Can I replace my CD drive with a SSD?

[Darrell KSR]

Dell Latitude D505
40gb hard drive
CD Optical drive
OS is XP Professional

Would like to replace the CD optical drive with a small, 32gb SSD. If I did that, could I move the OS and programs to the SSD, maybe making it a little faster, and of course, freeing up more space?

Or would I be better off just getting a bigger hard drive on this old--but reliable--workhorse?

I realized the last time I used the CD drive (it's not a DVD drive) was over a year ago. I think I can make other arrangements if I need it.

[CitizenBBN]

Are you asking if they make a replacement drive for it or are you talking about plugging in a USB device?

A 505, you're worse off than me for computer power. Still have one of my 505s but not my daily main computer.

[Darrell KSR]

You have to understand--I use the computer for the following:

* word processing. Nothing heavy there.
* spreadsheet, but almost always these days a Google spreadsheet. Easy.
* Quickbooks Pro. Easy.
* Low-end commercial tax software package.
* Internet surfing and email.

That's all. A Commodore 64 could do it.

Right now I have a couple of 16gb flash drives in usb ports, and I thought it would be better if I could replace the optical drive with a 32gb SSD cheaply and quickly, with the optical bay deal. I was down to 600mb of space left before I freed up 5gb, but I'm about at the end of what I can do with space with the existing hard drive, and just preferred this option, if I can.

[Darrell KSR]

Add a 2nd HDD, DELL MediaBay D830, D820, D810, D800, D630, D620

Adding a 2nd Hard Drive or 2.5" SSD to DELL laptops equipped with a MediaBay is a simple task. This guide applies to the following laptops:

Inspiron 8500, 8600, 9100, 500m, 600m, XPS
Precision M20, M60, M65, M70, M2300, M4300
Latitude D500, D505, D520, D530, D531, D600, D610, D620, D630, D800, D810, D820, D830, ATG D630 Series

The DELL MediaBay optical drive has a built-in eject / latch locking mechanism. You can easily remove the optical drive by pressing on the eject latch on the optical drive. This releases a lock and the latch will eject out of the optical DVD drive. You can then pull on the latch to pull optical DVD drive out. Once you have the optical drive out, you can insert a 2nd HDD caddy (with HDD or SSD installed). Once inserted, press on the latch so the HDD caddy locks in place. If you are installing a new hard drive (never been formatted or partitioned), you will have to format and partition the new drive for Windows to recognize the new drive.

2nd HDD SSD Caddies available here

Please see below video for our step-by-step 2nd HDD / SSD mediabay installation guide.



see video demo

[Darrell KSR]

Simple?

Umm...do they know me?

[CitizenBBN]

They're right the bay drive can be removed easily. True of all the D series. I pulled mine in the 510 and 520 and replaced them with a 2nd battery. What you're talking about doing is pulling the optical drive and installing the HDD caddy/converter so you can put in a 2nd drive. That can be SSD or regular HD. You just need the caddy/HD frame and the drive. I don't have a mediabay hard drive caddy, it's the only one I don't have. I have a half dozen cd/dvd drives for it, even a 3.5" floppy drive for it and a couple of batteries, but no hard drive one.

But yes you can pull it and put in that caddy and a drive. Do they still list the frames for sale for the HDs? Looks like it's backward compatible WAY back, which is why I so loved the D series from Dell. Finest laptop series ever IMO. I'm working on a M4300 now, looks like it's on the list too.

It really is easy, at least the caddy/laptop part. You'll see the release lever on the optical bay, bottom near the back of the machine. Push it in and it will extend out and from there you just pull and the whole unit will come out. then you just insert the HD unit and push the lever in till it clicks and stays in place. the opticals/batteries are even hot swappable, I'd switch them out as needed at times with the machine on.

not sure a SSD is all that big a step up for you over the HD. It'll be faster, but your vision of moving the OS and apps and not the data is a problem. It's not easy to move an OS, you can't just copy it. You'd need to format the SSD as a boot drive then install XP and all the necessary drivers for the D505. Then copy the apps but a lot of app stuff is actually coded in the windows folder so you'd want to copy that over your OS install, could cause issues. Generally moving apps is a pain in the butt in my experience. The best thing would be to get a drive as big as what you have in data now and use a backup/restore program to dump the whole thing and then install the whole thing on the SSD.

I don't know though what the bus access speed is on the mediabay drive unit, so I don't know if the SSD's improved speed would be fully realized or not. It would be a boost, but so would a newer HD with faster access times.

Usually they do like you describe, the SSD for stuff that doesn't get overwritten much if at all, magnetic storage for data that gets changed a lot. It's doable to install it that way, but may not be as straightforward as you'd think. It should be, but having moved from computer to computer many times it never goes as easy as it should for me.


Re the 505 speed, I still have mine and use it for some stuff, but even Quicken has to go sluggish on it. I had to upgrade to at least what I have now b/c Visual Studio was totally bogged down. Still not setting any speed records, but better on this one. Given my druthers I'd take a new machine with Win8 and at least 8 GB of RAM, maybe 16. That would get these things moving good. Still, it's a big step up from what I had.

What office app are you using? My biggest common app problem for speed was Outlook. It's still not fast on this one, thanks in part to their searchindexer, but on a 505 you couldn't run anything higher than 2000 I wouldn't think. With the move to the new xlsx and docx format I had to upgrade for that if nothing else.

[Darrell KSR]

I have Office 2010 on one computer that is newer, but I have 2003 on this one, and it works great. Quickbooks Pro works great on it, too; no lag or issues. It does timekeeping, billing/invoicing and accounting.

I did upgrade the RAM from 512mb to 1.5gb. Didn't even bother going to 2gb (saved me a 1gb stick; only bought one).

Only thing I need is a little space. Frankly, the 5+gb I have free will likely last for months. Word processing doesn't take much space, and that's the majority of what I use it for.

[dan_bgblue]

Do you have spare screws, a hammer, a multi function mini tool kit?

[Darrell KSR]

Do you have spare screws, a hammer, a multi function mini tool kit?

I do!!

I guess that means I'm ready?

[PedroDaGr8]

LMAO, they do make drive bay adapters. MOST but not all modern CD-ROM drives are SATA. Though a limited few are still PATA. You can pick up the drive bays pretty cheaply on ebay. For both, all the bays are is mounting hardware and a limited circuit which converts from the mobile version of SATA or PATA to the type your HDD/SSD uses. Its usualy an easy install.

Now for the can YOU do it......