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I want to add a 2nd hard drive (SSD) to my HP Pavilion dv5 1080eh laptop. I don't need the optical drive, so I want to buy a caddy (if it's the proper name, or maybe odd box).

I found one here: http://www.brainydeal.com/12.7mm-Sata-To-Sata-2nd-Hard/M/B005HNQRC0.htm But I asked the shop, to be sure, that this product is compatible with my laptop. They answered NO :(

There is a second one: amazon.com/DBPOWER-Seller-12-7mm-Drive-Pavilion/dp/B00FWOR16U/ But I'm not sure that is good for me. I can't ask a question on amazon, because I haven't orderd something yet... Is it ok for my laptop?

Is a compatible caddy exists? How can I be sure that a caddy is good for my laptop? What kind of caddy is good for my laptop? (Where can I buy a compatible caddy?)

UPDATE: Can someone confirm that this universal caddy is compatible with my laptop? https://www.jacobsparts.com/items/HDDBAY-01/

Hennes
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tamas.pflanzner
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3 Answers3

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There are two kinds of laptop optical drives. They differ in thickness: some are 12.7 mm thick and some are 9.5 mm. Caddies you have linked are 12.7 mm ones. Make sure which one you need: remove your optical drive and measure its thickness. If caddy thickness matches, it should be fine.

gronostaj
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Thickness is one difference between caddies, but the interface can also vary between PATA (older laptops) and SATA (I assume all caddies available have the internal disk requirement to be SATA). You can pull out the DVD caddy and look at the plug on the end and match up the picture of a caddy you are interested in to ensure a match. Now, the bad news, you may have trouble booting with a caddy in place. HP Compaq Presario V3000 takes a PATA caddy, and when inserted, the caddy becomes the first hard disk to boot (regardless of the DVD boot position). OK, but some bootloaders/BIOS combinations will access the caddy and just freeze -- grub when trying to enumerate the devices will turn the caddy light on and freeze. BIOS cannot select the other hard drive to boot. The workaround is to boot from a higher priority device like a USB stick, which boots the internal hard disk (second HDD) without ANY reference in the grub.cfg file to the caddy disk (or it will freeze). Once booted, the caddy becomes available as a normal hard disk. Your HP may be different enough to have solved this problem, but maybe not.

ubfan1
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Yes, you have found a nice one. http://www.amazon.com/DBPOWER-Seller-12-7mm-Drive-Pavilion/dp/B00FWOR16U/

It is compatible with your laptop. Your laptop model is listed in the Caddy name. So take it, no doubts. I recently installed a caddy for my second SSD. No worries.

Ruslan Gerasimov
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