(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best computer hard drive accessories

It depends on where you're going and what shots you want.

Are you planning to go to Udawalawe? If so, your kit lens will do for the most part, but do bring a telephoto to get some of the wildlife shots esp. the birds. Depending on the guide and timing, you can actually get pretty damn close to the elephants for example: http://i.imgur.com/fhtcL6z.jpg. However, there are other things like birds you can't really get without a telephoto.

For example, if you're going to Polonnaruwa and want to take shots of the monkeys, you need a telephoto. You don't want to get very close to these bastards despite them being used to people and coming pretty close to people. I have a bunch of shots from here, but these are not on my phone unfortunately, so can't upload them. edit: Found a few more pics: http://imgur.com/a/eqEg1

Pic 3 - I wish I had a fast zoom. You can clearly see the issues with the image in low light. This + bad tripod + no IS (older kit lens) on the lens = bad time.

Pic 4 - Frescos are pretty cool and there were places where I couldn't get multiple of them in to one shot like I wanted. A wide angle would help. I can imagine a few cool macro shots of the frescos as well, but I wasn't really able to do that due to equipment limitations.

For landscape hots of say Polonnaruwa or Sigiriya or Mackwoods other places, you definitely should go with a wide angle. The Canon 10-18mm f/4.5-5.6 IS STM is under $300 and probably your best bet when it comes to price vs performance. It's by no mean the absolute best wide angle lens, but it's pretty cheap and offer good performance.

Your f2.8/1.8s will come in very handy, especially if you want to take inside shots of say the Dalada Maligawa. I really wished I had a fast lens when I went.

Also, if you're going to the Peradeniya Botanical Garden, either bring a macro lens or extension tubes. You may also want to invest in a GoPro (or a Xiaomi Yi, make sure you get a real one and not a counterfeit). I wished I had a GoPro or similar action cam to record say the ascend/descend for Sigiriya.

And bring LOTS of batteries AND a DC to AC car inverter in the 100-200W range so you can charge your stuff on the go. My relatives told me to bring this, and it was invaluable while traveling to charge my camera batteries, laptop and phone. I used this one: http://smile.amazon.com/Outlets-Inverter-Charging-Smartphones-Tablets/dp/B004MDXS0U/

DO bring a laptop and external HDD/SSD for backing up. I would personally go with a 500GB or larger SSD now as things can get rough on a HDD while traveling. I had 2x500GB SSDs (swapped out DVD RW to 2nd HDD cage see: http://www.smile.amazon.com/Protronix-Optical-Drive-Caddy-Universal/dp/B004XIUQYA/, make sure you get the right sized one) on my laptop, and had an 2TB HDD. Backed up photos/videos to both of these.


Things I wish I brought:

• A good tripod, I got a cheap light weight $40ish one, and it really showed. This was really apparent at Sigiriya when the wind picked up. I couldn't even do 1/2sec shots as the camera moved just enough in the wind to blur things. Invest in a good tripod.
  
  
• Macro lens or extension tubes. Particularly wished I had this at the botanical gardens and a few other places.
  
  
• Action cam, see above
  
  
• A Lifestraw. Got sick for like a few days probably because of bad water. I was careful about the food, but still got a bug. DO be careful of the food AND the water. There are places that will sell refilled water bottles that have local unboiled/unpurified water, so be careful. Make sure you break the seal yourself. Or just use the Lifestraw water bottle. See: http://smile.amazon.com/LifeStraw-Bottle-Integrated-1000-Liter-Filter/dp/B00H90PFOK/
  
  
• Bring a small first aid kit or just buy locally when you get there. Got a few cuts and scratches on the field (slipped while not paying attention lol) and had to improvise bandaid using some tape + paper lol.
  
  
• Wide angle lens. Some of the shots at Sigiriya frescos and just landscapes in general would have been nice with a good wide angle lens.
  
  
• Fast lenses for low light indoor work. Really missed this. But you have this covered pretty well.
  
  
• Extra SD cards. I brought 5 64GB cards, but I did video on my camera as well, so the cards filled up fast. I brought back roughly 300GB worth of stuff (after culling) and moving them on to the laptop was a bit inconvenient as the cards filled up but not too big of a deal. HIGHLY recommend buying a GOOD external HDD or SSD + enclosure to backup your stuff.
  
  
• A notebook. I didn't bring one, but bought one locally after the first day of shooting to write down thoughts/plans,etc. More convenient than typing up on the laptop/phone.
  
  
  Source: Been there, done that. Spent about 4ish weeks in June/July. Traveled to Udawalawe, Polonnaruwa, Sigiriya, Mackwoods and Peradeniya. I didn't spend a lot of time in the big cities like Colombo, so can't really comment on cityscape stuff. I traveled with my aunts, cousins, uncles, etc who live/lived in Sri Lanka so they knew their way around stuff which made it a lot easy to get to places. PM me or ask here if you have any questions.
  
  Well, that's a lot longer than I expected... hope this helps OP!

Storage space is an often overlooked issue when building for the first time. Games, especially modern titles, take up a LOT of storage space as you have discovered. It also presents a quandary - we need a lot of space but at the same time we want fast drives to reduce loading times. Problem is, fast + big = expensive. I think even if you got a 1TB NVMe, you'd still manage to fill that up pretty quickly and within a few months would be back to doing that 'uninstall game shuffle', which is a pain in the ass. I know, I've been there.

One solution I wholehearted recommend (and I've put this on a couple of other posts here) is primocache. It's a great program that costs around $30 and you can use it to turn an SSD into a cache disk for a large HDD. There's a couple of ways I see you implementing this solution:

First solution is that you get yourself a low capacity NVMe, 120-256 GB, a decent sized rotary HDD (2-4TB) and a m.2 sata adapter like this one. Install your WD blue in the adapter, hook up the power and data cables and keep this as your boot drive - if you're finding it fast enough for that. Install the NVMe and the HDD and use the NVMe as a cache for the HDD. Install all your games to the HDD and there you go, fast + big for relatively cheap. The caveat of course is that the first time you load up a game it will be slow, but as the data gets cached load times will reduce dramatically.

Second option is that you get yourself a 240-512GB NVMe. Install this in the bottom slot at first, then migrate your OS over to the NVMe using the manufacturer's migration tools if they have them, or something like minitool's partition wizard - this way you don't have to install the OS again from scratch, but you might have to uninstall a few games until there's enough space if you get a NVMe that's smaller than your WD Blue. Remove both drives, plug the NVMe into where your WD Blue was and set it up as the boot drive. Get yourself a decent sized HDD as above, and a 120-256 GB SATA SSD to use as a cache. You could get the m.2 to SATA adapter above and use your WD Blue, but I would recommend something better like a Samsung 860 Pro and selling your WD Blue.

Option 2 is a little more complicated and expensive, and games will load a little more slowly with it, but you'll have an NVMe as your boot drive. Not sure if the slightly faster boot times and snappier response from the OS or applications installed to it will make a huge enough difference for you though - I'd probably go with option 1 for faster games.

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Some small notes - when partitioning your HDD, set the cluster size to 16k or 32k. This will help reduce the RAM overhead required to cache it, and most game files are large enough that 16k or 32k clusters will make no difference. Match the cache block size as close as you can to the drive's cluster size so that it doesn't use a ridiculous amount of RAM as overhead. I would not recommend using primocache unless you have at least 16GB RAM as you will need some for this overhead, and also level 1 caching a.k.a. RAM cache - this can make a huge difference in load times. Give it about 1GB and keep the level 2 cache (SSD cache) overhead to <1GB - your system should still have 14GB to play around with - more than enough for today's titles.

Hard drives take up so little power that they're almost worth ignoring. SSDs actually take up LESS power than HDDs, but again, the difference is honestly fairly negligible. Looking at your build, you're fine on power.

I recommend both of Samsung's SSD lines (830 series and 840 series) - they get outstanding reviews and have great lifetimes. I'd also recommend the HyperX line from Kingston if you're looking to go a little bit cheaper.

Two things you should know before you go:

• 1. You'll really get a lot of performance gains on it by putting your Operating System and other programs on there, and leaving the HDD for files, music, etc.
     
• 2. Most SSDs are a 2.5 inch form factor, while most HDDs are 3.5 inch. There's no real difference in how you hook them up, but it can make a difference for the tray they sit in. You'l want to grab something like this to fit it on.
     
     Here's a pretty good article on a lot of the benefits of an SSD vs HDD: http://ocz.com/consumer/ssd-guide/ssd-vs-hdd

No worries. That doesn't really help but if you could show me where you found it I might be able to dig deeper.

For clarity, a PCI Express (or PCIe) slot is where expansion cards like your graphic card go. They are very fast when it comes to transferring data. A PCIe slot has "lanes" of data it can transfer. An x1 slot has one "lane". An x16 slot as 16 "lanes". Each lane can transfer 8Gb/s, if I remember correctly. That's some background info.

Now let's talk drive types. You've got Hard Disk Drives or HDDs, which come in different capacities and physical sizes. The two common sizes these days are 2.5" (usually found in notebook computers) and 3.5" (usually found in desktop computers). Larger physical size does not necessarily equate to larger capacity. Capacity is usually expressed in gigabytes (GB) or terabytes (TB). An HDD is one of the slowest forms of media commonly used today, but it's cheaper per GB/TB than solid state drives. (SSDs.) HDDs today use the SATA "bus", which is a specific way to transfer data. Your PCIe slots are another way to transfer data, but we'll come back to that.

Then you've got SSDs. The most common size still being produced is 2.5". These are much faster than HDDs. SATA SSDs are roughly 5 times faster than HDDs for reading and writing data. This means faster boot times for your system, faster game loads, and faster file copies.

A few years ago, M.2 SSDs came out. M.2 is not necessarily faster than 2.5" SSDs. This depends on which bus they use. If they use the SATA bus, they're around the same speed as 2.5" drives. That said, they're far smaller and use less power, so they're better for laptops and, frankly, everything else except for speed. That said, we also have M.2 NVMe drives. NVMe is a special type of memory (like your computer's RAM) that doesn't wipe itself each time you reboot your computer, which means it can be used for storage. Also like your RAM, it's very fast - about 4 times faster than a SATA SSD, which is about 5 times faster than an HDD. That means an M.2 NVMe SSD is roughly 20 times faster than an HDD.

Because of this faster speed, the SATA bus just isn't fast enough, so they use the same bus as your PCIe slots. They can use 4 lanes of the PCIe bus. They can be plugged into an M.2 slot if your motherboard supports them, but you can also buy an inexpensive PCIe card (which will fit into a PCIe slot, if you have one available) if your motherboard does not have an M.2 slot. Here's an example of a cheap card that I've found to work well. You mount the M.2 SSD to the card, then install the card in a PCIe slot. That said, if the only PCIe slot you have available is x1, it's kind of pointless to do so. Remember how I said it is roughly 4 times faster than a SATA SSD? And remember how I said it uses 4 PCIe lanes? Well, if you only use 1 PCIe lane, you're not going to see those same performance gains. At that point, you're better off using a SATA SSD. They do make them in the M.2 size/format. The Samsung 850 Evo is an example of a decent one. (Note: the 850 Evo is also made in the 2.5" size/format, so be cautious which one you buy if you go that direction. Also, note that many PCIe cards (and M.2 slots on motherboards, for that matter) only support NVMe/PCIe M.2 SSDs OR SATA M.2 SSDs but not both. The PCIe card I linked above will only work with NVMe/PCIe SSDs, for example. Therefore, the Samsung 850 Evo I just linked wouldn't be compatible with it.

