Z11 - Replace DVD with HDD - Working Solution

thats what i thought, yet the apple one's pic shows it with a bezel, so i thought that the bezel+adapter both fit inside the unibody macs, so basically although on the outside it would look like a slot loader- it really would be blocked by the adapter inside

the pic is the unibody pic, as it says that they have special screw holes for the mac inside of the pic

 

This is the part I used in this example.

 

Great find. Can someone else confirm that this will fit the Z11? I'm just about ready to take the leap and replace the optical drive with a much needed HDD.

 

For those looking for a little drive to put in there, CompUSA is selling a 32GB SSD for $42 AR ABCB. It's tiny but cheap for a SSD. It even supports trim.

 

what do you think about the apple version?
did you see any pics that could show whether it will still have a missing space?
did you ever fill your missing space with something? what?

and are you sure that its a micro-sata connection?, it looks like slim-sata to me


btw, can someone point out to me a guide with pics on how to dissassemble a z?, dont want to damage mine accidentally,
thanks.

 

hi you have similar config like me why do you have system reserved on sys disk ?
I really need to buy forth drive and replace HDD with SSD ...
ooh will be costy :-/

 

Because 100 MB doesn't bother me.

 

Zoinks, since it's working so well for you. I'm going to go ahead and get the one you got. The gap doesn't bother me.

 

It doesn't work, at least not entirely. If you have a quad SSD setup, the addition of the drive will cause problems with the CPU power management. Battery life will suffer.

I am not running with the kit for this reason.

 

wow, i never heard about this.
i have a 128gb preconfig, should this affect me?
what kind of problems are we talking about?
is this only if the hard drive is acting as the boot drive or not?

 

If you have 2x SSD's, it is all good.

Quad setups have a problem where the CPU doesn't underclock to save power. It isn't the end of the world type of stuff, just drains the battery more quickly.

This is currently attributed to a flaw in the BIOS.

 

So if I only have 2x RAID, all is good? Sweet. I'm ordering now.

 

so just installed the generic ebay chinese ultrabay, works perfectly (the one sold here SATA 2nd HDD Caddy for IBM T400 T500 R400 R500 W500 - eBay (item 250642936561 end time Jun-17-10 23:49:29 PDT))
of course, i have the rectangular space, though if i bought this version 2nd HDD caddy Apple OptiBay SuperDrive Replacement SATA - eBay (item 180524811619 end time Jul-01-10 01:34:03 PDT)
(for macs- though it is the same shape with the same slim-sata connector) it would not have that rectangular hole.
the question is whether i buy a second one or just figure out how to fill in the hole.

fyi, the one that i got actually has a blue led light up to show when its powered on- though it remains on even when the hard drive spins down)
also, all the screws (except for one that was used to hold in the optical drive) were still used with this adapter- i didnt need to drill any holes

 

Sweet. Thanks for the report.

Re those Apple ones, since the whole drive has to fit inside the case, wouldn't it be depressed in from the Z case. On a Mac, the case is the faceplate. From the pictures for the Apple one you posted. There does appear to be something that looks like a face plate, but it's flat instead of bevel like the faceplate on Z DVD and the Thinkpad bays. This is all conjecture based on the pictures. Has anyone gotten one of the Apple one?

 

i didn't think of that, your probably right.
its basically a choice between it sticking out a bit- because its flat with the apple one, or have a rectangular hole but curved correctly.
i probably will stick with my curved one as i already have it- and will try to figure something out for the hole.

im also currently trying to find out what part number the mini-pcie slot is as mine doesn't have the slot as the verizon wwan card wasn't installed, does anyone know?

 

Have you tried popping off the faceplate on the DVD drive and attaching it to the adapter?

 

the bezel looks like it is unremovable (one piece with the rest of the plastic on the adapter)
acc to zoinks, the lenovo-branded version also is unremovable- so dont get your hopes up.

 

Correct. The Lenovo Ultrabay is one piece. You can't remove it.

 

@yehob: For your Chinese ultrabay adapter, can you post a link to the seller? That item is gone, and there are several similar options. Thanks.

 

on my old z530 i kinda liked the hole since it provided for more cooling.

I didnt use any caddy, i just wedged it in with some cardboard and the cord. The HDD gets pretty hott, so its nice to have at least some cooling hole.

 

Has anyone tested this solution on the Z12 (VPCZ1290X)?

