the laptop turns on there is a blue light coming out from the side bezel. bios does not show the HDD for some reason but windows can detect just fine it so its all good


in terms of flushing with the edge of the laptop, i would say it's 90% flush: its more or less flush on the VGA port side, but it still sticks out on the USB port side, so its not perfect but i think close enough (could be better though, stock photos seem to look better....) my only concern from assembling the caddy is that i feel a bit insecure that the caddy is only mounted to the laptop on one end (and with only one screw) but not the other. if newmodeus can design the caddy so one can also apply screws on the other side that will make it better (it still wobble very slightly on the vga port side because there are no screws holding it on that end). anyways everything is good, now i have even more storage. however, the laptop feels heavy again......i guess i was spoiled with the weight saver thing

next post deals with an (unfortunately) annoying problem on the newmodeus caddy and i had to disassemble the laptop one more time. hopefully this will be the last...

 

immediately one day after using the newmodeus caddy, i found a very annoying problem: the HDD activity light on the bezel. it's not very bright when the HDD is idle, but if there is activity on the HDD, the light brightens significantly, to the point of blinding, and its even multipe times brighter than the green power light on the vaio


its not only very distracting, but also when i brought the vaio to work my coworkers who sit next to me are very annoyed by it since the light is shooting right at them from the side. i had to disable the hard drive in device manager for the rest of the day so windows will not access the hard drive and make the HDD activity light go up

while it's a nice touch for newmodeus to add a HDD light to the caddy, i think its causing more trouble than its worth. therefore i have no choice but to take down the HDD light

another personal issue is with the construction of the caddy. it's mostly made of metal so while its durable its more heavier than plastic.

so back to disassembling the vaio again. after a few trial and errors, i decided to remove the top metal cover of the caddy because it's not doing anything except adding unncessary weight. the HDD is already mounted from the bottom with 4 screws so you will not have to worry about it moving around.


i also said goodbye to the HDD light wiring. no more HDD light for me but i still have the yellow light on the palmrest for HDD activity so there's no loss...kinda wished newmodeus would have used a weaker LED light


here's what the vaio currently looks like inside

 

Any change in battery life that you've noticed being as you were on a HDD only Z for some time?

 

the thing is, i have never drained my battery to empty so i have no idea. any way i can do this quickly and not having to monitor it for hours?

but since the HDD is now a secondary drive its not accessed as often and idle most of the time so personally i am not seeing a big drop in battery life yet

ADD:
im doing a very unscientific and unintelligent test on battery usage. i use a windows desktop gadget called battery meter v1.1 from addgadget.com and monitor its discharge rate. i compared the values when im not using the drive leaving it idle, vs playing a mp3 file located in the drive with windows media player. i'm on balanced power plan. and there seems to be no real difference in discharage rate. the only catch i can think of is the vaio does not power down/turn off the HDD when its idle since the system is still assuming that its a ODD inside. in that case, the HDD would be using full power whether im accessing it or not

 

Great guide.

Only thing I take issue with is your comment regarding the weight of the stock HDD frame vs. the ODD drive. I can tell you from experience the stock ODD is incredibly light, as in it weighs next to nothing. Conversely, the newmodeus caddy is significantly heavier than the stock ODD, even without the HDD in it. I'd guess with the HDD in the caddy, it ways 2-3x as much as the stock ODD.

 

of course i can be wrong with the weight of the ODD since i never have one in person and im aware that the stock ODD has the top cover stripped out to make it even lighter

tell you what, when i get home from work tonight i will weigh the stock HDD frame

 

Nice guide there. Might consider doing this once SSD's get to higher capacities (500 GB+) with more acceptable prices (200 USD? Possible?). Right now SSD's are still too expensive, even with the increased performance compared to HDD's...

 

so im back from work and i tried to weigh the frame it using my portable digital scale with a hook that i normally use when i ship out stuff to get shipping estimates. it was too light for the scale to detect anything. i had to put it in a plastic bag and weigh it.....and i got a reading of 0.04kg

i also had 2 slim ODD lying around, and i weigh them just for the heck of it knowing that the one used for the vpc-z is lighter. they both weigh in the neighborhood of 0.20 kg. even if i half the weight to take into the account of the cover-less ODD on the z, its still 2x as heavy as my frame

maybe you can give us the weight of the z ODD itself too?

