Besides the 4 external slots, can I mount an SSD only for the OS &amp; apps? I need the external bays available for data. Also can I run 4 - 3TB drives?
1872239
Mine didnt come with a cdrom drive. So i guess you can put it there. Just find a adapter or housing for it. Ther drive bays are for 3.5 drives. Most ssd comes with 3.5 adapters. But if you need the space use the cdrom slot. And get an external dvd reader.
327896
Nope, add what you want. Don't know about inserting already used (data on board) drives. I've always placed 'new' / clean drives in. There isn't a requirement to fill all slots. I have (3) 1TB drives in my 5N.
1239780
They all have three slots, but not all have all three drives. Mine only came with the one 128GB SSD
1266647
My experience is all the 15" laptops I come across support a second bay in the disk drive location, but you have to find a special 3rd party insert for it. I'm tempted to put BACK in the default HD because I upgrade to a SSD, but even a 240g drive is pretty tiny.
1731435
OS is installed on SSD drive, I removed the 750 drive and replaced with 256G SSD. I did not raid the drives since I want to run games from the 256 SSD and keep OS and other programs on the 128SSD.
2160644
I'm pretty sure that you can replace the 128GB SSD with a larger MSATA SSD. I have not done it myself, but I opened up the laptop and saw the MSATA that's in there. I didn't see any place to put an additional internal drive.
389582
Cathy, there are three drive bays just below the control panel at the top front. And yes, there is plenty of room for a SSD, either solo or along with one or two standard HDs.
1872240
Prelim answers are, yes for the ssd (that is how I run them), but, since one internal slot is loaded with the ssd, there are only three left for additional drives. So, I think you will be able to run 3 3-TB additional storage drives, plus the USB slots. The preferred HP solution will be to put a Small Sata SSD onto the motherboard for use of the OS. See Amazon: Lite On Plextor M5M 0.85-Inch 256GB mSATA Solid State Drive (M5M 256GB) The result is an ultra-fast OS and no loss of Mass-Storage.
506899
I started with one 2TB and have been running it for several months. Adding a second of another brand and size. It's flexible to do that. You can even put in 2.5's with a converter tray, or some people mix in SSD's as well. Pretty limitless. AND most use cases are hot swappable, meaning you can pull and add drives while running.
680823
You can mount six hard drives, whether ssd or 3.5" inside in the two cages. You can also mount two ssd or 3.5" drives in the two external racks, you can finally mount the last hd which can be a 2.5" or ssd behind the motherboard tray for a total of 9 hard drives. Everything is included.
170237
The only issue you will encounter is if you want to use both the 750gb and the ssd, you will have to find a bracket/caddy for it, and not in stock atm, not that expensive though like $20, but hard to get them in stock.
1836445
If I remember from when I did mine, there are some screws that attach the SSD to the mounting tray. With HDDs it's a simple snap-in into the mounting tray. I have an SSD in mine, and I remember it being fairly simple.
1407331
Yes, it will be fine. The 3.5 can fit into the existing bay that I installed 2 SSD's in. The Solid State drive can then fit sideways on the left side of the DVD bay screwed against that slot in one of those cheap 3.5 to 2.5 conversion racks. I almost did that myself because I wanted an internal card reader. I changed my mind. One bit of advice. I installed a 120mm fan on the inside of the right hand vents. It runs a heck of a lot cooler with that cross ventilation. I am typing on the unit now & it's running really good. I installed 8 GBs of ram and a video card though. Good luck to you.
382576
The default HDD cage only has 3 slots to hold drives, so you would have to purchase a separate cage (which there is room for, unless you have a longer GPU). There are also 2 SSD bays on the back, each holding a single drive
799949
I haven't messed with the hdd yet, so I don't know about installing a ssd. The 2 blank memory slots are very easy to access and you can quickly plug in more RAM.
473624
It has no storage of its own. It is an enclosure into which you can put a hard drive. I put a 3tb drive into mine, but am planning to take it out, since the enclosure is too slow. I think I'm only getting USB 1.0 speeds out of it, not USB 2.0. So a 3tb drive would be better used elsewhere. I'm going to put an older smaller drive in & use it for different purposes (ie, not main storage, but special-case backups).
1946646
No, this is not a SSD drive. I would not recommend using a SSD drive as an external device. The price point per gigabyte ( X gigabyte/$ = pricepoint) does not make financial sense. Also , you will suffer a performance hit with most of the common available ports on a laptop or pc (USB2/USB3 {avg 90MBs} and eSATA {avg 75MBs}) ,which would neglect the advantage of these super fast devices (SSD avg 500MBs). Because of the port speeds an old fashion hard drive is the best choice.