I hope that helps to clarify. Feel free to respond with more info or questions if you have them.

Ok, I really like the advice of /u/zottelbeyer

, but I will try to give my own. Just remember: There is never enough storage space.

My current setup: TS-673 with 2x512GB M.2 SSD RAID 1 as system volume + 4x10TB HDD RAID 6 ad storage volume, with intention of expanding up to 6x10TB as I need more space. Synology DS218J with 1x10TB+1x3TB HDD JBOD used as backup unit.

First: I personally don't think I'd use RAID 10 when I can use RAID 6. RAID 6 offer better drive protection than RAID 10, so yes, I'd also switch to RAID 6.

Second: Backup in the same machine is not considered backup. There are tons of things that can destroy all drives in a case at same time. For example:

https://old.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/dc8hda/nearly_lost_all_my_data/

So, The fact that you are backuping your main RAID 10 data into a different 8TB drive inside the same NAS means that you are in fact not performing any backup at all. One ransomware infection will destroy the totality of your data.

Ok, now, let's dive in.

Currently, the sweet spot of cost/storage are located in 8TB drives, but slowly switching to 10TB. Personally, I'd go with 10 or 12 TB drives. You can get 10TB WD red drives for 189€ (WD element drives shucked). With 5x10TB drives in RAID 6 you get 30TB (27.3 TB of usable space). If you use RAID 5 (more about that later), you can bump up to 40TB (36.4 TB of usable space). That is 5 times what you currently have, and without need to buy a new enclosure. That is leaving your 6th bay as offsite for the other user.

Right now, IMHO there is no reason to stick with lots and lots of low storage drive. Get fewer with higher capacity. Prices have dropped enough.

You have also to take into account that bay space is also an important issue. That makes in the end bigger drives more valuable that small drives.

You can start increasing your drive count slowly, and adding more drives as your space needs increase.

About backups: I really encourage you to move your backup outside your TVS-673. If you go the bigger drive route you will have 4TB drives spare (your current RAID array) that you can use to perform backup. I used this:

https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-Docking-Station-Support/dp/B0099TX7O4/

or a cheaper version:

https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-SATA-USB-Cable-USB3S2SAT3CB/dp/B00HJZJI84/

Connect your drive, then you can create a backup job to store your important files on it, and then disconnect it and store it away. Repeat with each drive you want. Perform a new backup once a week. In case of NAS destroy, you have full backup available.

I personally prefer to use another cheap NAS to automatically perform backups, but that means spending some more money. About RAID 0 backups, it's not ideal, but it is doable. RAID is not backup, is intended to reduce downtime. Strictly speaking, you don't need RAID if you are willing to assume downtime while you restore from your backups. So, RAID 0 (or JBOD) is acceptable as backup plan. Yes, if one drive of your backup fails, you lose everything, but it is a backup. All you have to do is switch the failing drive and recreate the backup from scratch. Pretty straight forward and it doesn't risk your data. Since your main data is a RAID array, in case of failure of your backup RAID 0, you still have tolerance for at least another drive failure (RAID 5) or even two (RAID 6) in your main array.

• Main RAID 1, 5 or 6 + Backup RAID 0 or JBOD: Ok
  
• Main RAID 0, JBOD or non array + Backup RAID 1, 5 or 6: OK
  
• Main RAID 0, JBOD or non array + Backup RAID 0 or JBOD: NOPE
  
  Finally, if you decide to go "full datahoard mode" (rack server, +10 bays, ZFS or BTRFS , etc) then by all means, go to /r/DataHoarder and /r/homelab. Tons of useful advice there.
  
  In case you go this route, then yes, get a nice rack, set ZFS, and use your TVS-673 as an expensive backup NAS to keep your data safe. I personally use borg backup, but ZFS has a nice snapshot backup utility with incremental copy.
  
  Sorry for the wall of text. I think I addressed most of your concerns, right?

Verify first before buying anything that you do indeed have a second SATA power connector free (looks like this, might be a 90 degree angle plug), and that you have a second SATA port free on the mainboard (looks like this), AND that you have another drive bay to mount the drive in.

Also make sure the drive bay you have free is the right size. Desktop drive bays are 3.5" wide. Desktop drives are 3.5" wide. You CAN install a 2.5" drive (laptop size) with the proper adapter if you need it. (something like this)

Also verify if you have a toolless drive tray. A lot of prebuilts will have trays that the hdd can be mounted in without screws. Some OEMs like Dell, will not come with a second tray even if they have a second bay. (like these)
Even more OEMs have special drive mounts that will only fit one drive, use special screws, and won't have space for a second drive.

So, verify you have a free bay, if it is toolless, needs shouldered screws (like these), or standard screws (like these)

Do I have a free sata port?
Do I have a free sata power connector?
Do I have a free drive bay?
How does the drive mount into the bay?
Am I going to need an drive bay adapter or another drive tray?

Answer all of those questions before you buy anything.

The controller it comes with is a standard Silicon Image SIL3132 2 port PCI-E eSATA controller. Nearly all "cheap but works" eSATA controllers are a SIL31XX chipset. I have several. They work fine in Linux, Windows and I think FreeBSD (would really surprise me if it didn't) because SIL chipsets are pretty much the low-end standard for devices like this. Doesn't matter what controller you research, it will likely have a SIL31XX chip on it. Startech/Addonics are SIL chips from what I recall. Even the Startech 4 port eSATA card is a SIL3134 chip.

I also have two of these Mediasonic External 8bay enclosures, but these have a SINGLE eSATA port on the back, so again, the controller must support port multiplier to see all eight drives. I like these better than the Rosewill as they also have fan control settings (low/med/high/auto) for the enclosure. Also, they only take one eSATA controller port per eight drives. They also support USB3, but I don't recommend raid arrays over usb at all. Stick with the eSATA function. I can't remember if these come with an eSATA controller or not, but if they do, its also a SIL3132 board.

I've been using these cheap SIL2132 controllers for a long time, they work fine. I've had them on 4 drive, 5 drive, and even single cable 8 drive boxes and drives do occasionally die, but they always die sooner or later. I don't think they died any more than the drives on my SAS box. Just buy a good quality eSATA cable, not a $3 one. The biggest flaw with eSATA imo is that the cables and ports have too much "play" in them and the cables can be bumped out of the ports or vibrated out pretty easily. I just insert and tape down with a little tape and good to go.

Side note: if you are thinking SAS->eSATA breakout cables for a superior controller, the SAS controller likely doesn't support port multiplier, so if you rig up some SAS->eSATA cabling, you will probably only see one drive. I tried that too.

Absolutely! The only things you would want to double check, is that the motherboard has a spare SATA port, the power supply has a spare SATA power cable (and it's in an accessible spot), and that there's physically a space available for it in the case. It's worth double checking those things, but you're almost certainly fine. One thing to note though, there's a good chance the only hard drive bays that case has are 3.5", and SSD's are 2.5", in which case you would just want to get a little adapter like this. Be sure and take inventory of cables as well, there's a good chance you'll also need to pick up an extra SATA data cable.

Assuming your sister isn't especially tech literate, I would recommend backing up everything of importance she has, clean installing Windows on the SSD, wiping the HDD, and repurposing it as just bulk storage. At which point I would redirect all main windows directories (music, documents, downloads, etc.) to the HDD so that the change is more or less invisible to her.

If you do 3D CAD work, it should take advantage of your GPU. Also a high quality display would help out a lot. Save the money, and go for something high quality with generally really good specs like an [ASUS N550JK](). It has a beautiful 15.6" 1920x1080 IPS touch display, a quad-core i7-4700HQ, Nvidia GTX 850M graphics a 1TB HDD, 8GB RAM, and an optical drive you can swap out for a hard drive caddy and a Samsung 840 Evo for a little over $1000 total.

It'd save you money, get you everything you want, and leave you with a really high quality machine, with a high end display and a 250GB SSD. If you're worried about swapping out the optical drive and caddy/SSD yourself, it's super easy and there are videos to help. here is swapping the bezel, here is installing the caddy

Disclaimer is that I've never done this for EU4, but can't imagine it would be any different for this game than any other game.

Basically what you want to do is take the old hard drive out of the now broken laptop, connect it to a working computer using an an external sata connector or hard drive enclosure (something like This or That)

Once the drive is connected you should be able to navigate through it the same way you would on the machine it came from, except the drive will have a different letter assigned to it (D: or F: probably, it would have been C: on the original laptop, lets assume it gets D:)

Find where your EU4 saves are: Paradox's website says they are stored at C:\Users\<USER>\Documents\Paradox Interactive\Europa Universalis IV\ by default, so you'd be looking for D:\Users\USER\Documents\Paradox Interactive\Europa Universalis IV.

Copy the save games from the old disk (D:\Users\USER\Documents\Paradox Interactive\Europa Universalis IV) To the working computer (C:\Users\USER\Documents\Paradox Interactive\Europa Universalis IV)

Load up EU4 and it will look for your saves in that directory, and hopefully find the ones that you just copied over.

P.S. If this comes across as condescending in any way, I don't mean it to. I just don't want to assume any experience on your part. On the other hand if you need more guidance feel free to PM me questions. Good Luck!

Update. I got this drive docking station instead of an external enclosure: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IKAQ538/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1 It takes 3.5 or 2.5 inch drives, and they're bootable and hot swappable. Inexpensive and stoked on my purchase. It is a great alternative to one of the reason's I justified buying the MacPro I just sold, fixing mine and friend's failed computers by sliding their drive into my Mac. Although it isn't exactly something you want to leave a drive in all the time exposed to dust and air.

I did some math to calculate how much media I have, which isn't much compared to most out there I'm sure. 200 G's of music and 250 of movies. Sadly it nearly tops off my Mini. I'd like more headroom.

I'd like to put 1 TB either inside the mini, or use an external. Cannot find a Thunderbolt external drive that has only one drive in it... So think I'll be happy with USB 3.0 I don't need a whole lot of storage, but I would like more. I also like this NewerTech miniStack MAX, double as an external drive as well as since my Mini is plugged into my TV... and I don't have a DVD player that buy seems like a great option too. The prices are all really close. What do you guys think is the preferred method?

Your best bet would likely be the ASUS N550JK-DS71T, which has an i7 quad core 4700HQ processor, 8GB ram, 1TB HDD and a GTX 850M GPU. Best of all, it has a beautiful 1920x1080 15.6" IPS touchscreen.

If you're comfortable upgrading the laptop yourself, you can buy an HDD Caddy and put a Samsung 840 EVO SSD in place of the optical drive. You could also add another RAM stick for a total of 16GB ram. When finished, you'll have spent around $1300 for a very nice machine.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004XIU4T2/

Would that work to swap out my very much unused DVD drive with a SATA II port for a new hard drive? Seems the SATA-to-board power cables for the R710 are rare and expensive but that seems like a viable alternative since I'm going to take the plunge and set up a small disk for the hypervisor as it just seems more efficient regardless. Thanks again for suggesting this as well. I was told I could get pretty much any HDD as long as its 64GB or more as the hypervisor won't need too much space, is that right? Also would an SSD make much difference in a SATA II port? (or would i even need one for my uses?)

