Precision m4800 - Additional Hard Drives

I have a m4800 on order with one SSD in place. Wondering if there are additional slots for another hard drive or two? Mpci/sata etc. The drive bay will be used for a DVD, so that option is out for another drive in that slot.

 

There is just one standard 2.5" drive bay and an mSATA slot. You can add another 2.5" drive by sacrificing the optical drive.

Note that mSATA and WWAN use the same physical slot so you will not be able to install an mSATA drive if you need to use the WWAN card. Also just to note, not sure about the M4800, but in previous systems you had to go into the BIOS and specify whether the slot should act as mSATA or mPCIe (for WWAN), so be sure to check that if you plan to install an mSATA drive.

(The larger M6800 has two 2.5" drive bays instead of one, and separate slots for the mSATA and WWAN cards.)

 

Thanks for the reply, can't wait to get it in.

 

If you don't need to actually 'use' the DVD drive all the time, you can get the 2nd hard adapter for the Media Bay (about $45) and add any 2.5" hard drive you want. Then when you need your DVD drive, you can eject the 2nd hard drive adapter and it's drive from the Bay and pop in the optical drive in less than 30 seconds. They are "hot swappable" so you can switch them in and out on the fly while the system is in operation.

 

Can you provide a link to Dell's official m4800 optical drive bay caddy? The only one I could find was the following on ebay:

SATA 2nd Hard Drive HDD SSD Caddy for Dell Precision M4800 M6800 9 5mm Caddy | eBay

Also, after digging into the m4800 manual, I noticed that the mSata speed is Sata II, and the optical drive bay speed also looks like it is Sata II. The only Sata III connection is on the main HDD.

 

These guys make a nice one. Faceplate is attached, and very sturdy. I have one here, waiting for my 6800.

2nd HDD /SSD Caddy, DELL M4800, M6800 [OBHD9-SATA-SATA-B] - $42.00 : NewmodeUS, Hard Drive Caddys for Notebooks

 

Fantastic, thanks very much.

 

Are they really hot swappable on the 4800? There is a "quick swap drive bay" on the right side, but the optical drive is on the left and doesn't have the little ejector switch as far as I can tell.

 

From what I know, they no longer are. On my 4400, you had a latch. On this caddy, no latch. Only screws

 

edit: accidental double post. Nothing to see here.