HDD caddy for MSI X460DX

Many have been wondering what caddy will work for x460dx.
I could not wait so I bought one for myself to test it.
Somebody in the forum said standard caddy will not work with x460dx
but after measuring the dimensions, I bought a 9.5mm caddy.
I got the caddy today and everything fits good and works fine.
Any standard 9.5mm caddy would work with x460dx.
The dimensions are 125mm*125mm*9.5mm.
Outside of caddy is little bit smaller than the odd but hdd caddy fits perfect
inside the odd bay.

After installing ssd in the main motherboard and 500gb hard drive on the caddy, I was able to test the result.
It might be just to me or for others but mine had a small problem.
x460dx was able to recognize 500gb on caddy on cmos setting, but somehow, it did not recognize on windows. It showed up in device manager but it did not show up. I was able to fix this by going to control panel- Administrative tools- Computer management - Disk management.
when you go there, Disk 1 should have a sign where it can't be recognized. All you have to do is right click it and click import something. Then, windows should recognize the hard drive.

 

Nice to know.

What about the face plate? I read on the other thread that you must use the caddy faceplate because you can't remove the one from the odd.

 

I may have been the one that said the caddy wouldn't work. I said that based on a conversation with Xotic PC and their caddy.

Where did you get the daddy you used? Just any slimline ODD caddy?

Thanks,

 

Thank you! Great to know. And yeah id be interested to see which you got as well as what you did about the faceplate if you had to do anything, thanks!

 

I do not know what you guys mean about the faceplate. You can easily remove the whole odd by simply unscrewing one screw from the back. Then, it is a simple task of replacing an odd with a hdd caddy you purchased.
The one I purchased is
eBay - New & used electronics, cars, apparel, collectibles, sporting goods & more at low prices

 

Great, thanks for the info. How does it look from the outside? Are you able to take the stock faceplate and put it on the caddy ?

This will allow me to keep my 60gb ssd as the primary drive. With an ultra portable that can actually play games I'm having a hard time getting space to install em.

 

The outside of the caddy and the installed image does not look bad at all in my opinion. There was a 1mm gap from top, left, right but it all looks good. I was not able to change the faceplate because I think outside looks good enough that changing faceplate won't be necessary.

 

Can you take pics if you can whenever you have time?

 

Great side thread for this notebook BTW.

If it's a fairly generic connection and size, I may try an old 9.5mm HDD bay (made for hot-swapping with an old Latitude ODD) to see if it fits my X460DX too. Hopefully I can change my Dell faceplate though, as its faceplate was beige (ugh). Or paint it without making it looking like crap. Thanks for all this great information.

Did switching the bay and adding the SSD add much weight to the X460DX overall, compared to the ODD, which is so light?

 

Since the weights of ssd and hdd was not that heavy, I could not feel the difference of the weights when I installed both. But before I installed the hdd, I could not hear any noise coming from the laptop since it was only ssd. Now after hdd is installed, I hear the hdd running and i hear some noise now which I have to deal with lol

 

maybe you could do some performance test and see if hdd in the caddy is as fast as connected directly to motherboard ?

and second can you divide caddy hdd into partitions ?

 

I will be going to college in 2 days so I will not be able to test anything, but just from the crystal program, it showed around 70mb/s of speed on read and write.

 

don't see any reason why it couldn't be partitioned. I'm getting my caddy Friday and will install this weekend with pics.

 

Yeah, partitioning should be no problem...As long as the drive is being recognized by Windows, which it is, you're fine. I look forward to the caddy pics MrRebeLs.

 

OK well I received the caddy today and went home for lunch so thought I would give it a shot. I was able to finish it with pictures and ate left over spaghetti before I had to go back!

If you're comfortable replacing the laptop's HD or RAM then this would be no problem. Don't blame me if something horrible happens, this is simply my experience.

Step 1. Remove the bottom cover (which involves removing or destroying the "Void" sticker, if you haven't already).

Step 2. The ODD is held in by one screw shown in the picture. Remove that screw and the drive will slide straight out.