On that note, can I use any molex<->sata power adapter? Or do I need SATA III for some reason?

To try and be helpful, you can remove the hard drive from the laptop and place it in to a hard drive enclosure and pull any and all files off of it that way. It will take you 30 minutes (search youtube the make and model of your laptop + the words hard drive removal) MAX.

Then all you would need is something like this: https://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-3-5-inches-SATA-Drive-Enclosure/dp/B01MZC303G/

Any computer store can take care of this for likely less than $100. Do not take it to Best buy. But honestly, if you can use a screw driver, you can remove the hard drive.

Hope all turns out OK in the end for you guys.

Okay brother, here's the dealio. First a disclaimer. If you have $50 in the bank, and have to have this laptop for school or work, don't even risk it. I was successful, and I'm happy I did it now that it is all back together. But it was scary. There were several instances where I was really worried about breaking something irreparably. If you've got enough money to buy something else, and just have the itch to upgrade this machine and the confidence to do so, here are the parts I bought:

http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-PC3-12800-204-Pin-Notebook-CT102464BF160B/dp/B006YG8X9Y?ie=UTF8&psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00

http://www.amazon.com/Protronix-Optical-Drive-Caddy-Universal/dp/B004XIUQYA?ie=UTF8&psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00

What I ended up doing is putting the SSD where the HDD is now, and putting the HDD in the caddy. The bezel from the original drive can be removed and placed on the caddy. Just dig your fingernails underneath the top of the bezel and pull outward and downward. I was worried about it breaking, but it'll come off.

Also, the RAM was a pain in the butt until I realized how to install it. To remove the 4gb stick, I pulled the little clips <-- outward --> with my middle fingers, and pulled the ram forward with my pointer finger.

To install the 8gb chip, just insert it down into the slot, then push backwards towards the motherboard. It will just click into place. Took me about 15 minutes to figure out.

When you go to reinstall the ribbon cables for the keyboard and trackpad, there are little black plastic clips that clip down onto the cable and hold it into place. The bigger cable is fairly easy to get back in. The smaller cable was harder for me. I recommend holding the keyboard up like a book (left side on the table, right side in the air) instead of like a calendar (back side on the table, front side in the air). You'll see what I mean when you get there.

Other than that, just pay a lot of attention to the video. He does a good job explaining the actually dis-assembly process.

https://youtu.be/ByyYIzs6Cs8

And seriously guys, if you've never done this before (like me) and breaking this laptop is going to make you cry, don't even try it. It's a great laptop for the money. You don't always have to have more, more, more.

I had to get off mobile so I can put out something more long winded. My specific build is one of cost vs performance and having a clear upgrade path in mind. Let's start with what I originally bought.

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>Base Computer Lenovo TS140 w/ i3-4130 & 4GB DDR3

This computer served me well for a cheap personal computer always with the intention of making it a server. It was relatively cheap at the time ($230 off Amazon), supported ECC RAM, and had 5 onboard SATA ports along with enough PCIE connectors. I did need to get a customer connector to hook up a generic PSU to the motherboard, but that was cheap and widely available.

​

This is what the machine currently is

>Intel Xeon E3-1245 v3 ($165 - ebay used)
>
>32GB ECC DDR3 RAM (ebay as well)
>
>5 x 4GB Seagate NAS (ironwolf) drives in Raid Z1 (media storage)
>
>5 x 4GB WD Red drives in Raid Z1 (media overflow / archive)
>
>2 x 4GB Seagate NAS drives in Mirror (network storage)
>
>Zalman ATX Mid Tower Case - Black MS800
>
>3 x 3x5.25 to 4x3.5 similar to but not this model https://www.amazon.com/Rosewill-RSV-3-5-Inch-Cage-RASA-11001/dp/B005FHHOXE/ref=sr_1_24
>
>IBM ServeRAID M1015 crossflashed to LSI9211-8i IT mode
>
>[ https://www.servethehome.com/ibm-serveraid-m1015-part-4/ ]

​

With all that out of the way, there are a few caveats with my rig, so I don't recommend recreating it exactly.

​

>#1 There is an issue with the TS140 motherboard and a FreeNAS 11.2 bootloader bug causing it to freeze on boot. I'd recommend a supermicro server PCB if you can swing it. You'll often get more onboard SATA so you may be able to ditch the LSI card I have for more SATA io.
>
>#2 The upgrade path for the TS140 only has support for 32GB of RAM. FreeNAS recommends running 1GB of RAM for every 1TB of storage for optimal use. Also, don't run FreeNAS without ECC RAM, you'll be asking for trouble.
>
>#3 You may want to use larger hard drives, but I keep with 4TB because of the price per GB you get from these drives. Watch when these go on sale at Microcenter or Amazon and you can get them for around $100 a piece.
>
>#4 Crossflashing the cheaper IBM card to the more expensive LSI card is a great hack, but it was the biggest pain in the ass. Some motherboards just don't fully support flashing over PCIE. Some need to boot into BIOS, others needed UEFI and in the end I almost gave up. It took many different trials on a couple different mobos to get the Goldilocks config.
>
>#5 I don't remember the power supply used, but you need a decent one for all those mechanical drives to spin up on boot. I used https://outervision.com/power-supply-calculator to make sure I had enough juice.

I used to do what you're suggesting, but those little external drives are just so handy to have, it's not worth it to me anymore to keep larger format ones around. They might be a little slower when moving a bunch of large files onto them, but not having external power is soooo nice. I have several of those WD Passport Ultras, but in 1TB size.

You could also consider something like this CDN$ 26.99 USB3.0 drive dock, so you can swap in and out other drives at will. I prefer those for some things, rather than lots of enclosures. I actually have a 2-drive dock where I keep a 1TB 'slow drive', and a 240gb SSD. I dump video recordings onto the SSD, then process them onto the 1TB. Works great.

I haven't done it myself, but you could try getting something like this: https://smile.amazon.com/Rosewill-RSV-3-5-Inch-Cage-RASA-11001/dp/B005FHHOXE/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1486086571&sr=8-2&keywords=3.5%22+hard+drive+cage

You could mount it with strong double sided tape to the very bottom of the case where that single extra 3.5" mounting spot is. There's a couple other options on amazon for less drive slots, but this was the cheapest and seems like it'd be easy to mod into place.

Okay, I just noticed a little something. The "chirp" I heard a couple times was actually the drive power down sound. I heard it on my WD that I just bought after doing the safe removal in Windows and fully unplugging it.

On my desktop I did a full format of it, then ran Chkdsk from the Drive Properties/Tools dialog, didn't find any problems there. I'm copying all the files (plus some new ones) back on to the drive to give it an even better stress test. Overall, it seems like the drive is still in good shape and it was a wonky/underpowered USB port.

Perhaps I could try and harvest the HDD from it (it's one of the USB drives that has a regular SATA drive in it, not a specially designed one), connect it to another USB adapter board, perhaps one like this one, and run some further tests on it.

Looks like your board has a bunch of open SATA connectors.

You could get something like a Samsung 860 Evo 2.5" Sata like this https://www.amazon.de/Samsung-MZ-76E500B-EU-interne-schwarz/dp/B078WQT6S6/ref=sr_1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1542959738&sr=1-1&keywords=ssd


and these sata cables
https://www.amazon.de/KabelDirekt-7-Pin-SATA-Datenkabel-Gbit/dp/B01LFB3R0W/ref=sr_1_4?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1542959706&sr=1-4&keywords=sata+cable

Only thing you would need to check is if your power supply has a free SATA port (probably does, looks like this) http://www.playtool.com/pages/psuconnectors/sataindex.jpg

You'd be best finding a 2.5" mounting spot in your case. If you can't find one, put the SSD in this and put it where you would put a regular 3.5" hard drive https://www.amazon.de/Corsair-Einbaurahmen-geeignet-schwarz-CSSD-BRKT1/dp/B0090UG55A/ref=sr_1_8?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1542959874&sr=1-8&keywords=ssd+3.5

> that's a good idea too

Thanks. I already considered this for a Ghost S1.

I'd probably go with this one if you don't need 15mm mounts. Only goes up to 9.5mm. Main reason being it's not center mounted. So you can easily trim off a lot of the extra off and get it to mount pretty tight to the corner to save even more space. It also has a decent amount of solid surface to use high bond tape or to drill a mounting hole into. (I don't have a Dan case, so I'm not sure how easy that would be.) VHB tape can hold car parts while going freeway speeds, so it'll easily hold a couple of puny drives if you decide to go that route.

With some creative trimming, this one might be able to do 15mm though.

I think it depends what hardware you currently have and what kind of storage (hot or cold) you want.

If you have a laptop, 4TB external drive is about $100, probably the easiest. Keep it simple, plug and play when you want it.

If you have a desktop and can throw another hard drive into it, then WD 4TB Red for about $120. I think the 4TB is the sweet spot in terms of $/GB.

If you're doing more of a cold storage, ie backup every once in awhile, otherwise the drive is disconnected/in a drawer somewhere, I'd personally go for a hard drive dock. Something like this or this. And then again pick up a 4TB WD Red for $120.

Those last two solutions are over $100, but if you're transitioning to a desktop or looking to do a more substantial NAS setup in the near future, it's a fairly cheap solution that allows you hoarding capabilities now that can be expanded to a solid 4-bay NAS box without issue, later. With the external (unless shuckable) you'll have to start over again, drive-wise, to fill that 4-bay NAS box.

Yeah, I moved MHW onto my 275GB SSD and it's made a HUGE difference.

I have one of those USB docking stations where you can plug in bare internal HDs or SSDs. I can also just swap any drive I want really easily. It's really nice since I have a bunch of cheap drives lying around and pulled them from my computers.

Just FYI, I have this Cable Matters USB docking station. Pretty cheap (around $20).

I was happy to see that it worked with my PS4 Pro.

This sub isn't for notebooks, there's nothing to build. I'm not familiar with this laptop model, if RAM is replaceable it must be pretty staightforward, if there's two slots then just add another SO-DIMM DDR4 4GB stick, if there's only one then get 8GB stick. If you want to add SSD there's two options, if this laptop has M.2 slot (i pretty sure it is) then get some M.2 SATA SSD (as i'm not sure if it'll support NVMe), if there's no M.2 and you don't need optical drive you can get optical to 2.5" caddy and install 2.5" SATA SSD in there.

But most importantly, this isn't going to help much with gaming, you can't replace the CPU and this laptop uses integrated CPU's graphics. Sell that laptop, save a bit more and you can get a good entry-level gaming PC for 600-700$ from scratch.

> Probably not but at least 500GB for music, softwares and games. Is it possible to use that 1TB HDD I would replace as an external drive? And could I get the USB 3.0 transfer speed with that?

Using something like this, yeah.

> Yes that's what I was thinking of. Does it still make a lot of difference to have that small SSD or is it worth having an SSHD 7200 rpm?

It'll make a difference for commonly used files, so booting up will probably be faster, and whatever else you use a lot. But it only has about 8GB to work with, so if you're storing lots of stuff it will only work as fast as the HDD is.

> Like this[1] ? (with a USB drive here)

Yup.

Ah I gotcha. Ok...so looks like your boot loader problem is worse than I imagine. It is as you say. Now it is time to focus on recovering your files. After the recovery, you can just nuke the whole drive and start fresh.

Alright, lets try option 1 which is also the "free" option because it doesn't cost any money to do this. Do you have a spare computer to use?

