One option would be to buy a bigger drive, open the laptop up and swap.
Or ask him to look at his usb ports, if any of them are blue (usb3) then he could get an external usb3 ssd. I say ssd because a normal HDD will drive him up a wall.
If portability doesn't matter, another option would be to get something like https://www.amazon.com/CJESLNA-caddy-12-7mm-Universal-DVD-ROM/dp/B0056EW4A4 as well as another hdd, and just swap that with his cd drive.
I just finished doing that. get another Sata cable like on the optical drive. solder the power together. Get the adapter to fit to a standard SSD pinout and set up in front. I used this and just took out the back but it gives me a led activity light as well.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0056EW4A4/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I have 2 r210 II's with the same E3-1240v2, 32GB RAM, x2 525GB Crucial MX300's, a 128GB Crucial MX100, and an Intel X520-DA1 card. One I am using with Proxmox and LXC's for my home automation setup, and the other isn't used yet. I need to buy a third to setup a proper Proxmox cluster, but that's low priority right now (I also have a 2U Supermicro with dual E5-2670's and 192GB RAM as my current main hypervisor).
Unless you need/want the CD drive, I'd recommend getting one of these. With that, you can easily do 2 3.5" drives and 1 2.5" drive, or even 5 2.5" drives.
Mine came with rails, so not sure what the part number is. They're not full extending rapid rails like my other servers have, but they're rails nonetheless.
Yes you can find covers or pull the cover off the drive you are removing. I have done this before. It all depends on what type of DVDROM it is, what kind of cover part it has, etc.
You could even put another drive in the DVDROM slot, or get a HDD sled to put into the slot but just don't put a HDD into it to save on weight.
Something like this, just find the right one for your computer:
https://www.amazon.com/SATA-caddy-12-7mm-Universal-DVD-ROM/dp/B0056EW4A4
oh my glob, the power usage. I am selling a Dell R710 over in /r/hardwareswap if you want something a bit newer and a bit more power efficient. If you want the OS on something other than your storage drives, get an ODD to HDD adapter and replace the ODD with either a small and cheap SSD, or a small 2.5in HDD just for the OS.
I have 3 of these, though the first one I got was nice and solidly built, but the last one I just got(the third) has suffered in quality. They will still work, and they have never failed to work, so i guess they have that going for them.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0056EW4A4
Quality wise, they are lacking, but they work, and thats all that matters, since they won't be moving around very much. They do lack cooling, so keep an eye on the drives temps in there, but so far, mine have been perfectly okay. There is also a bright red/blue light that indicates activity and power on the front. I covered them both with a piece of electrical tape. They are really bright.
yea, the only drawback of the R210ii is the limited disk space. you can get an adapter to get 2.5in drives and have up to 5x2.5in drives(with ODD replaced with a laptop caddy), but 2TB drives only go up to 2TB, so you can get more storage out of 2x6TB HDDs. I replaced both my R310 and my R210ii(and eventually my R710s) ODD with a laptop ODD to HDD adapter. This way I can either use it as a boot/OS drive so I don't waste primary storage pool space on an OS, or if the OS boots from USB, i can put an SSD in there and use it as VM host space for fast IO. I bought and used these, but basically, as long as it is a 12.7mm caddy, and the price is right, it should work just fine.
> an SSD in the ODD slot (had to clip the power connector and solder in a SATA)
why not use an ODD to 2.5in adapter? I use this in my R310, and I did not have to cut or solder anything. its a laptop ODD, which is still sata.
if you have to get an SSD for the boot drive, just get a 32gig drive, or better yet, get a small 2.5in HDD and replace the ODD, that way you don't have to take up a sata slot that could go towards one of your storage HDDs, and if you need the ODD again later, use a USB to Sata adapter or a USB ODD. I replaced the ODD slot in my Dell R310 with this. Worth it to not lose a storage disk.
it really doesn't matter what processor you have if you don't have an SSD. That's the biggest boost. An i3 or A10-7300 will feel miles ahead of any i5 with a normal harddrive. Source: have an i7 laptop that ran slower than an i3 budget notebook with an SSD. As you could probably guess, i now have an SSD as well.
but you'll start having first world problems such as:
EDIT: if you want to keep the 1TB hardrive look into one of these adapters: http://www.amazon.com/SANOXY-caddy-12-7mm-Universal-DVD-ROM/dp/B0056EW4A4/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1442106812&sr=8-10&keywords=hdd+adapter+optical+drive
If your laptop only has space for 1 drive, but you also want to have a ton of storage buy an HDDCaddy! (Link is just the first HDDCaddy I found on amazon).
It's not like you use the CD/DVD/BDROM anyway!
Just made sure you move the HDD to the HDDCaddy and to stick the SSD in the laptop, as the HDDCaddy supposedly has more of a bottleneck than the built-in port.
You need real good soldering skills and source a replacement SATA power + data connector. Most simple solution: Sacrifice the optical drive and put one adapter like this one with your HDD: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0056EW4A4/
But you need to look for two things in your optical drive: can use SATA or IDE connector and can have a height of 9,5 or 12 milimeters. Then, look for the correct adapter for your notebook.
Also, verify carefully that the broken connector doesn't have connections shorting out. Keep them separate before testing.
Google "caddy for 2nd HDD" either for shopping or tutorials.
Good luck!
First off, you'll need a caddy. Something like this. Put the HDD on the caddy, and replace the optical drive with the caddy. You shouldn't need to do anything more, but I personally would just reinstall Windows on the SSD for a clean slate. Windows would recognize that there's two drives now.
Also, I personally would go for a 50GB/60GB partition for the Windows install (depending on the SSD size).
This adapter?
There isn't a cable. It's basically this thing. https://www.amazon.com/SATA-caddy-12-7mm-Universal-DVD-ROM/dp/B0056EW4A4
You absolutely can. I used something like this: https://www.amazon.com/SATA-caddy-12-7mm-Universal-DVD-ROM/dp/B0056EW4A4/ to replace the optical drive that came with my rack mount server with an ssd.
Does your Laptop have a secondary HDD bay? If not you are probably going to have to get a HDD caddy that replaces your DVD drive.
Nice. That one looks better on the front than the one I got on amazon
If you want more HDD space, or don't want to waste HDD space on your primary drives, replace all your ODDs with these, and get some boot SSDs or decent sized HDDs for your OS.