How to set up a caddy correctly? + will 8gb make much difference from 4gb when have ssd?

Hi,

I have a Sony SVE1512J1EW laptop, which has a 680GB (only 90GB used) HDD + 4GB DDR3 RAM + i5 3210M (Win8 64-bit)

1)
I just got a DVD drive caddy which i intend to use for my hdd and put my samsung 830 128gb ssd in the hard drive bay to run just the OS

I was advised its best to do this just in case i ever need to temporarily use the dvd drive+
So i have this caddy from ebay: Universal SATA to SATA 2nd HDD Hard Drive 12.7mm Caddy CD/DVD-ROM Optical Bay | eBay

But before i try and guess/work out how to install it, could someone please give advice/tips on the order & how i should do this?

As i am going to install the OS onto the SSD do i need to wipe the ssd & hdd completely? i have a 500gb external hdd i could save all my files/music too while i do this

As my Sony laptop doesnt have a restore dvd it just has a 'Assist' button you can boot into to reset to factory settings, can i safely put an empty hdd into the caddy/dvd drive space, and with an empty SSD in the hdd drive bay, just try booting fro the 'Assign' button and clicking restore?
- I dont have the win8 DVD to boot into and install, but assume i can restore everything from factory setup with the ASSIGN button, is this doable even when there are 2 empty hard drives in the laptop?


2)
this Sony laptop has 4GB ram and i am considering upgrading to 8gb but as it only has one ram slot, this means it will be more expensive to upgrade with the only option being 1x8gb stick, which costs £60

So based on the fact i will have a 128gb 830 ssd = 100gb free space and 600gb free hdd space, will increasing from 4gb to 8gb make a noticeable worthwhile improvement to boot/loading software/multitasking?
or will the improvement be minimal?

I am a light user= 1 googlechrome browser window open with 10-12 tabs open, the occasional you tube video, itunes always open sometimes playing, notepad always open, MS word/excel sometimes open, occasionally a movie file open/playing,
- thats as heavy as my usage goes, but the laptop is on 12-14 hours a day

thank you

 

1) Regarding the restore, I'm not sure how you do it on W8 without having any kind of media (digital or optical).

Regarding the replacement procedure, you can watch this. It may not be th eexact same procedure but it will be similar enough. Replacing the ODD is really not that difficult.

2) You can check this thread started by tiller. It compares 4GB to 16GB for some very heavy workloads. On the other hand, you are going up to 8 GB on lighter work loads. That being said, you should definitely see a difference. It may not make a huge difference. The question you have to ask is whether that difference in performance is worth the price to you. Why don't you install the SSD and use your laptop for a couple of days. If you are not happy with the performance, you can purchase the extra RAM coz that's really all you can do to improve your performance.

 

1) Just make sure you plug everything in correctly and it should work fine. As for setup, I'd recommend you back up your data, wipe the SSD and HDD, then do an OS restore with just the SSD plugged in to guarantee that your OS installs completely on the SSD. After that, go ahead and plug your HDD into the ODD slot and format/mount it from your OS.

2) 8GB can make a big difference up from 4GB. If you find yourself having extra RAM, you can always set up a RAMDisk and move your temporary files/browser cache there to speed up your computer. Check out DataRAM's RAMDisk tool.