Because you will need a spare computer to make a bootable portable OS. The main goal is to basically load up that portable OS as your main OS and then access the drive and pull out any and all files that you wish to save.

I recommend using Sergei Strelec's Windows PE. Download that rar file on another computer. It should have an ISO file of Windows PE and some tools to mount it on a bootable USB drive. There are instructions in the package to help you out there. Here is a quick youtube video on how to make a bootable Sergei Strelec USB drive. Once you have the bootable USB drive mounted with Sergei Strelec's Windows PE. You will boot into it. The Windows PE will look like your typical Windows OS. Access your hard drive and begin pulling out all files you want to save and back them up to somewhere else.


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Option 2: This option will cost some money because you will need to buy a physical hard drive dock like this one. You will remove your hard drive from your laptop and hook it up to the dock. The dock will turn your hard drive into an external USB hard drive and you simply plug it into another computer and begin pulling all of your files out.

Yeah so an adapter like this one would allow me to use it at optimal speeds right? Would this allow me to use it as a boot as well or is that dependent on my MB? Thanks for the reply, I appreciate it!

Yeah your best bet would be a 3.5" hard drive enclosure with external power supply. Something like this. That's just the easiest one I could find, but they're available from places like Best Buy too, and countless other places online and off, as they're a common, inexpensive part.

Love the trash can but adding external stuff to it is a pain the ass. It's so nice and sleek, but in the real world when you connect ethernet, headphones, monitors and USB it begins to look like a porcupine.

I sorta solved the problem by using bare 3.5-inch drives with a Mediasonic ProBox 8 Bay. Works fine with USB 3.0. I keep it all in an open cabinet behind the desk, but my desk is not against a wall.

In my original setup with it, I put the Trashcan and the ProBox behind the monitor with a desktop speaker on either side. I have an LG monitor with a built-in USB hub, so that helped with wiring. Everything was pretty neat, but I ended up with a fairly shallow desk area. It was OK 'cause I like to be close to the monitor anyway.

That's a different version than the one I have. I actually upgraded mine with the firecuda sshd as well and that's working great for me although I bought a 2.5mm spacer because I'm OCD and the old drive was 9.5mm height. My MSI wasn't equipped with an area for an additional ssd but you could try something like this if you have an optical drive you won't use: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004XIU4T2/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_UXUTAb5HW5R6F.

Please know that I didn't look at the specs for your specific laptop and don't know if this one will fit. I would imagine there is something similar available if you really need a second SSD. If you go this route you'll wanna make sure your laptop has a SATA connector to plug into and that the expansion bay will physically fit into your laptop.

Edit: I think the drive expansion I linked is for a standard size ssd also. If you buy the smaller laptop specific ssd you'll need something else

4GB is a little thin. What speed RAM are you using on your old rig DDR3?. I might be able to send some your way (if you're in the US). Just PM me.

My backups are spread out. I use externals for my friend and parents offsite for the critical stuff. For everything else I have a separate rig in the garage setup with an 8 bay Media Sonic (it's an older version of this one). It's connected by ESATA and the whole system is powered on once a month. It is currently running on Ubuntu with ZFS raidz2. I also have a GSUITE account that things get backed up to.

My main server is running Windows 10 Pro using Drivepool and Snapraid (for parity) with 3 x 4bay MediaSonic Boxes. It also monitors health using Stablebit Scanner. I have it send a WOL command once a month to the backup server and backup the data once a month.

I am more comfortable in Windows so what I use. Linux is great, all but one of the storage servers at work use Ubuntu and ZFS so thats what I decided use on the backup server. I would probably have gone with Windows on backup server, but Linux and ZFS is free and I wanted to spend money on the HW not the software (even though it's only a few bucks). Plus it was a fun tinkering around with it.

Yes and no, yes, the data will be there, if the migration has problems, you may or may not be left with a HDD that does or doesn't boot directly into Win10, and you may or may not end up just needing to install Win10 directly to the SSD on C: and then access the data on the HDD now on D:, along with all the cruft of the previous Win10 installation.

Just seems messy to me with the what if factors.

On the other hand, you can get a handy dandy usb 3.0 HDD enclosure, pop the HDD in that, and install win10 to the SSD with the HDD safely offline with a nice working win10 with your data just in case, and have an offboard hdd for 2ndary access/storage for the future. Something like this. http://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-2-5-Inch-Enclosure-SATA-II-EC-TB4P/dp/B005EIGUD4 and then just move over what you want and not all the rest, along with a nice clean setup, and then wipe the HDD and move on.
Either way, backups are you buddy.

I have a 6TB hdd, so I know what you mean, but this thing doesn't seem that mobile to me, so I might just buy another "regular" 6TB hdd.

the one you have looks like an external hard drive in a large case with sata-to-usb cable and a power connector, so I might just buy this thing to turn my internal hdd into an external one when I'm traveling or smth, but thanks, it'll definitely be a good idea to keep the hdd you linked in-mind when deciding.

Would you recommend something like this?

Amazon Thingy

EDIT - or something fancy like this is pretty neat, or is it gimmiky?

thank you for the reply, I didn't know I could have both the ssd and hard drive working at the same time. good to know about the tape/velcro option works. Looks like the mounting bracket is only 6$ though.

I know the 500 gb option would be a huge help on the budget, but I don't know how to setup the folders perfectly to manage space and the last thing I want is to run out of space. can you confirm that buying this would work in my computer?

ssd: https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Inch-Internal-MZ-76E1T0B-AM/dp/B078DPCY3T

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cable: https://www.amazon.com/Monoprice-18-Inch-Cable-Locking-90-Degree/dp/B009GUXU52?ref_=fsclp_pl_dp_1

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mounting bracket: https://www.amazon.com/Corsair-Mounting-Bracket-drive-CSSD-BRKT1/dp/B0090UG55A

There's a possibility the external enclosure is broken but the drive is fine (I've seen this quite a few times). Take it out of the enclosure and try to access the drive directly. If you have a desktop just plug it in as an additional hard drive.

If you only have a desktop you'll need a SATA (assuming this drive isn't ancient - left is IDE right is SATA http://static.diffen.com/uploadz/1/17/SATA-IDE.jpg) adapter to USB. If it's a smaller (2.5" drive) you can probably get away with something like this https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-SATA-Drive-Adapter-Cable/dp/B00HJZJI84/ If it's a larger 3.5" drive you'll want something with a separate power source, like this https://www.amazon.com/Generic-Adapter-Converter-Optical-External/dp/B01J7MWD4M/ I personally would err on the side of getting the external power adapter myself, to rule out "not enough power" as a reason the drive doesn't work.

edit: I would actually spring for something like this https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-External-Docking-Station-DS-UBLK/dp/B00IKAQ538/ Only $23 but has a lot of good reviews, I've heard good things about it specifically in the past as well. The last thing you want to do is cheap out on the adapter and think your drive is dead when your adapter is really just crap.

If the drive itself works but the computer doesn't recognize the partitions, try using linux to DD the files over and then mount the partition manually. DM me if you get here and I can either give you some pointers (if you're comfortable with linux CLI) or we may be able to work something out.

If the drive doesn't spin up when you apply power you are dealing with a situation in which you can either accept defeat or pay a LOT of money to have the files recovered professionally.

I'd get one of those USB hard drive docks and use them as cold storage backup. Treat it like tape/blu-ray backups.

To me this is the most ideal backup solution for at-home use (you just need to get all of those drives for free/dirt cheap). It's rewritable, doesn't have to be sequentially written, and brings good physically space-to-storage density.

Hi. I work for a computer repair shop and specialize in hardware repair.

HP has quite the reputation of making terrible computers now, hence the nickname "half-plastic". Every HP that has come into my shop typically has some sort of chronic issue associate with it. Either a power port or a broken hinge or broken fan or something else.

Anyway, let me address the issues as you presented:

1) Laptop won't charge

So this is a fairly common problem. Typically either the power adapter is broken or the port port inside the laptop is broken. Fortunately this is a relatively cheap fix (less then $20) if you are handy with a screwdriver. Assuming the power adapter is fine, the replacement of the power port is probably required. They are made cheap, especially by HP.

For your model of laptop, this appears to be the required replacement part:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Original-DC-power-jack-cable-for-HP-Pavilion-M7-1015DX-M7-1078CA-P-N-678222-SD1-/261493503079

And here is a manual describing the disassembly of your laptop:

http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c03221579

2) Transferring Files

Yes, absolutely. You can remove the hard drive from your laptop and plug it up to another computer to recover the files. The manual I linked will show you how to remove it. Additionally, here are some links for external enclosures. These will allow you to use that hard drive as an external hard drive. Not only will you have the files you need, but you can also use it for future backups. They are pretty cheap as well.

http://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-2-5-Inch-External-Aluminum-Enclosure/dp/B00E362W9O/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1426036960&sr=1-1&keywords=hard+drive+enclosure

http://www.amazon.com/HDE-External-Drive-Metallic-Enclosure/dp/B008X8RV7Q/ref=sr_1_18?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1426036960&sr=1-18&keywords=hard+drive+enclosure


What would I do?

Personally, I would fix the computer. I have an HP myself that I bought several years ago and few of the parts are original anymore despite treating it well. Never again will I buy HP. I learned that lesson. Worse case scenario, it doesn't work. But if you try to fix it yourself, you may learn something about computers/computer repair which may save you money in the future. I actually had the same two issues with my HP, but instead of paying $400 + $150 to have the power port and the fan fixed, I replaced them myself by following the manual. I got a replacement power port for around $20 and a fan for $10. As long as you can follow the directions and are careful, you should be fine. You can PM me with questions if you have any.

Editing due to formatting, I can never get a hang of it here... and spelling

As Chibone says, what model? But anyway if you go to the iFixit section for MacBooks and select your model, you will find clear instructions on how to take the hard drive out of your laptop. It's very straightforward.

After it's out, you don't want to actually put it into another MacBook, just connect it to one, using a simple dock like this one for instance. If you have any friends who like messing with computers at all, they would most probably have one already.

[Edit] Here is the link to SuperDuper btw, which is free.

First of all, I would say it might behoove you to buy a bare HD dock. After all, it won't hurt to have when you start doing regular Time Machine backups, right?

Something like this:

http://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-External-Docking-Station-DS-UBLK/dp/B00IKAQ538

Second of all, if you're trying to do just copy files over as a backup, either designate it a Time Machine volume or just copy your entire user folder. As long as you're doing it from a user with the same name/id, it should allow it.

EDIT: If you're trying to copy these files from one HD to another on a Windows machine, you're not going to have a good time, btw. I don't think it's really worth even attempting.

Also, if you want a full clone of your old HD to a new, bigger HD you can just launch Disk Utility and do a Restore from the old drive to the new. That will clone the operating system and all your installed apps and settings as well as your data files.

Does your laptop have a DVD drive? If so, you can get a converter for DVD RW-> SATA HDD. Like this: http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B004Y8SGXW/

The 9.5mm works in most laptops. I've been using converters like this in quite a few laptops since the C2D days without issues. I put the HDD on the converter and put the SSD inside the main SATA drive bay. Use the HDD for file storage and use the SSD for main programs and OS.

edit:

Installation is pretty easy depending on the laptop. On some laptops the DVD RW screw is in a place where you have to remove the entire back cover to get to it. On others, it's accessible from the outside. Also note you'll need to remove the faceplate from the drive and attach it to the new converter. Be careful when removing the faceplate as they are held on by some clips which can easily break with excessive force.

