Laptop Required with quick release HDD Caddy

[tech_guy]

I need to purchase a laptop that has some sort of quick release HDD caddy so that hard-drives can be swapped over very quickly. Does anyone know of such a feature on laptops. The budget is £500 apparently.

[srochford]

How quickly and does it need to be a caddy? Quite a few HP Elitebooks have just 1 or 2 screws; the old Dell Latitudes used to be the same so it was pretty quick to remove/replace a drive but I think the new ones put everything under the keyboard.

[Hightower]

I'm not sure about quick release, but the closest I've seen is the Tosh's (L200's or A200's I think) that have a second HDD bay.

[tech_guy]

Thanks guys, by quick I'm talking flick a release lever, pull caddy with HDD out, slot other HDD in - so about ten seconds or less.

[Hightower]

Thanks guys, by quick I'm talking flick a release lever, pull caddy with HDD out, slot other HDD in - so about ten seconds or less.

 

So you gonna need additional caddies then too. Is this the main HDD we are talking about, or a second 'slave' HDD?

[woodham]

I have to ask. Why?

[plexer]

Yeah seems a very strange request to be honest and one which I cannot find any reason for.

 

Why not just a usb dock for 2.5 sata drives?

 

Ben

[Hightower]

Yeah seems a very strange request to be honest and one which I cannot find any reason for.

 

Why not just a usb dock for 2.5 sata drives?

 

Ben

 

Perhaps the user wants one seperated OS for himself, and one for his partner. So when his partner wants the laptop he sticks her drive in, boots up and presto. When he wants the laptop he can stick his drive in and have all his pr0n ready and waiting for him, without his partner suspecting a thing

[tech_guy]

What suspicious minds people have! The removal hdd is required so that it can be removed and stored overnight in a fire proof safe.

[woodham]

so just undo the screws and swap them over only takes 2 mins

[tech_guy]

Hah, so you expect a non-techie to do that every night?! These are people who can't even operate a toaster properly!

[tech_guy]

BTW this isn't at my place of work - it's for a charity I do IT support for.

[HallX]

Will a laptop not fit in the safe?

[paul]

Safe may be fire proof, but is it heat proof?????

[mac_shinobi]

BTW this isn't at my place of work - it's for a charity I do IT support for.

 

Take the plastic bit off and as long as the hard drive is pushed firmly against the connector , will just be a case of sliding the hard drive in or out of the hard drive bay ?

[yugo]

Use a external hard drive to store the important stuff and just put that in safe?

[pete]

If this the system drive, or a data drive?

 

If it's the latter, a thinkpad with an additional drive bay (instead of an optical drive)? IIRC it can be ejected the same way the removable CD drives can (tell OS you're doing it, then slide the switch and pull the tab that ejects. Second-hand T61s are about £250 from ict-direct, sled is about £40, 500GB drive is £50.

 

I am getting "you're doing it wrong" vibes, however. Check on how many plug/unplug cycles it's rated for if you do use a caddy in a laptop.

 

What about a built-in sdhc reader and a couple of 16GB cards for backup?

 

Or even a paid Dropbox account?

[Arthur]

What about an ioSafe SoloPro? There's probably no need to put this in the safe because it is already fire-proof (843°C for 30 minutes) and water-proof (3 metres for 72 hours). The SSD version still works even after being driven over by a 15 ton digger.

 

http://images.trustedreviews.com/images/article/inline/14233-fire.jpg

[plexer]

hmm 840 degree c for half an hour isn't much realy.

 

Oh and wohoo!!! 7,000'th post.

 

Ben

[john]

Could you not think out of the box and put the HDD in an external caddy and run it from that instead and they just put that in the safe? If you used an esata connector that should move quite quickly I'd expect.

[michael2k6]

Hi,

 

I'm posting from a Lenovo T500 and can confirm the optical drive is quick release. You can replace these with HDD caddys which work on the same basis. If the machine is always off when they eject it this is irrelevant but you dont have to release it using safe remove in windows, the quick release lever is active, so when you flick it, it 'ejects' it from windows. Then you just pull it out when the bubble says it's safe to do so.

 

Turns out on looking it up these are quite expensive though. Oops. So maybe that's not the answer at all. My old t60 and t61, and i think the t43's had the same though so it depends on whether it has to be new too. What about as John says, an external drive? Is it just for data? If so, just buy an external drive and write a backup procedure?

[Arthur]

hmm 840 degree c for half an hour isn't much really.

I agree that a higher temperate rating would be better, but if Tech_Guy's fire-proof safe is only suitable for documents, wouldn't a standard HDD actually be worse off in the safe (compared to the ioSafe)?

 

by quick I'm talking flick a release lever, pull caddy with HDD out, slot other HDD in - so about ten seconds or less.

 

Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Pro - USB 2.0/3.0, FireWire 800, eSATAp (a.k.a Powered eSATA)

 

http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/5139/seagategoflexprosm.jpg

 

Freecom Mobile Drive CLS - USB 2.0

 

http://img821.imageshack.us/img821/1621/freecommobiledriveclssm.jpg

 

Dell PowerVault RD1000 + RDX Cartridges (shown below) - USB 2.0 or SATA

 

http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/2199/ex080658.jpg