Laptop - SSD internally or in CD-Caddy spot?

[KOS_Soc]

So, my dad's thinking of buying an SSD to stick in his 3-4 yr old laptop. I've convinced him about the benefits of having an SSD vs HDD for the operating system but I have a feeling that he doesn't want to go through the trouble of opening it up to stick a new SSD where the old HDD is. I also mentioned about how there are hard drive caddies which you can buy, stick a drive in, and replace the old cd drive with. This led me to the current question:

 

How much of a difference, if any, is there between putting the drive in the normal internal spot vs cd-drive spot?

 

*Wasn't sure whether to put this in Storage or Laptops.*

[BobVonBob]

If you put it internally then it's internal, if you put it in the disk drive slot it's in the disk drive slot.

 

No difference in speed, both use SATA. The only difference is putting it where the CD drive was allows you to also keep the HDD internally for more storage space.

[manikyath]

depending on just how poorly built before mentioned laptop is, it's relatively easy to replace the HDD.

 

and i'd suggest to completely remove the HDD for power draw (battery life) concenrs, as well as windows 10 passionately hating slow laptop hard drives, in some cases even as secondary drive.

also, those CD bay caddy's are usually stupidly expensive...

 

get a usb to sata enclosure, and slap the old drive in there and use it to hold backups.

[KOS_Soc]

I know it wouldn't be hard to open it up, just wondering the speed difference between the spots. His is a Dell 15 inch. I had done this same procedure for my own laptop (replace hdd with ssd and hdd to caddy in CD slot). But he's quite a drive away from me. And caddies have actually gone down in price - $7 on ebay. 

[KOS_Soc]

1 hour ago, BobVonBob said:

If you put it internally then it's internal, if you put it in the disk drive slot it's in the disk drive slot.

 

No difference in speed, both use SATA. The only difference is putting it where the CD drive was allows you to also keep the HDD internally for more storage space.

I know different pcie slots on a motherboard can have varying numbers of dedicated pcie lanes depending on their location, thought maybe this might be similar. Or do sata storage devices not use dedicated pcie lanes? 

[Kilrah]

SATA is SATA, not PCIe. Always same as long as it's the same SATA revision.

[KOS_Soc]

3 hours ago, Kilrah said:

SATA is SATA, not PCIe. Always same as long as it's the same SATA revision.

Would that also apply to laptop cd-drive spaces though? It's Slim SATA but I would also think that laptop manufacturers wouldn't see a need to have the same data speeds for cd drives.

[NewMaxx]

Sometimes the 2nd SATA port will be slower, e.g. on my Ivy Bridge laptop the 2nd SATA drive (SSD) only runs at 3 Gbps. Depends on the motherboard chipset. I would think in most cases it will run at the same speed as the primary, that is 6 Gbps for SATA.

[Kilrah]

10 hours ago, KOS_Soc said:

Would that also apply to laptop cd-drive spaces though? It's Slim SATA but I would also think that laptop manufacturers wouldn't see a need to have the same data speeds for cd drives.

 

Normally chipsets don't mix SATA speeds, if it supports SATA3 all ports would be SATA3. There can certainly be exceptions though.

[NewMaxx]

9 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

 

Normally chipsets don't mix SATA speeds, if it supports SATA3 all ports would be SATA3. There can certainly be exceptions though.

As given in my example above, my Ivy Bridge laptop only runs at 3 Gbps on the caddy port. It uses Panther Point (HM77) which is rated for up to six SATA ports, but only up to a maximum of two 6 Gbps ports. However in most cases any newer system will be all 6 Gbps, yes.

[KOS_Soc]

6 hours ago, NewMaxx said:

As given in my example above, my Ivy Bridge laptop only runs at 3 Gbps on the caddy port. It uses Panther Point (HM77) which is rated for up to six SATA ports, but only up to a maximum of two 6 Gbps ports. However in most cases any newer system will be all 6 Gbps, yes.

So the final answer would be: for older models maybe, newer laptops normally same speed?

[NewMaxx]

Yes. Depends on the motherboard chipset. Haswell on Lynx/Wildcat Point is 4/6 while anything newer, e.g. Skylake or newer, is purely 6 Gbps. Late 2015 is when it came out. It's quite possible for older chipsets (like mine) to have two 6 Gbps, it's just not guaranteed.

[KOS_Soc]

16 minutes ago, NewMaxx said:

Yes. Depends on the motherboard chipset. Haswell on Lynx/Wildcat Point is 4/6 while anything newer, e.g. Skylake or newer, is purely 6 Gbps. Late 2015 is when it came out. It's quite possible for older chipsets (like mine) to have two 6 Gbps, it's just not guaranteed.

Alrighty, thank you!

[kungfumonk]

On 4/28/2020 at 7:55 AM, KOS_Soc said:

I know it wouldn't be hard to open it up, just wondering the speed difference between the spots. His is a Dell 15 inch. I had done this same procedure for my own laptop (replace hdd with ssd and hdd to caddy in CD slot). But he's quite a drive away from me. And caddies have actually gone down in price - $7 on ebay. 

Not sure if you have taken action but since it is a Dell I would recommend going to the manufacturers Service Manual as they do state the maximum port speed. Coincidentally I am using a Dell as well and for my device while the actual hard drive port is running SATA III the disk drive port is only running SATA I.

 

I swapped out my HDD for an SSD and placed the HDD in a HDD Caddy. Might be just my laptop but I am experiencing quite a drop in battery life as a result (probably cause the HDD is always leeching power compared to the CD Drive which was constantly idling). I going to use it for a while longer and I might change the HDD for a cheap SSD or just take it out altogether and put the CD Drive back.