I agree with /u/IRBMe - the culprit is most likely the hard drive. like he said, the CPU/GPU don't throttle performance unless they are overheating and RAM either works or fails with blue screens, but an aging HDD will definitely sow things down. changing the paste won't make any difference.

Another thing to check on is your mobo and graphics drivers.. outdated or incorrect drivers can cause some major slowdowns too.

Go SSD! it will be faster than ever before, cooler, and less noisy. 128 or 250 gb is enough for windows and a host of progs, and if you need more disk space but don't wanna splurge on a 500gb or 1tb SSD, look into getting an "optical drive bay SSD/HDD caddy" - it replaces the DVD drive (which is rarely use for most folks) with a HDD or SSD of your choice.

for instance in my laptop i replaced the HDD with a 128gb SSD (big performance boost for the old girl), and then installed the old 500gb HDD in the drive caddy as a secondary for more storage. (after a good format, of course) If the rare occasion arises that i need to read or burn a dvd, i just pop out the caddy and slide the dvd drive back in temporarily.

I had a drive failure once back in like 2004, and was back up and running with all data intact in two hours, one of them having been the Windows XP reinstall. DVD burners FTW!

Nowadays I have two options. I have one of these, and they are awesome, BTW - just shove a regular internal SATA hard drive into it and poof, instant high-speed external drive. I have a 750GB drive I use as an external backup. I also have a BD-ROM burner that can stick 25 gigs on a dual-layer, single-sided 120cm disc. 50 gigs if it's double-sided.

If it's at all important to you, back that shit up.

Mental note - I'm about due to update my backup set. Might be a good thing to do this weekend.

I've never seen a 3.5" SSD, they come basically in three formats: 2.5", M.2, and PCI-E. You would need to get a standard SATA 2.5" SSD and an adapter like this to mount an SSD to a 3.5" bay.

Samsung makes really good SSDs, their EVO lineup is the "go to" to most people. About the software, you can always use something like Clonezilla, but the solution that comes with the SSD would be good enough too, as Clonezilla isn't exactly the most user-friendly program out there.

Also, don't forget to check if you already have,. or if the SSD comes with a SATA data cable, otherwise you would need to get one (like this, they come in different sizes, connectors, colours, etc., but they work the same).

Oh, nothing special. I mispurchased an M.2 instead of an mSATA (yeah yeah they're technically the same, but one has those holes on the side and the other in the middle):

SSD: https://www.amazon.de/gp/aw/d/B00LBDJZBA/ref=yo_ii_img?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Enclosure:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B00T8F298Y/ref=yo_ii_img?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I highly recommend the enclosure. The SSD is also great, but a long one also fits the enclosure and are usually cheaper for the same performance.

This is a ide drive, not a sata one. You need a motherboard with a ide connector(rare) or a sata to ide adapter(often has issues) or a pcie to ide card(kinda pricy and uses a slot). Or get a usb adapters

You also need a laptop ide to a desktop adapter as they were different connectors.

If you need the data best hope is a data recovery service, but there not cheap.

if you want to try on your own, this is your cheapest best option.https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-5-25-INCH-Converter-Activity-USB-DSC9/dp/B00DQJME7Y

Any sata drive should do.

How much data was on your hdd? An SSD would probably be best to replace it with if you dont have too much data.

Something like this(this was the top result on a search, not necessarily the best option)
http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-2-5-Inch-Internal-MZ-75E250B-AM/dp/B00OAJ412U

You will also want a cage to mount the 2.5" ssd into a 2.5" bay.
Something like this
http://www.amazon.com/Corsair-Mounting-Bracket-drive-CSSD-BRKT1/dp/B0090UG55A/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1459462342&sr=1-1&keywords=ssd+cage****

You will want to Reinstall windows (got recovery discs?), then programs. And then copy your files back from your backup. Also dont forget to configure your backup again as SSDs are not immune to failure either.

If this is a new new build then it wouldn't hurt to reinstall the operating system. If that doesn't resolve the issue then it could be a hardware issue. Try the following:

• You have two sticks of RAM so take one out and boot the computer. If that doesn't give any answer remove the other stick and reinsert the one you previously pulled out and boot
  
  
• If you have a HDD (Hard Disk Drive) then trying testing it using free hard drive tools like SeaTools from Seagate or Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostic. It might be best to connect the hard drive to another computer using a docking station since your computer is always freezing.
  
  To help us out try listing the things you have already tried.

I did end up going with the N550JK, and I'm happy with my choice. I did exactly that and added a 256 GB SSD and an additional 8 GB of RAM. It absolutely slays with those upgrades and runs quite fast.

I also ended up using a caddy to replace the optical DVD drive with the 1 TB HD that came with the laptop. This is the caddy I used, if you're interested in doing the same. It fits perfectly and you are able to attach the bezel from the DVD drive to it so that it doesn't leave a hole in the side of your computer.

Your motherboard does not have an M.2 slot on it.

You can buy a PCI-E x4 M.2 adapter that fits the 500GB Samsung EVO 970 plus (like this one https://www.amazon.com/EZDIY-FAB-Express-Adapter-Support-22110/dp/B01GCXCR7W/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=pci-e+m.2+adapter&qid=1562715160&s=gateway&sr=8-4), but it requires a PCI-E x4 slot.

Your motherboard has four PCI-E x1 slots (won't fit) and two PCI-E x16 slots (it will fit in this slot but only if you have one free -- i.e. you don't have two video cards).

If you're looking for a cheaper alternative, consider getting a regular old boring SATA III SSD. True, they aren't as fast as NVMe SSDs, but this is $30 cheaper (https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-500GB-Internal-MZ-76E500B-AM/dp/B0781Z7Y3S/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=500GB+samsung+evo+SSD&qid=1562715888&s=gateway&sr=8-3) and for gaming you actually won't notice much of a difference compared to the NVMe drive you spec'ed. NVMe gives you bigger performance boosts when reading/writing large blocks of sequential data, so for example video editing. Source: https://www.online-tech-tips.com/computer-tips/sata-3-vs-m-2-vs-nvme-overview-and-comparison/

Even if Windows won't load, you should still be able to retreive data using an external drive dock/caddy. This assumes, however, that the issue isn't harddrive failure and you've got a second PC to transfer the data to.

I agree that, at this point, a factory reset/reinstall of the OS seems like your best option. You just might not need to lose any data in the process.

I keep active projects on 2.5" laptop solid state drives I put in cheap SSD enclosures (like these ). I work off these and keep them around as 'warm' storage.

For cold storage I have large (4TB) spinning hard drive externals, which works but isn't so safe. I should really move to some Raid system.

In general this works for me and is pretty cost conscious :)

Negative, what you do is then install Windows 10 from a USB to THAT SSD then reinstall what you want from Steam or what have you. Pull the old Hard Drive out so that you don't fuck up and accidently reinstall windows and possibly lose everything. If you do that of course.

​

If you had a HDD Cloning solution, a Kangaroo Hard Drive Cloner or something Similar, you could easily bring things over. (No guarantee things would function properly, but you could do it.) The drives must be the same size or larger.

There are plenty of solutions for the hardrive cloning, not too expensive to be honest. Though maybe a bit much if you are only doing it this once? Up to you.

​

​

I personally would just install windows onto the SSD, plug the Old HDD into an External Hard Drive enclosure, that you then use to pull off your important stuff and then place on the SSD. BE ADVISED, you don't want to completely fill up the SSD, it greatly reduces the lifespan of the equipment.


Use the HDD as a storage solution for larger games or things you can wait the extra couple of seconds to load. Windows lets you designate different drives/locations in your computer for applications, documents, the desktop, videos, pictures, everything. You just need to go about setting them up as much.

an enclosure might help out more, I have little experience but covering the entire drive will always be more beneficial. This might help you with what you are looking for, for cheap.

edit: This is a usb 3.0 enclosure

It sounds like your issue isn't with the Z170 motherboard, but the lack of M.2 sockets (there are Z270 motherbaords with only 1 M.2 socket, as well as Z170 motherboards with 2 or more M.2 sockets).

What is your use-case for a 2nd M.2 drive? Do you actually need the sequential throughput?

You can install a M.2 drive in a location that isn't a motherboard M.2 socket (There are a number of products that accomplish this, the following are just some examples I found in 2-3 minutes of searching). Like in a PCIe slot:

https://www.amazon.com/EZDIY-FAB-Express-Adapter-Support-22110/dp/B01GCXCR7W/

Or to your motherboard's SATA express ports (could be a performance hit here depending on the SSD, as SATA Express is just 2 PCIe lanes):

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIAA6W5XX4889

Alternatively, you could buy a SATA SSD, which would have zero performance hit on your regular SATA ports.

Depending on the size, and whether it's worth it, you could get something like this and turn that drive into a portable external drive.

Depends entirely on the size though and whether you figure the cost is worth it for you - to me >250GB would be a pretty decent deal for ~$20, so I'd do it.

Edit: I don't know the brand linked there, so I'm not necessarily endorsing that particular product, just showing that that sort of thing exists. Be sure to shop around if you decide to do this.

Your ssd uses a sata power cable which you are holding in this picture for power, and a sata cable for transferring data. You can see two of your sata cables in this picture, one orange and one blue. Both of them are in use, so you will need to get another sata cable and it will plug into either of the open ports to the right of the orange and blue cable. As for mounting the ssd, the easiest thing to do would be get something like this. You will screw the ssd into this adapter, and now it will fit like a normal sized hard drive in the top right slot of you case.

I have an enclosure on the way actually. It was originally so I could connect to the computer and see if there was a way to read it, but then I realized I could simply connect it directly to my PC through SATA. I'll use if for the 80 gig drive that originally came with the system. It is a great solution for anyone who upgrades their system, especially at this price.

Steve Gibson's Spinrite can check the integrity of the drive as well as refresh the surface data by reading it and re-writing the data back to the drive. If it finds an error, it does a pretty good job of repairing the drive if possible. He's on the verge of releasing a new version soon.

I have an old dual core box I use specifically for doing virus scans, booting it from a variety of CD/DVD AV rescue disks and another dual core box configured for cloning drives, I use these, mine are branded Orico but they are the same:

http://www.amazon.com/Plugable-SuperSpeed-Lay-Flat-Docking-ASM1053E/dp/B00APP6694

for easy drive insertion and removal on both of those machines.

Drat; it's a bare drive and all I have is a dock (Plugable's, which does not seem to allow for SMART data).

Thanks; I figured it was a part of SMART reporting, and that DU should show it.

You will need an adapter to get data off the old drive.

I have a few really good adapters that can all connect an IDE drive to USB, but I think for your needs you just need a basic kit like this:

https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-5-25-INCH-Converter-Activity-USB-DSC9/dp/B00DQJME7Y

This type of kit will have all the basic tools you will need.

I know you said you didn't want to spend money, but this is probably the only way to connect the drive to your computer.

Maybe call around or ask a friend if they already have the adapter.

I was under the impression the laptop still ran when it was plugged in but not charging, is that correct? For your HDD, you need to pul it out and see what type it is. Chances are its a SATA port which is still the standard today. Look for an external enclosure to put your old HDD in and you can access the whole thing to get what you want off it. What budget do you have for a new laptop? I'd shy away from Newegg when purchasing because their CS seems to change like the weather. I'd use their website to shop because they have a good filter and sort set up then when you find one you like look for it on Amazon. That way if it arrives broken you know it won't be a hassle.

