Will this caddy work for XPS 15?

The only recommendation I've seen is $40 but I've also read any 12.7mm caddy will do. How about these cheap Chinese knockoffs? Has anyone ordered one? Can you recommend anything under $20? My only other option is to velcro the 7200rpm drive but that means giving up two USB ports

UPDATE: I ordered the caddy above and it fits just fine in the 15. The hard drive and faceplate aren't as secure as I'd like them to be. The HDD is only held in place by the SATA connectors and a piece of plastic you have to wedge between it and the caddy :/ The seller does indeed ship from NY though. Shipping time was typical of first class mail

 

Honestly, should be ok as long as it's a slimline sata connection. I took a look at it and it doesn't look any different than this one for $28.

If you feel lucky, go for the cheaper one.

 

I won't be surprised to learn that the $40 one is in fact the same as the "chinese knockoff" - they are all built at the same place, by the same people and to the same specs, but the $40 is the premuim you pay to some smart middleman to ensure 100% compatibility. Anyways, I have bought the $10 "chinese knockoff" and it worked like a charm. Others recently reported here that a seller (in NY as this seller, not sure if they're the same) posted a picture but sent something else that needed some work to make it fit. Still, if you can verify with the seller that the item you will get is exactly what is pictured, you should be fine. Any extra pieces can easily be cut to make it fit. The only part that can cause some issues is the face plate not being removable, to allow changing it with your own laptop's face plate, but if you read in the item's description, it says that the face plate is removable, so you should be fine:

Specifications:
Brand New (aftermarket parts)
Caddy Thickness: 12.7mm
Faceplate is removable
HDD Interface: SATA (2.5" sata and ssd drives)
Laptop/ Mother Board Interface: SATA

COMPATIBLE MODEL:

· This is compatible with laptops that has a 12.7mm-thick/high optical bay with a SATA interface.

 

NEW! IBM 12.7mm SATA 2nd HDD Caddy Bay R400 R500 DV16 - eBay (item 300537962559 end time Aug-15-11 01:17:54 PDT)

That's the one I got. 12.7mm caddy made for thinkpads. It has a little plastic tab on one side that's attached with a screw that has to be removed to fit in the l502x, but it does fit, I was able to swap the faceplate, and it appears to work correctly. I haven't spent a ton of time with it in, but so far it seems to be OK.

 

Check out this post and the rest of the thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/del...-xps-15-l502-2nd-hdd-caddy-3.html#post7691159

Apparantly, this seller has recently changed this caddy and the one they are currently selling in that listing does NOT fit and more importantly, its face plate is NOT removable. There is a small plastic tab on one side that is needed to be cut to allow it to fit, and you can't put the XPS face plate on this caddy, so this is not a good option for XPS 15.

However, from this same seller, any other 12.7mm SATA caddy which clearly mentions in the description that the faceplate is removable should work. For example:

New SATA 2nd HDD caddy 12.7mm Universal CD/DVD-ROM DV25 | eBay

 

Thanks for the input, I just ordered the one I originally linked to and will be back with impressions when it arrives...

 

2nd Hard Drive Caddy Adapter for Dell XPS L502X L501X | eBay

I bought this and it works perfectly. You can remove the faceplate and put the original one from the XPS 15 on it.

See if you can grab it.