Upgrade laptop storage with caddy

[Cool Buddy]

I have an HP Pavillion G6 laptop. Since I no longer use the DVD drive, I was thinking I could add an SSD to it with a caddy. However, when I look up on Amazon, SSD form factor says 7 mm but all caddies say 9.5 mm.

Reference links:
*www.amazon.in/dp/B07CJXSRKG/?coliid=I9JL07MGJ7Y01&colid=3ED3T2F7SL10W&psc=0
*www.amazon.in/dp/B076Y374ZH/?coliid=I1XIBPUV1T9GDG&colid=3ED3T2F7SL10W&psc=0

Is this the correct caddy for this SSD?

Also, is WD green SSD a good buy?

 

[omega44-xt]

WD Green is a decent entry level SSD. For 3k, its a good choice, will be a big upgrade over SSD when OS is cloned to it.

I think 9.5mm caddys are correct choice. The caddy is thicker than SSD, there is a support on one side of SSD, so it should be fine.

The 12.7mm one might be thick, not sure, better get 9.5mm one. Also, put your HDD in caddy & install SSD inside the laptop. Never used caddy setup but I don't think accidentally pressing the DVD drive button & ejecting OS drive would be nice.

 

[whitestar_999]

12.7mm caddy is for old laptops(usually 4-5 years old or more). As per the below link it seems your laptop has 12.7mm dvd drive.
US $8.37 7% OFF|12.7MM SATA 2nd Hard Drive HDD SSD Caddy Adapter for HP Pavilion G6 G7 Series G7 1310us g6 1001er replace DS 8A5LH DVD ODD-in Computer Cables & Connectors from Computer & Office on Aliexpress.com | Alibaba Group

 

[whitestar_999]

Also, put your HDD in caddy & install SSD inside the laptop.

Might not be good for hdd health in the long term.The ventilation/air flow inside laptop is geared towards cpu/gfx card/hdd but not dvd drive area plus the plastic caddy will also not help in heat dissipation. Some laptops also have some power saving/diagnostic issue over dvd drive connector where hdd may experience sudden freezes which may result in data corruption/loss.

 

[omega44-xt]

Might not be good for hdd health in the long term.The ventilation/air flow inside laptop is geared towards cpu/gfx card/hdd but not dvd drive area plus the plastic caddy will also not help in heat dissipation. Some laptops also have some power saving/diagnostic issue over dvd drive connector where hdd may experience sudden freezes which may result in data corruption/loss.

But SSDs run hotter than HDD (at least M.2 ones in my experience), not sure about those power saving algorithms.

Based on what you are saying, using HDD with ext caddy is the safe way, but not convenient.

 

[whitestar_999]

Yes,using hdd in portable usb case is better. SSD are not that affected by temps as hdd & they also are much less prone to data corruption/loss because of frequent/sudden power loss compared to hdd so using ssd in a caddy in place of dvd drive is much better.Of course this comes at the price of lower performance but as long as one's laptop is not too old the dvd drive sata port should be at least sata 2.0 which is enough for cheap 120/240gb ssd(even good ones like samsung 860 evo will only see reduced performance in case of sequential file transfers) & any laptop with 4th gen or later core i should have both hdd & dvd drive sata port as 3.0 so no difference at all(biggest argument against using ssd caddy in dvd drive is slower sata 1 or sata 2 compared to sata 3 on hdd port).

 

[ramussons]

It's also possible that the HDD on caddy may not support boot. The BIOS may support a CD/DVD boot, but not a HDD, normal or SSD.

 

[Cool Buddy]

Ok. I was under the impression that the size referred to the thickness of the SSD.
I'll check the thickness of my DVD Drive. Will probably go for this combination then. Seems like a decent upgrade for ~3k.

 

[CRACING]

I'd suggest Kingston A400 240GB which costs same as WD Green (around 2.5k) but it has R/W speed of~480MB/s. My brother got it recently for his new Dell 5575 laptop from OnlySSD/PrimeABGB. I have Samsung 860 EVO 250GB in my desktop PC and it has R/W speed of ~400MB/s, even though I paid almost double for it! it also has average R/W speed of 500MB/s. Also Kingston SSD case is made of aluminum so it stays cool whereas my Samsung SSD is made of plastic and it reaches upto 45° C.

WD Green SSD has similar read speed (i.e 400-500 MB/s) but writing is half or less (~200 MB/s) then Kingston and other SSDs.

My brother also got this caddy so he can attach existing HDD. There are lots caddy listed in amazon but all are imported from china and labeled different names here. Quality is cheap but it is working fine so far. You can remove face plate from original dvd drive and affix to the caddy so it matches design of the laptop.