 

my hard drive powers off after a minute of inactivity, so no need for "cooling".
There also isn't any real hardware on the right side of the laptop, so the hole is useless.
I really isn't a big deal though (looks like the hole for a memory card slot)

and @Jasman, any caddy that is supposed to work with the lenovo t400 or t500 will work with this one, (not all of them may have the blue light that is supposed to show activity- it is always on though whenever the laptop is powered on- but that is pointless and some may find it annoying).

Im happy with this now, i just want to find out the mini-pcie slot part number so that i can put a wwan card in my non-verizon-equipped z

 

ok, I think I haven't missed any posts about 2nd hard drive or SSD caddy (replace optical) [OBHD9-SATA-SATA-B] - $42.00 : NewmodeUS, Hard Drive Caddys for Notebooks

Why not use this one? It's made for the Z, albiet the old one. I called the company and they said that the only difference is the faceplate size, but that in a few weeks they will send me out a version of the faceplate that fits perfectly. Until then, I can either shave the edge off or omit it altogether.

Any reasons why this won't work or why to take a different route?

I'm planning on getting a normal hdd, vs a ssd. Any suggestions on quiet, cool running drives around the 300 gb mark that won't eat up all the battery?

Thanks in advance.

 

There's a thread about that unit.

 

I found a couple threads.... none that were still as up to date as this one....

any thoughts on my questions?

 

They also have one for the Z11/Z12

http://newmodeus.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2_39&products_id=335

Out of stock until 20th of August though.

 

Any experience with NewModeus in general? Does a caddy mean I can simply put in my 2.5" SATA and connect the that frame with the cable that is inside the notebook, or do I have to get some kind of adapter?

Can anyone tell me something about the power consumption of a 2nd HDD and how much uptime this will take from the laptop?

There is a comment on YouTube that a 2nd HDD will reduce the battery life ~30 minutes, that sounds too much, no?

 

I'm hoping there will be a cheap adapter on ebay. $43 from newmode is steep considering that the Thinkpad ones are $12 on ebay. The only problem is the faceplate. That gives me a good excuse not to do the mod yet since it would void the warranty.

 

I'm on the fence with buying a Z1290 after reading about the proprietary SSD configuration (thanks to this forum). This laptop is everything I want; small form factor, high resolution (1920x1080), fast processor options, decent graphics card, neat option to run low-power integrated gpu, aluminum case, HDMI/VGA out, etc. I will be using it primarily for my development work and running a VM or two. Being locked into a proprietary SSD format is almost a deal breaker though - especially since the drives don't support TRIM and RAID 0 increases the risk of data loss.

After reading this thread and stumbling onto newmodeus.com from a video on YouTube ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hM9lFWzFSM), it looks like I might have the option to run a second SSD. I have no need for an optical drive as everything I install is from ISOs (MSDN software) and an external drive is just a USB port away.

The question though is whether you can use the second SSD as the primary boot drive. I'd like to run a Vertex 2 as the boot drive and use the built-in 128GB for applications and virtual machines.

Has anyone been able to use the second drive as a boot drive?

Slightly off-topic but does anyone know how well the 1080p screen reproduces the NTSC colour gamut (e.g. 90%+)?

 

whoops, nevermind :\

 

I had a nerve-wracking experience this morning. I replaced DVD with HDD in my 3xSSD Z11. Everything worked fine. Last night I pushed power button to shut down Z. It appears, it did not completely shut down. This morning I tried to wake it up. Nothing happened. So I pushed and held power button to turn it off completely.

Upon restart I get to Windows loading screen and then get a critical system error. Whoa! Some device failed. Long story short, I got to the point where I connected USB DVD and started booting from Windows 7 DVD to run repair. I starts loading then crashes reporting that device is write-protected. Of course, it's a DVD-ROM. What's wrong?

Checking RAM - it's fine. Wireless is off, so it's not a culprit. RAID is fine and it even starts loading from it.

I disassemble Z, remove the HDD (by now I suspect that's where the problem is). Reboot. Windows loads fine. Put HDD into external USB enclosure, connect, device detected as removable device with "no media"! Ouch!

After several plug-unplug cycles, it starts, detects properly, and works fine since then.

So, Windows put it in some deep sleep state or something. Thankfully it did not actually die on me. What concerns me is all sorts of weird crashes and messages from Windows 7 with non-working secondary drive.

I am using Thinkpad bay adapter.

 

what drive did you put in? a HDD or SSD? Didn't some other people here report problems with their additional drive being a HDD?