Sorry about that pokershibe place you used to use.

5k is worth almost nothing.

You aren't new, and you aren't begging. I gotchu dawg.

+/u/dogetipbot 5000 doge verify.

Woof Woof.

You can take out the laptop hard drive, and mount it in an external hard drive enclosure like this: https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-2-5-Inch-External-Aluminum-Enclosure/dp/B00E362W9O/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1469826884&sr=8-5&keywords=hard+drive+enclosure+2.5

You can also get usb 3.0 for faster transfer rates, but it might be more expensive.

The value of the doge is much less than the enclosure, but if you have any other data on your drive you want, this is probably the easiest way to get it.

A lot of programs that will allow you to change it but if you just want the files get one of these and plug in hdd. Will allow you to browse folders like a usb flash drive

https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-External-Docking-Station-DS-UBLK/dp/B00IKAQ538


A program that works well for password unlock is pcunlocker if unable to make changes via cmd line

http://www.pcunlocker.com

Your best bet may be to buy a drive and an enclosure instead. 2tb is pretty small nowdays and so is usually a 2.5" as far as I know. By buying an enclosure you can use it for other external drives later too. Note, that 3.5" drives almost always require external power so be sure to budget the space for the power supply.


An example Amazon Basics enclosure:
https://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-3-5-inches-SATA-Drive-Enclosure/dp/B01MZC303G/

By machine do you mean another physical box? Because you'll need somewhere to put those disks. A popular solution is Dell PowerVault, connected to your R720 with an HBA with external ports. If you had a spare case and power supply, you could also get some breakout cables from the external SAS ports to SATA. If you only need a few SATA disks a simple enclosure like this Rosewill metal cage would work. Just sit it outside the cage somewhere and power the drives.

I've done this with a spare power supply and a "power supply testing switch" like this one here.

EDIT: Here's a link to the SFF-8088 to SATA cable which will connect an external HBA like the Dell H200e directly to SATA drives.

i would recommend the smallest, cheapest ssd you can find. install that, and then save your old hdd. I use this product from amazon to access my old HDD via USB.

Then I would recommend doing this. Follow the directions on the page. it helped me before I got my new laptop which doesn't need it.

Hey,

> I also have an unused 3.5" 2TB HD I can install as long as the laptop has the space/option for it - having this is a key element

You won't find any laptop with space for this - that's a desktop HDD and newer laptops are very compact. If you still want to use this for storage I'd recommend using it as external storage - combined with this: Enclosure.

My big question here: do you need a display with good color coverage or any LED IPS display would do.

This could be an option: Acer Aspire E5-576G - has a decent display with 80% color coverage, quad-core processor, SSD and room for an HDD, 2 memory slots, ~5H battery life, a decent peripheral port selection: 1 X USB 2.0, 1 X USB-C 3.1, 2 X USB 3.0, 1 X LAN, SD card reader and a backlit keyboard.

Or, if you need more power, I'd recommend the Dell Gaming G3 15 3579 - H series processor, GTX 1050 and a crappy display (biggest drawback) - it's 650$ on their official site.

But, if you don't like my recommendations, maybe you can use our search engine to find something more suitable for your needs.

You can see and change the search parameters using the "Refine results" button in the upper-left part of the search results page. You can also click on the laptops for more information.

Hope I helped!

Pretty much this. There are lots of cheap HP 24 Port PCI-E 3Gb SAS Expanders on ebay and some are even sold with cables, but probably not the cables you'd need. You'd probably want Forward Breakout Cables. You also need a way to power them and there are PCIe power attachments, that are commonly used on mining rigs, might work. I think the USB portion is only for data, so you'd need to find cables for molex to sata (15pin?). You could use 3-4 HBA expanders into a cheap external port card like 9200-16E. You'll also need multiple power splitters to spread power to all these HDDs.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/New-HP-SAS-Expander-Card-24-Port-SAS-PCI-E-Expander-Board-468405-001/171532956108
https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-Internal-SFF-8087-Breakout/dp/B012BPLYJC/
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073RBP3V6
https://www.ebay.com/itm/372102178384
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0086OGN9E/

Are these 2.5 or 3.5 HDDs? Without a case the 3.5 HDDs will vibrate and probably can cause connection and data issues, so definitely have a backup and expect the HDDs to quit working here and there. This is also rather power consuming for how much storage space you get.

Even though the price of data cables, expanders, power cables start to creep up, I still think if you construct your own case then it would be cheaper than anything prebuilt. Buying anything to hold the drives would be costly, even buying 12 of these to hold 48 drives would cost $204 alone and you have no cables or anything. Some have built their own by fastening metal brackets together (standalone or within select cases), but this lacks rubber needed for vibration protection... This also doesnt account for how you'll cool the HDDs, but perhaps one big fan could get you by. Post some updates and pictures if you decide to commence on "Project Janky", gluck.
https://www.amazon.com/Rosewill-5-25-Inch-3-5-Inch-Hot-swap-SATAIII/dp/B005FHHOXE
https://imgur.com/3xsabQU
https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/aceglg/new_build_in_progress/

So basically, you can't pass through some of the drives in the controller, it's all or nothing with PCI passthrough

what i did for my esxi+freenas+r710 setup is:

1. Install ESXI onto a USB thumbdrive I plugged into the internal USB slot. (booted the installer from another usb drive)
   
2. Buy small (only needs to be large enough to fit FreeNAS VM Image ) SSD and put it in one of these
   
3. Set my SSD to be the primary ESXI datastore, and then install the FreeNAS VM onto that SSD datastore.
   
4. Pass through the entire drive controller to this FreeNAS VM
   
5. Create volume using all of the drives in the drive bay, and then use FreeNAS normally :)
   
6. I also mount a FreeNAS share back in ESXI so I can store larger VMs on FreeNAS (they just won't boot unless freenas is running)
   
   If you wanted to use those drives in your bay, you'd have to get a second controller, and only pass one of the controllers over to freenas

I have this one, which has worked perfectly with everything I've thrown at it. Definitely worth the $23 (and it's prime eligible).

Yes, buy a hard drive shell. Take your hard drive out, stick it in the shell, and transfer all of your pics to another computer. You just access the drive like an external hard drive, it doesn't need to boot in the shell.

Here's one for a laptop hard drive: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00E362W9O/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1468725456&sr=1-3&pi=SX200_QL40&keywords=hard+drive+enclosure&dpPl=1&dpID=41N736MjjRL&ref=plSrch

If you are talking desktop, just buy a desktop HDD enclosure. Hope this helps. If you need any more explanation on how this works feel free to ask.

At home, I run a 2006 oMP with a modified 2 x QC, 5870, 32GB ram, and 6 drives (4 in the sleds, 2 in the lower optical drive bay) while at work, I have a late 2013 nMP with a 3.7 QC E5, dual D300 (2GB), 12GB ram, and 1TB SSD.


The nMPs have a PCI type SSD. Further, there is only one slot. It is upgradeable, so you can potentially save $$ by ordering the lowest capacity initially and then upgrading via OWC.


To multiply storage, I would recommend a Thunderbolt external enclosure (like this one). Alternatively, if extra high speed via TB isn't a requirement, the nMPs have USB 3.0 and you can use an external 8-bay enclosure such as this or this.



The nMPs are gorgeous. However, I'm also madly in love with the Al tower design and I would probably go with your alternative should I ever need to.

This seems to be a popular one:

http://www.amazon.com/Inateck-Enclosure-Tool-free-Installation-Compatible/dp/B00DW374W4/ref=sr_1_3?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1406860620&sr=1-3 .

Plus its at a really good price, and has usb3.0. Also, even though the PS3 has no 3.0 support, if you ever choose to use it for something else, you are prepared for it. Let me know if it works out for you.

I'm assuming you have two desktops here. You can connect your crashing HDD to your working desktop by opening it up and connecting it to an open SATA power port from your PSU and using a spare SATA data cable to connect it to the motherboard.

You can also use one of these to connect it to your working desktop by way of USB port to back up your data.

Then you can make boot media for Win 7 using a CD or a flash drive. Google "how to make win 7 boot media". Once you have it, put your SSD in the computer, boot and install from the media you made and transfer the data you backed up onto the SSD once it's done.

https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-Docking-Station-Support/dp/B0099TX7O4

​

put it in this, plug it in via usb to another computer and read your old hard drive like a flash drive.......if then it cant be pulled off, you will need a forensics expert, and you will be looking at $200 per hour to get your stuff :) and, it might be worth it.

​

this (and many others like it) turns your hard drive in to a flash drive, and yes, sometimes it wont read corrupt files, in fact, sometimes, files are so corrupted as to never be read again.....hopefully not.

​

good luck OP there are tons of different versions of this device, and trying is a heck of a lot cheaper than paying someone to try.

​

Would this be worth pairing with a hard drive enclosure to work as an XB1 hard drive?

Looks like with the $5 discount and the the enclosure, it would total $70 before tax. So it would be 7,200 RPMs speed using this bulkier setup vs. $86 for a 5,400 Game Drive that has the same storage capacity. I have no idea if it would need some type of formatting or would be plug and play though. But a cheaper price and better performance along with a free PC game is hard to pass up.

to be fair, the amazon essentials one fits Perfectly without the stand - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00F5CKWBA/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I threw in a 2 TB western digital HDD into my ps4 and put the 1TB that came with ps4 into a Inateck 2.5 Inch USB 3.0 Hard Drive Enclosure https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DW374W4/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1 even at 3 TB I ran out of space lol setting it up is pretty easy I believe all I did was plug it in.

Buy a usb cradle for the m.2. Make sure you get the correct type. If you don't know what type you have then Google is your friend. Put the new drive in the cradle and plug it into a usb 3 port. Boot to your favorite cloning application and clone the old drive to the new one. Install the new drive and Bob's your uncle you're done.

https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-M-2-SATA-SSD-Enclosure/dp/B00T8F298Y

Its possible, and could work. Your better off just doing a clean install on the SSD, and transferring the data. You'll end up with better results.

You can transfer from the desktop to the laptop over the network. Turn the drive into a USB drive using a hard drive enclosure. Or if you dont use the dvd drive, you can always us an Optical Drive bay to turn it into extra storage and transfer from there.

Well personally I prefer Thinkpads cause of their reliability and durability but pretty much any laptop that has an optical drive can house a second hard drive. Just remove the optical drive and replace it with a hdd/sdd. For example using something like, https://www.amazon.com/Protronix-Optical-Drive-Universal-12-7mm/dp/B004XIU4T2

Regarding your concerns, most enclosures are designed to be on 24/7, so that shouldn't be an issue. Most enclosures have built in fans, and as long as ambient temperature isn't too crazy that should be plenty.

As far as different drive speeds, it can be an issue, but as far as I'm aware it only really matters when you get into high drive counts. Most companies that provide enterprise grade storage won't honor a warranty if you had mixed drive speeds. All that said, I've done it in both desktop and rackmount enclosures without issue.

The only enclosures I have had a good experience with are from MediaSonic, so they're the only ones I'd be comfortable recommending. They only have 4 and 8 bay ones, though, so it might not fit the bill. Here's the link in any case.