 

[whitestar_999]

^^Samsung 860 Evo is the best budget ssd in its class so if it performs slower than kingston/wd green/adata etc then issue is with system(or faulty ssd). Also it is the 4k read write speeds that matters most for OS & you will never find fast 4k read write speeds on budget ssd like kingston a400/wd green(still much faster than any hdd though which have ~1MB/s 4k read write speeds).

 

[omega44-xt]

I'd suggest Kingston A400 240GB which costs same as WD Green (around 2.5k) but it has R/W speed of~480MB/s. My brother got it recently for his new Dell 5575 laptop from OnlySSD/PrimeABGB. .I have Samsung 860 EVO 250GB in my desktop PC and it has R/W speed of ~400MB/s, even though I paid almost double for it! Also Kingston SSD case is made of aluminum so it stays cool whereas my Samsung SSD is made of plastic and it reaches upto 45° C.

WD Green SSD has similar read speed (i.e 400-500 MB/s) but writing is half or less (~200 MB/s) then Kingston and other SSDs.

My brother also got this caddy so he can attach existing HDD. There are lots caddy listed in amazon but all are imported from china and labeled different names here. Quality is cheap but it is working fine so far. You can remove face plate from original dvd drive and affix to the caddy so it matches design of the laptop.

My 3 year old Samsung 850 Evo gives me about ~500MBps even now, so those numbers seem odd. If that Kingston really has those speeds, then its really a great option (seems it does, at least the read, some reviews show lower write, which is fine for a budget SSD).

 

[Cool Buddy]

My DVD drive is stuck. I am unable to take it out. So I'll have to take it to a mechanic. So not upgrading for now.
Thanks for all the suggestions friends. When I do get around to upgrading, I'll probably buy a WD Green or Kingston one as I don't want to spend too much money on the Samsung one.
I might eventually end up upgrading my laptop itself next year, so no point spending too much money on this.

 

[whitestar_999]

Go for kingston a400 over wd green & ssd prices are only going to drop further in future.

 

[CRACING]

@whitestar_999 @anupam_pb

I have just checked the BIOS settings of my desktop and SATA Operation is set to IDE instead of AHCI. I think thats why my Samsung SSD is performing slower then expected.

Now to change IDE to AHCI, I have to modify registry keys then change in BIOS. If it doesn't work then I have to reinstall Windows.

Anyway, thanks to both of you. I wouldn't have noticed it otherwise.

Update: I have changed a key in registry as mentioned here and then in BIOS. Fortunately OS booted and I'm getting full speed!

Check difference between IDE and AHCI:

 

[whitestar_999]

Yeah that's a common issue for older systems which were designed to have compatibility with older devices.IDE mode is indeed slower than AHCI mode but nowadays almost all laptops come with AHCI mode only.

 

[pkkumarcool]

Yeah that's a common issue for older systems which were designed to have compatibility with older devices.IDE mode is indeed slower than AHCI mode but nowadays almost all laptops come with AHCI mode only.

what does IDE and AHCI do what does it stands for

 

[whitestar_999]

what does IDE and AHCI do what does it stands for

Basically AHCI is native sata support while IDE is compatibility mode which can also support older IDE drives at the expense of slower sata speeds. For more details: Advanced Host Controller Interface - Wikipedia , Parallel ATA - Wikipedia

 

[kunnusingh]

I am using HDD Caddy from last 1 or 2 weeks. Its work perfectly without any heating issue. You can check your Caddy size by removing DVD Writer and use any centimeter/mm ruler or something else to check size.

 

[Cool Buddy]

Hi all. I eventually bought a Kingston SSD and a 12.7 mm caddy which fit perfectly.
But I'm unable to install windows on it. Please answer my follow up question here if you have any ideas:
Installing windows 10 on an SSD on HP Pavilion G6 Laptop

 

[ramussons]

Hi all. I eventually bought a Kingston SSD and a 12.7 mm caddy which fit perfectly.
But I'm unable to install windows on it. Please answer my follow up question here if you have any ideas:
Installing windows 10 on an SSD on HP Pavilion G6 Laptop

You cannot.

The caddy replaces the CD drive of a laptop with a SSD/HDD. BUT the SSD/HDD will be detected only by an Operating System and not by the BIOS.

You can Place the Kingston SSD in the normal slot and install Windows on it, then move It to the caddy in the CD Drive slot. You will need to have an OS in the HDD/SSD inserted in the normal Interface and Install an Utility like "EasyBCD" to boot from the Caddy unit.

When th Laptop is Powered on, there will be an option to boot from Various OS's.