Step 3. Put the hard drive into the caddy. This specific caddy didn't require any screws to hold the HDD in place but it sort of clips on. Strangely the caddy did include 4 screws but they served no obvious purpose. EDIT: Going to verify this but the screws might go into the HDD to help it clip in though it seemed to clip in very solidly without them.

The ODD is retained by a small bracket attached to the ODD and then all held by the one screw removed in Step 2. Remove the bracket and screw it into the caddy. The caddy has a hole in the exact spot but it's a machine screw so it doesn't want to just screw in easily. I flared the hole by using my screwdriver and twisting it a very small amount. See picture of mount on caddy:


Step 4. Slide the caddy in and screw it down with the removed screw. I had to use a little force towards the bottom of the laptop as I was sliding it in. It was catching on something if I just tried to slide it straight in.

Here are a few pics of the result:




Faceplate
I spent a little bit of time trying to remove the faceplate from the caddy but it was pretty stubborn. I will probably give it another go over the weekend. I'm ok with leaving it how it is but I would prefer to find a caddy that would easily accept the faceplate. Eyeballing everything it looks like the faceplate would cover all gaps and give it a clean unmodified look if it did mount to the caddy.

While fiddling with it I don't think the faceplate will mount unless you cut off some of the tabs from the MSI faceplate. The MSI faceplate had multiple tabs on it, and even though I haven't removed the caddy's faceplate I could see that there was no hole for two of the small tabs on the MSI faceplate.

Since I still would have some use for the ODD I decided to buy an enclosure for it seen here:

(It's not fully mounted yet which is why it might look like it's sticking out)

Weights for those interested:
3.9oz - Stock HDD
4.7oz - Stock ODD Drive

3.3oz - 1st Gen Vertex SSD
2.9oz - Caddy

Which I guess means you could use an empty caddy and SSD to knock off 2.4oz!

I have not yet powered it on but I don't expect any complications with configuring the drive in Win 7.

 

Ummm, not so pretty without the faceplate.

 

What a fantastic step-by-step, with photos and subjective commentary. Even the weightings!

A genuine 'thanks'! I know I will refer to this!

 

Recommend interested parties should seek out the ebay "Fenvi" 9.5mm sata caddy with the stronger chassis and removable faceplate for a perfect appearance. See pictures of it here.

 

I've seen the Fenvi and a few others but it still seems hit or miss with what you get and if it will it actually work.

In your link, which I also saw before they talk about the Sony faceplate not working without modifying it. Maybe someone will give it a shot and if it works I would certainly do it again. At this point it's more important that it's functional rather than look completely clean which it currently is.

BTW the second drive showed up without having to do anything but turn on the computer.

 

I haven't used the Fenvi caddy myself but can see it's a stronger chassis than some of the other ebay caddies. Consider too, the caddy you have could be swapped-on-demand with the ODD if the faceplate was rigidly pinned to the chassis with the modification shown below:



Anybody contacted newmodeus for a MSI X460DX specific caddy?

newmodeus can custom mold the faceplate to match the exact proportions of the original one. Just requires some X460DX owner's to ask...

 

My caddy was $8 shipped on EBay. Is it worth the $40 for a perfect match? No, IMO.

Besides, how many people would have to ask before they made one?

 

Just installed my Ebay caddy. The screw hole for the mounting bracket was a touch off, so I drilled a new one. The gap on the side isn't so bad - but below it's about 1/2 inch.

Works well, though. Glad I got it.

I still would trade for an official MSI part or one that was identical.

 

1 day shipping, that was fast.

 

It took about 2 days. Very fast. A++++++++++++++ EBAYER!
lol.

 

i've contacted newmodeus and here is what Nandy has said:

"We still have not had a chance to check out the x460dx. If you email us photos of the back (showing connector) and front of your optical drive, we will be able to tell you which of our caddies are compatible.

Thank you and Best Regards,
Nandy"

unfortunately, i don't have a camera handy but if anyone wants to send them the pics you can do so at

[email protected]

just put in the subject title:

Re: hdd caddy - MSI x460dx


thanks.