I've used Macrium Reflect 7 Free Edition and a Sabrent USB 3.0 drive dock a few times and everything worked out great.

It'll work fine. There are slightly more elegant solutions like this:

https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-2-5-Inch-Aluminum-Enclosure-EC-M2SA/dp/B01N6PMZLW

Or one that also allows connecting over USB (at extra cost):

https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-2-5-Inch-Aluminum-Enclosure-EC-M2CU/dp/B07924J5NT

I keep my GBC, MGB, AGS, and AGB units in these.

The AGB units are a little snug, and the AGS units obviously have some wiggle room, however there is a strap inside that will hold it steady. GBC and MGB units fit perfectly in them. Combined with these it makes what I believe to be the ultimate storage/transportation method for those units. Put it in the bag and then put it in the case.

If you want I can take pictures for you later when I get home.

First up, you'll want something like this:

https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-M-2-SATA-External-Enclosure/dp/B00T8F298Y?tag=linus21-20


That will allow you to actually clone the drive as IIRC the X270 only has one slot for a PCIe NVMe drive.

Second, if you want the actual Lenovo drive - this should be what you want:

https://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-ThinkPad-PCIe-NVMe-256G-OPAL/dp/B018I4X8IU/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1504960540&sr=1-1&keywords=opal2.0+pcie-nvme


Now that's ridiculously pricey unless for some edge case you actually need the "Lenovo" drive. Most of the x70 Line we've been getting in (T470 and T570) have been shipping with SanDisk SSD's. Big difference is the OPAL 2.0 - which is simply some on-drive encryption and other security measures.


Otherwise if you want to save a few hundred bucks, get this:

https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-960-EVO-Internal-MZ-V6E250BW/dp/B01LYFKX41/ref=sr_1_4?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1504960675&sr=1-4&keywords=256gb+pcie+nvme


In the event your computer fails it would boot just fine off the above.

>One of these.

>One of these.

>And a regular 2.5" SATA SSD. I'm assuming you don't actually use an optical drive.

Taken from here. Credit to u/Dstanding.

If you already have the DVD drive installed you won't need to buy the cable. I just bought 2 of these, and they work perfectly in my R510 and R710.

I'm throwing in another option: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00F5CKWBA/

Half the price, and has a review which says "Perfect fit for my retroflag GPI case. Holds the USB cable as well extra batteries."

Ordering now, will update once received.

having a mechanical hard drive not secured can cause issues due to its vibration. You can get at 3.5->2.5 tray/converter thing.

I don't know about mounting it vertically, but better to spend <$10 and be safe.

So I'm ready to add a SSD to my system and I have all the parts ready to order and I was looking for any opinions before I buy the parts.

Amazon:
>SanDisk Ultra II 240GB

>Corsair Dual SSD Mounting Bracket

>Monoprice 18-Inch SATA III 6.0 Gbps Cable

>Total=$90.72 (Shipping 5-8 days)

or

Newegg:

>SanDisk Ultra II 240GB

>ICY DOCK EZ-Fit Lite MB290SP-B

>Coboc Model SC-SATA3-18-LL-BK-90

>Total=$89.29 (Shipping 4-7 days)

Edit: I decided to go with the Amazon option with the BX100 over the Ultra ii.

When I buy my laptop I am planning on swapping out the 5400rpm HDD for an SSD. I want to put it in an enclosure so i can store my less important files on it without filling up my SSD. I have a few questions about this.

• Since I won't have anything other than the OS on the HDD when I get it, would it be best to clone the HDD? OR Is there a better/easier way to do it?
  
• For the enclosure, This one has 2 USB cables one for power and one for data while this one ONLY has one for data. Will the one with out the separate power source give worse performance?
  
  
  Thanks for any and all advice!

Oh, a fun topic! \^^

What I did was I got one of these:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00T8F298Y

Then I used dd on another computer the clone the old drive to the new one.

You just need enough space to temporarily hold the copy of your old drive.

Then I used gparted off a bootable Linux USB to resize/move the partitions.

You won't need gparted if you only have Windows on your drive. In that case, you'll just need Disk Management.

The whole process didn't take very long. I hope this method can work for you! \^^

I use one of these external HDD cases by Amazon Basics. It's not made to be smell proof, but it does a surprisingly good job, and was cheap.

Here's a picture

Link to the product

First off, is it under warranty? Are you okay with losing data? If yes to both, contact WD customer service and send it in. You will probably get a free replacement unless there is "visible damage".

Depending how many hoops you want to jump through, I have two ideas for you to try. You might want to see if there are other ideas first, though.

You could try connecting the drive to an Ubuntu PC. I have a failing drive that doesn't connect to Windows, but it connects to Ubuntu. Either create a bootable USB stick (there are instructions on the Ubuntu site) or install a virtual machine such as Virtual Box. Both Ubuntu and Virtual Box are free.

Another option is taking the drive out of the case. If it's a 2.5" drive, it might not have a SATA connection. I found out recently mine doesn't. So, this might not be helpful. If it is a 3.5" hard drive, you can connect it to a hard drive dock. This just a SATA to USB adapter, more or less. This will test if the electronic components in the case are bad. If it's just the case, then the drive itself is fine. I would make sure you have tried anything software-related first (ie check drivers) before attempting this. Taking the drive out of the case usually voids the warranty.

Here is a link to a hard drive dock:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00IKAQ538/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1415333650&sr=8-1&pi=SY200_QL40

Buy this:

https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-2-5-Inch-External-Aluminum-Enclosure/dp/B00E362W9O/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1484077336&sr=8-1&keywords=laptop+hard+drive+enclosure

and

https://www.amazon.com/Jakemy-Precision-Screwdriver-Electronics-Appliances/dp/B019ZSK57K/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1484077395&sr=8-9&keywords=screwdriver+set+small

Here is an altnerative to the case:

https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-SATA-Drive-Adapter-Cable/dp/B00HJZJI84/ref=sr_1_7?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1484077470&sr=1-7&keywords=laptop+hard+drive

In all likleyhood the hard drive has gone bad.

They do that you know.

You want a laptop 2.5 inch hard drive. SATA is really the only choice for interface these days.

Now would be a great time to move up to an SSD. I have a laptop at home that is a bunch of years old. I put an SSD in it last year and it really added a lot of zip to it.

When you put the OS on it you can go ahead and put W8.1 on it, but the Free W10 upgrade is still running if you know where to get it from:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/accessibility/windows10upgrade

What you would do is install 8.1 from the disks you have. Get the internet up, go to the desktop, don't bother with any updates (huge waste of time if you are just gonna follow through with W10) and go to that site I posted and follow there instructions.

Bonus points! Once you successfully do a W10 upgrade from W8 there is no more Windows key to worry about! Any future OS reinstall on this laptop Microsoft uses a unique identifier in the BIOS to do the validation.

Lol nah I'm good. I just wanna fit [these](Rosewill RSV 4 x 3.5-Inch HDD Cage RASA-11001 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005FHHOXE) into the case instead.

An enclosure like this one is a much better option because it offers a more permanent external storage solution rather than some one-time pieced-together fragile little hookup.

It's cheaper, too.

You can get something like this if you want to mount it where a 3.5 drive would go. This one is super cheap and lets you fit 2x SSD's in a 3.5 drive slot.

You would probably have zero issues mounting it with velcro, too.

Thanks!

will it then be similar to an external hd when plugged in or will i need to take steps similar to start up of this video?

edit: and will this one get the job done? (sorry never had to do anything like this)

the HD i have is a model # MHY2120BH

To accomplish this you would need an entire chassis, as the 3.5” model has a different internal configuration. If you’re creative, you could probably rig something up if you got a 3.5” backplane. If you don’t mind a bit of a mess, you could do what I did with my R410 and buy these extension cables and house the drives in these actively cooled drive enclosures. You’ll also want a sata to molex adapter to power the fan in the enclosure.

Monster machine. Easiest option is probably to get a DAS unit such as: https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-H82-SU3S2-ProBox-External-Enclosure/dp/B005GYDMYG/. But you are limited to USB3.0 speeds. If that isn't an issue, Stablebit Drivepool + SnapRAID over the drives or Windows Storage Spaces. If you need something faster than USB3.0, the HBA approach is probably your best bet. I'm a complete novice there, but I know the used enterprise ones support 4 drives with the standard cables. They can be expanded to 10+ ports with a secondary expansion card. Paired with a couple of those SANS Digital racks, you end up around $200 - so a little cheaper than the Mediasonic, faster performance,

Yeah the easiest way is to replace the dvd drive with something like this:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/product/B004XIU4T2

I got a laptop with a 1TB HDD in it, replaced that with a 256GB SSD, then swapped the ODD out for one of these adapters
and put the 1TB it came with in there.

Note those adapters come in different thicknesses, make sure you're getting the right size for your laptop.

Best of both worlds at the cheapest price.

AmazonBasics External Hard Drive Portable Carrying Case https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F5CKWBA/?&ref=flgs_ip_share

It is a little big but it works. I ordered a different one from Ali express. If it is great I will post it here.

Let me pop in and help.

/u/xlltt was linking you to Amazon.de, but the same product is sold in the US under another name. You can find it here: https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-H82-SU3S2-ProBox-External-Enclosure/dp/B005GYDMYG/

That said, there are cheaper USB 3.0 options out there. Unless you also need the ESATA port for some reason, this is a much more cost effective option. http://www.ebay.com/itm/TowerRAID-TR8U-8-Bay-SATA-to-USB-3-0-JBOD-Enclosure-Silver-/142272687212?hash=item21201cec6c:g:8AcAAOSwcUBYQG8c

Do you necessarily need it to be external? Yes, you should be be able to pop the internal drives into an external case any time. Or you can get a dock to mount them externally as well, like this one: https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-External-Docking-Station-DS-UBLK/dp/B00IKAQ538

I have an old laptop that won't boot cause It fell down,it's pretty old like 6 years so I'm not bothering to get it fixed,was wondering if I could buy this to recover files from my HDD

Hey PCMR folks! For my laptop, an Asus G55VW-DS71, I'm considering putting an SSD in the main slot and replacing my (non-working and non-used) optical drive with my current 1TB 5400 RPM HDD in a caddy like this since the mSATA slot is beyond my capabilities to access.

In your opinions is this a good/doable idea?
Also, is it worth the cost of a 1TB 7200 HDD to replace 5400 one? Would you notice much of a difference?

Also, are my parts choices crap?

Thanks!

Thanks! Do I need to where any like antistatic glove while working with it?

And would this work? http://www.amazon.com/Inateck-Enclosure-Tool-free-Installation-Compatible/dp/B00DW374W4/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1416858765&sr=8-2&keywords=2.5+hdd+enclosure

There are no moving parts. It will be completely fine. It's just flash memory. That being said, if you transport your computer a lot you do not want your SSD falling off the side of your tower and pulling loose cables or flopping around inside your case and causing damage. If you tape it down, make sure it is secure and won't pull lose.

That being said, your computer is expensive and so is an SSD. I'd invest ~$7 to get one of these so you have peace of mind that it won't fall out or cause damage. It's worth doing right once so you don't have to worry about it again.

If you're willing to spend just a little bit more, you could get something nice like this

Use this to recover data.
https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-SM2NGFFMBU33-M-2-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B00T8F298Y

As far as your motherboard. If you’re comfortable with it you can buy one off of eBay and replace it yourself for $400-500 as long as you know how to apply thermal paste it should be fairly easy.