Had my own scary moment last night when i replaced my x-25m 160gb for a 128gb C300. (Newegg dropped the price crazy on the C300 this past week, couldn't pass it up, been wanting to put an SSD in my fiancee's laptop so the X-25m went there)

well, i think i accidently took off more screws than i needed (didn't have Zoink's reference map with me) and when i flipped the laptop over to take off the keyboard, i noticed a metal on metal sound. i remove the keyboard and a metal piece comes out (picture attached). I have no idea where it goes..... well, i put her back together without it and it seems ok..... i know it went in the laptop for a reason, as soon as i figure out where it went I'm gonna put her back in, just being extra gentle with her until then. D:

 

The drive is HDD (WD Blue 500GB). The reported issues were with configurations of 4xSSD + HDD. Mine is 3xSSD + HDD and is working fine otherwise. The drive is whisper quiet. Laptop feels heavier though

 

Any changes regarding battery life or issues cooling the HDD?
I'm looking forward to buy a 2x64GB configuration and replace the DVD by a 500GB HDD.

I wonder if the battery life drops and if a 7.200 drive will be significant more battery draining then a 5.400 drive.

Another option for me would be buying the cheapest configuration and replace the 5.400HDD 320GB with a Momentus XT.

Would be about 350€ less spent on that.

 

before putting the x-25m in my fianceee's laptop, i had upgraded her hitachi 5k500.b with a hitachi 7k500. didn't notice a change in battery life or sound/vibration.

 

Do i really have to fix that drive or its caddy with the drive inside, by using hot glue?
I dont like the idea of me using something hot, especially if its glue , inside a brand new 2000€ notebook.
I was hoping it was more like plug'n'play. Opening the case, unscrew the dvd and then just fix the caddy with some screws and close the case.
Is it not possible/secure that way?

 

What I did is unscrewed thin metal cover from the caddy, drilled a hole in the back-right (looking at the placement of caddy in the laptop) area of the caddy. That hole allows to affix caddy in the laptop case with a screw. You need a relatively long one though and you should not tighten it because there is a bit of space between caddy and base in that area. Works for me.

If you want plug'n'play get "official" caddy from newmodeus.

 

So you don't think there's a need to use hot glue and cardboards to fix the hdd?
I mean a HDD shouldn't rumble around in it's case, should it?

 

It´s the Kensington lock, stays in the side of the ethernet port!

 

lol yup, finally figured that out last time i opened her up to tighten the LCD hinge screws :\ thanks though

 

Newmodeus just updated my order status. I checked their site and they have 28 in stock.

 

I hope you will show us some pics of the caddy and your Z11 with that caddy installed

 

They are going fast... now down to 8

 

just got mine, and decided on the 500 gb western digital blue drive - more later

 

Installed my caddy with an Intel G2 80GB ssd. Everything is good, but...

One of the mounting brackets from the DVD, which you have to use to attach the caddy to the computer, did not fit. Specifically, it is the larger one on the angled side, closest to the screen. The screw holes did not line up with the caddy, and the caddy was just a bit too large to fit within the bracket. Even after drilling the bracket holes out a bit it wouldn't go.

The end result was that the combination was too tall to fit in the space, so the keyboard could not be reassembled. I had to leave the one mounting bracket off in order to get everything to fit back together. That means the caddy is held in by only 2 screws on the left side.

I will say that it seems to be held firmly in place by those 2 screws and also pressure from the other components (keyboard etc.) pressing it all together. All ended well, but I was a bit disappointed to have to deal with the issue.

I'd be interested to hear if anyone else had the same problem.

 

they said that the caddy is only to be used with the smaller bracket and 2 screws - I had the same question and called them about it.

my problem is that windows isn't recognizing the drive... is their some setting I should change in the bios or something? I can see it in the Intel rapid storage thing, but I can't access it.

 

Oh really? That would have been nice to know, and would have saved me a couple of hours. Thanks for the reply.

Did you install a new drive? If so, you may need to create a new partition and then format. Administrative Tools, Computer Management, Storage, Disk Management.

 

I guess you have to create a partition to the drive before you can use it. For doing so, follow this article: How to use Disk Management to configure basic disks in Windows XP

run compmgmt.msc and in the console tree, click disk management. There select the drive and rightclick the empty space and create a partition. I suggest to create a primary NTFS partition and format it afterwards. Your drive gets a letter and is usable without a reboot.

 

Here were my posts from the official Z thread with pictures! Once installed windows never had any problems detecting the drive. The drivers were instantly loaded and ready to be used as seen in the pictures. However I'm not sure if SSD's are that simple.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/son...7-official-owners-thread-715.html#post6617813

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sony-owners-lounge-forum/457519-sony-vaio-z-i5-i7-official-owners-thread-716.html#post6622156

 

Would you mind posting some pictures here?