 

i just weighed my z using the stock HDD frame only, standard battery, stock 128GB 2x64gb raid0 ssd, no HDD or ODD, or basically whatever my config is in my first post.

i weighed it twice, and both read 2.87lbs, or 1.3kg for metric users

according to this notebook review, which has a ODD drive is 3.04lbs
Sony VAIO Z Review

and this ubergizmo review states 3.07lbs
Vaio Z Review - Sony Vaio Z Review | Ubergizmo

i mean its not that big of a difference, but i guess there is a way to get the Z1 down into the sub-3lbs category. not as light as the Z2 at 2.6lbs but hey at least i tried

 

Placing a small extra 10K resistor between + and the desoldered red wire leading to the blue LED, lowers the intensity of the light considerably.

 

Very nice guide. I have the exact same model Z1 (purchased in Singapore), so it takes away a lot of the guesswork for me.

 

Very nice guide. Actually, I want to upgrade my stock Toshiba HDD to SSD (without any any additional Raid SSD).

I bought OCZ Vertex 4 256GB, then replace my stock Toshiba HDD. Then I clone my Recovery and Windows partition to SSD. Everything works fine on my PC, but after I installed the SSD on my z11 and then check on my Insyde BIOS the BIOS isn't detected my SSD.

what's wrong wih my z11 and what I suppose to do

 

Another variant from Russia
I don't need dvd-drive, useless thing in past 2 year's, so i disassemble it and use dvd chassis as hdd caddy.
1) You need cheap dvd ssd bay from ebay.com - something like this - 2nd Hard Drive HDD SSD 9 5 Caddy Adapter for Sony VPCS13V9E VGN SR5 VGN SR55E B | eBay
Disassemble this caddy and get conversion plate from it.
Disassemble dvd-rom from notebook.


2)
Drill out pin marked by red arrow.
After this you can fix conversion plate on glue (i use hotmelt)

3)
Drill hole (lower arrow) for hdd fix by screw hole (upper arrow) or you can you any other screw-hole on hdd bottom.

4)
I fix caddy in notebook and adapting retractable part of dvd-rom.

5)
Hotmelt allows conversion plate make a little movement, so hdd can be inserted.

 

I did a similar thing, but replaced the stock 2 x 64Gb SSD and DVD drive with 2 x 128GB SSD and and a newmodeus caddy containing a 256 SSD. battery life improved + performance fantastic. Weight 1.35 Kg. I did however snip the wires to the annoying blue LED that is on the caddy. I plan to upgrade to a larger SSD in the newmodeus drive bay in the future. The Crutial M4 SSD is now under 300 UK pounds. Well worth taking a dip on.

 

See my post of June 20, 2012 on this annoyingly bright blue LED if maybe you would like to discern the working of the SSD from the HD.

 

Adding the 10K resistor uses a little more power consumption. (Not much), better off without the LED all together.

 

Has anyone tried installing a 2tb 9.5mm in the caddy?
Something like this:
http://www.storagereview.com/samsung_spinpoint_m9t_hard_drive_review

 

Sorry for dig out this old post. Eventually, it is a nice post.
Just recently try to upgrade my Z115 by using micro sata cable/msata converter, the solution works.
Unfortunately, the caddy drive is not workable. It had is detect once, but afterward, no detected at all, it is seems no power flow in to the drive.
Does anyone facing this problem ? I try the slim SATA DVD drive, the result is same.
All the caddy drive and DVD drive working fine if connection slim SATA to USB converter.
Any solution for this ?

 

Confirmed. I've successfully installed a 2tb hdd in my fenvi caddy with no issues. Disassembled a seagate slim 2tb external hdd. Drive height was slightly thicker though.

 

Have you tried to remove the ssd's with the msata converter and check if the caddy / dvd drive while connected to the internal sata is detected in the bios? It might be that the internal sata was damaged.

 

Thanks for reply
IF Using the FPC-217 connect to MicroSATA to mSATA, it is works.
IF Using the internal DVD bay slim SATA connect to caddy / dvd drive, the Micro SATA works, but Caddy Bay always not work.
The caddy / dvd drive always unable detect by BIOS.... hum... don't know how to check with internal SATA is damaged...

Initially, no additional configuration or alternation on hardware needed, right ?