Damn, too rich for my blood. Lol. I’ll prob just end up using this hard drive cage and jerry rig it to fit/work.

E: thanks for the info tho.

You can throw up to 8 drives in a USB enclosure like this one:

https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-H82-SU3S2-ProBox-External-Enclosure/dp/B005GYDMYG/

Or get a PC case with several hot-swap bays like this one:

https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16811163255

I would recommend phasing out any hard drives you have that are 1TB or less.

For cheap enclosures that do the job, I've got 3 of these... no problems and USB 3.0

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DW374W4?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00

I also only use Samsung EVO's. They go on sale pretty often, and are super reliable. 250GB is only $80 on Amazon
right now. 500GB is usually about $150 and totally worth it for a PC game/boot drive.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00OBRE5UE

I plan on a similar upgrade!

RAM €94
SSD €442
Caddy for mbp original hard drive. €9
Enclosure to make use of the disc drive. €11

Total: €556

Can you guys tell me if these are suitable upgrade parts for an early 2013 mbp? Thanks in advance.

Yes you can get something like this USB3 to Sata, and you should b fine.

I bought that but it does not cool very well at all if you do sandwich 3 disks in there. Poor air channel, poor air gap, subpar fan. My disks were running 45+c - Are yours doing better?

I found this to be better: https://www.amazon.com/Rosewill-RSV-3-5-Inch-Cage-RASA-11001/dp/B005FHHOXE - but the downside is that there are no threaded holes for mounting so you gotta get creative or use some serious elbow grease.

I have one case with 1 and another case with 3. The drives stay nice and cool.

Have you tried connecting the external drive to another computer? You can also buy an external USB drive caddy, but you need to buy one that would fit the hard drive inside your external drive. The type of caddy needed will depend on the type of drive, 2.5" (laptop drive) or 3.5" (full-size desktop drive, and either SATA or ATA.

Something like this if it is a 2.5" and SATA:

http://www.amazon.com/Inateck-Enclosure-Tool-free-Installation-Compatible/dp/B00DW374W4/

> So, what is the best adapter for me to buy that will enable me to utilize the full speed of my 2 SSDs, boot from them & enable RAID for them.

​

"Best adapter" is relative.

You just need a PCIex4 to M.2 hardware adapter that works electrically.

Option: https://www.amazon.com/EZDIY-FAB-Express-Adapter-Support-22110/dp/B01GCXCR7W

I have no idea of the quality of components used on that adapter - but I do know it works!

​

"Utilize full speed of my SSDs"" ?? Let the NVMe SSD do it's thing - don't bother with software RAID (introduce overhead).

I guess you could boot from a third drive and stripe the two EVO+ drives - but I'd still just let them be and not do soft RAID.

I would always recommend fresh install. As for transferring data from an old drive you can buy a Cradle or or 2.5" external USB drive enclosure. Cradle will cost you about 20-40 on Amazon, enclosures are about 10.

Cradle - https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0099TX7O4/ref=mp_s_a_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1473168141&sr=8-4&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=hard%2Bdrive%2Bcradle&dpPl=1&dpID=41El4Mm9svL&ref=plSrch&th=1&psc=1

Enclosure - https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00OJ3UJ2S/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1473168212&sr=8-3&pi=SY200_QL40&keywords=hard+drive+enclosure&dpPl=1&dpID=31D9U9rO8TL&ref=plSrch

Edit- added links

Solid State Drive, it is many times faster than your hdd, (Hard Disk Drive), and it WILL make your computer feel many times faster.

Edit: Your motherboard doesn't have a M.2 slot, so you will have to get a Sata SSD (Such as the WD Blue or the Samsung 860 Evo)

Edit 2: You could get a M.2 to PCIe adapter and a decent NVMe SSD (Such as the Intel 660p), this is by far the best option.

If you have a free pcie slot you can use an M.2 to PCIE adapter like this one: https://www.amazon.com/EZDIY-FAB-Express-Adapter-Support-22110/dp/B01GCXCR7W

Yeah that’s fine, you’ll want something like this m.2 to sata enclosure.

Highly unlikely that your internal hard drive itself was damaged.

Before giving up hope or getting rid of the laptop, take it out and connect it with a cheap SATA adapter to another computer. Try Google for more tips.

edit - here's a link to the one I have. it's rarely used, but valuable when needed. definitely money well spent:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DQJME7Y

there are even cheaper ones too, I got this one because it can connect to SATA (modern connector) and also IDE (older connection type that started getting phased out around the year 2000). most people don't have a need for the IDE option

I would also recommend using the internal USB port for ESXI install, that's what its there for.


If you really want to use a SATA drive for the ESXI install and you have a dvd drive I would get an adapter that allows you to use the power and data connections from that. Link


Also on you question of "incompatible card in storage PCIE", yes, you can move it to a normal pcie slot and it will work.

It's very easy to replace the HDD. I got this SSD for $130 and put it where the 1TB HDD is. You'll need a T5 Torx screwdriver.

If you don't need an optical drive, you can also get a caddy and put the original HDD in the optical drive bay for extra storage.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00APP6694

This is absolutely excellent, cheap, and works flawlessly. I have two of them.

I have a boatload of drives, I just plug and go.

So I could just get something like this and be good to go?

Sounds like your HDD most likely converted to a Raw formatting during the win 10 upgrades. I've experienced some of my offices PC HDD getting corrupted or converting to Raw due to the Win 10 Upgrade.

I can't say for sure if this is the case with the laptop but seems like it. If this is the case, you will need a data recovery software that can recover data. If the HDD is in Raw Format, you will need to find a recovery software that can recover from Raw HDD.

In order to check to see if the HDD is in Raw format or not, you will need a USB to SATA (or whatever type of HDD the laptop uses) adapter or similar device. Example: USB TO SATA Adapter .

You will need administrator to the following:

Once the laptop HDD is connected to another PC via Adapter/Docking Station Or I guess you can also use the Portal HDD with Windows Live to check:

1. Go to "Disk Management"
   
   
2. You will see a window pop-up and in the bottom, "Disk 0", "Disk 1", "Disk 2" etc etc depending on how many HDD's are hooked up to the PC.
   
   
3. Look for the laptop HDD, Either the Disk with No Blue bar to show that it is being used will be the laptop HDD or you can check by looking at the HDD total space to figure out which is the laptop Disk.
   
   If you see a Disk that says "Offline" underneath the Disk Label, right click the "Disk **" and then click on "Online". If you get lucky, this may fix the issue. If not, proceed with the following below.
   
   
4. Once you find the laptop HDD, right-click where it says "Disk **" and then click on "Properties"
   
   
5. A small window will pop-up
   
   
6. Click on the "Volumes tab"
   
   
7. For "Partition Style" check to see if it says MBR, GPT, or Raw.
   
   If it says Raw, it sucks and you will need to find a recovery software that works on RAW HDD's. If it says MBR or GPT, not sure, may need to do more research in that case.

Great job brother! Here's a fucking gold star!


But seriously... do yourself a favor

You can do this. as long as the OS on the new HDD is good to go. I highly recommend getting something, anything, to back up your current drive to. USB sticks are cheap and plentiful.

If your laptop has a CD/DVD drive you can get one of these and you won't have to swap the drives all the time. Using this you can choose which drive to boot to. I have a laptop set up using Windows on the main drive and Linux on the second drive, in the caddy.

I'm looking to buy this:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DQJME7Y/?tag=hotoge-20
http://www.howtogeek.com/182452/how-to-get-data-off-an-old-hard-drive-without-putting-it-in-a-pc/

I'm pretty sure that should do the trick, right?

you could try, but if the old drive ran on a different computer(different components), you could have driver compatibility issues.
Options：
1）connect the old HD as a second HD to the computer; you can start the pc normally and see the old HD as a separate drive. You can then just explore.
2) Use an external adapter/dock(Hard drive enclosure). Connect old HD via USB.
like this one on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-USB-DSC9-SATA-Drive-Converter/dp/B00DQJME7Y/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1481345505&sr=8-3&keywords=hd+3.5+enclosure
or this：http://www.ebay.com/itm/Hard-Drive-Docking-Station-USB-3-0-to-SATA-DS-UBLK-Sabrent-/161954677792?hash=item25b5404420:g:HhsAAOSwUV9WmvSX


Depending on how old your HD is, this may vary though.

Also - that looks like a laptop size drive, in which case you can even use this: http://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-2-5-Inch-Aluminum-Enclosure-EC-TB4P/dp/B005EIGUD4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1411434963&sr=8-1&keywords=amazon+USB+3+sata+enclosure+2.5

This is smaller and more portable. The disk will work with either, but since you have a 2.5" drive you're probably better off not using a 3.5" enclosure which is large.

This should help with M.2 to PCIe. For a M.2 to SATA 2.5" enclosure, this is good. This SanDisk is 2.5", though.

Pretty sure this is exactly what he needs.

Given the amount of space the SG13 has without a GPU, you could probably fit one of these in there and make this into a pretty sweet NAS box.

They're about the same actually, using this dock and a 1tb WD blue drive is about the same as this external one. Also the dock + HDD is a desktop drive so it runs at 7200 RPM, while the enclosed drive appears to be only 5400 RPM.

you completely removing the old drive or plan to use it in this rig? if you're going to use it, configure it to be the home of your apps and your user libraries.


---

i wouldn't let my SSD hang like that. at the least, I would have it resting on the case, versus dangling.

Or you can screw it to one side of the HDD cradle.

Or get something like this (cheaper ones can be found - this was the top of the google/amazon search) - http://www.amazon.com/2-5-inch-Drive-3-5-inch-Plastic-Adapter/dp/B0061GEORW

I have a TS-563 as well. I think I'd just populate all 4 bays of the TR-004 with 8TB drives.

You'd still have 2 USB ports on the TS free for a USB drive dock (like this) for your swapping needs.

There's 2 ways. Your laptop and desktop HDD's have different connections. You can buy a HDD adapter for internal or a simple USB case for $10. Easy cheap and can connect to any Windows computer for portable storage. Something like http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00E362W9O/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_1?pf_rd_p=1944687762&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B001AAVA08&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1QW846DWMJHFKBH8ZJVH

Agree with this. Plus if you have it hooked up to another computer it will be much easier to recover data as you can just copy it to the computer you are using.

It is a big waste of time to try to repair the computer in question just so you can recover data. The link sglville provided would work but I would go with something more like this https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-USB-DSC9-SATA-Drive-Converter/dp/B00DQJME7Y/ as it's USB 3.0.

Hm I'm not too sure about the sizing (plus it looks like the cd drive is one of those slit drives, so not sure how removable it is?), but maybe something like these or this?

Ah ok, I thought you meant a tray for inside the computer.

For an external enclosure there are lots of options. I used to use some cheap Rosewill enclosures which I didn't have any problems with, but now I use this dock so I can swap drives more easily.

It really comes down to features and aesthetics, pick whatever works for you.

Does anyone have a solution to mounting a 2.5" drive in a 3.5" hot swap bay.

~~I have seen 3.5->2.5 mounts like
this
and this~~


however they usually hold the drive in the center of the space, not to the right where the back plane is.

Edit, Answered my own question http://www.amazon.com/General-Drive-HDD-Adapter-CADDY/dp/B00F3QFKNS/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1395936089&sr=1-1&keywords=3.5+hot+swap+2.5+adapter