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Adding a 3rd Hard Drive to the G73SW

Avensky
Level 8
I read a forum about changing your dvd optical drive for a hard drive, I was skeptical at first but I really needed the extra space. I use a KIngston 120GB solid state drive for my OS and a seagate momentus 750GB for storage. I have recently started recording video games with FRAPS but 20-30minutes of footage is abt 25 gigs and easily fills up my storage drive.

Anyway, I went ahead and ordered a new hard drive and cd/dvd hard drive caddy. I'm happy to say it worked perfectly, I posted pictures in my blog on how to do it if anyone is interested.

Avenskypro

I bought a cd/dvd hard drive caddy and a seagate 1T sshd for around $140 total.
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billyray520
Level 10
Good idea! You can also have a usb optical drive when needed. I'd look for one that is USB 3.0 capable. :cool:
Asus Maximus V Extreme BIOS 1903, see specs above avatar.

Asus G73 jh A1 laptop, BIOS 213, vBIOS OD2, 8 GB Ram, 240 GB Intel SSD, 180 GB Intel SSD. Win 7 Pro. Purchased new from PowerNotebooks.com in May 2010.
(both have 1920X1080 hd screens, mine above, hers below )
Asus G73 Sw XR1 laptop 8 GB Ram, 160 GB Intel SSD, 80 GB Intel SSD. Purchased used >Ebay 1/10/13, Did clean install of Windows 7

Definitely, I'm looking to invest in one soon since they aren't too expensive.

chrsplmr
Level 18
Avensky .. Welcome to ROG.

Why not post that here ?? Good stuff.

It strikes me that an alternative [and less expensive solution] would be a USB hardDrive. For some.c.

Thanks for the welcome, I'm not sure how to add the pictures but i'll give it a try.

Anyway It's actually cheaper to buy the dvd hard drive caddy. It cost me about $9 which is cheaper then the cheapest 3.0 USB Sata converter wich can go for about $30. I have extra hard drives for storing media but I needed one dedicated to storing FRAPS game footage only so it was more convenient then having to drag the USB cable with me everywhere.

I will probably still get the USB sata converter, but my immediate needs were to get more storage room without having to uninstall games and delete videos.

Note: the hard drive in the pictures was just for sake of the pictures. I'm Using the 1 T SSHD. Might get another 1T hard drive and clone my Storage drive to that one.


Step 1: Unscrew the backside cover
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Step 2: Remove the optical drive.
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Step 3: Use a screw diver to pop-out the front bezel but be careful not to force it
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Step 4: Pop in the bezel into the new 2nd hard drive caddy12.7mm Universal Optical Bay
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Step 5: Take out the plastic holder and insert the new hard drive
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Step 6: Place the plastic back inside and screw in the hard drive form the back side
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Step 7: Screw the back cover back in, and slide in the newly installed HDD Caddy
Step 8: Set up your new hard drive, wait for your computer to recognize it. Open or Download AOMEI Partition Assistant, Right click on your new hard drive and choose format, Set your new hard drive as NTFS

@Avensky, +rep for the excellent set of instructions. Thanks for sharing! 🙂 I'm highly impressed with the whole thing, since it is very wel done. Welcome to ROG! I'm curious about the performance of that 1 TB SSHD?
I am disturbed because I cannot break my system...found out there were others trying to cope! We have a support group on here, if your system will not break, please join!
http://rog.asus.com/forum/group.php?groupid=16
We now have 178 people whose systems will not break! Yippee! 🙂
LINUX Users, we have a group!
http://rog.asus.com/forum/group.php?groupid=23

It's hard to test the performance for hybrid drives since they get faster each time you load a certain file/program.

I ran a simple test to see what would happen and it actually showed normal/slow hard drive access times on the first test, but during the second test the hybrid drive actually memorized the test and speed up it's access time to that of my solid state drive.

First Test
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Second Test
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That is really interesting. I might have to try benchmarking my hybrid drive and see if it memorizes the tests as well. Is yours a 5400 RPM drive? If so, that would explain the slower access times, since the 1 TB drives are often slower than some of their smaller counterparts. I am aware of the timing issues with hybrid drives, since I have one myself. Those are some interesting results, especially that latency! 🙂
I am disturbed because I cannot break my system...found out there were others trying to cope! We have a support group on here, if your system will not break, please join!
http://rog.asus.com/forum/group.php?groupid=16
We now have 178 people whose systems will not break! Yippee! 🙂
LINUX Users, we have a group!
http://rog.asus.com/forum/group.php?groupid=23

Avensky
Level 8
It's 5400rpm, I was amused by the latency test too. It's exactly the same as my Kingston Hyperx 3k ssd on the second run.

Avensky wrote:
It's 5400rpm, I was amused by the latency test too. It's exactly the same as my Kingston Hyperx 3k ssd on the second run.


I guess that will just have to do. LOL.
I am disturbed because I cannot break my system...found out there were others trying to cope! We have a support group on here, if your system will not break, please join!
http://rog.asus.com/forum/group.php?groupid=16
We now have 178 people whose systems will not break! Yippee! 🙂
LINUX Users, we have a group!
http://rog.asus.com/forum/group.php?groupid=23