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I use a Toshiba A200-1BP laptop and I want to replace the DVD-ROM with a SSD using an adapter something like this

But I don't know if it will support placing an SSD or not since I don't know if the connector is SATA, PATA, IATA or whatsoever and I need to buy the adapter according to which type of connector I have.

Another option is to replace the actual HDD of my laptop with a SSD and replace the DVD-ROM with a HDD.

I am coping with this issue since my PC's performance is not very well and I need some additional speed and storage capacity. If I will be able to plug in an SSD I will reinstall the OS into the SSD, hoping that it will speed-up the start-up and some operations.

And I am trying to solve the issue with minimum cost, unfortunately. Any other advice for upgrading the system is also welcomed.

My questions are:

  • Am I able to replace the DVD-ROM with an SSD?
  • If I am, will it be worth doing so, in terms of write/read performance, system start-up time etc?
  • Am I able to replace the actual HDD with an SSD and then place the HDD to the DVD-ROM?

Motherboard
motherboard
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DVD drive
dvd_drive
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HDD
enter image description here
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DVD-ROM plug-in socket
enter image description here
click to enlarge

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From your picture your DVD-ROM connector looks PATA.

Zoom in on connector

This is a problem. There are many forms of SSD, some connect directly to the PCI-e bus. Some to SAS, some to SATA, but very few (old and expensive!) ones connect to PATA.

Am I able to replace the DVD-ROM with an SSD?

Yes. You have three options to add an SSD:

  1. Find a SATA connector on the board (hopefully just the DVD-ROM is PATA)
  2. Add a SATA interface (e.g. with a PCcard to SATA controller, or an expresscard to SATA controller, or via an internal mini PCI(-e) to SATA controller.
  3. Or use an old, hard to find, expensive, small PATA SSD.
  4. Or convert PATA to flash using something like this.

None of those a good options, except #1. And then you still would have to rewire a few things in order to get both SATA connector and power to your SSD.

Am I able to replace the actual HDD with an SSD

Yes. You can replace the old HDD. Your specs show that the laptop uses an ICH7 chipset with integrated SATA controller. This makes replacing the internal SATA drive with a SSD probably the best choice because it requires no modifications, allows relative cheap SSDs (about EUR 100 for 240GB at the moment of writing) and gives best performance (no ancient PATA modes, just AHCI/SATA2).

and then place the HDD to the DVD-ROM?

No. The old harddrive will be SATA. Your media bay (with the DVD-ROM in it atm) is PATA. The drive will not fit. You could add the old HDD to an external case and use it as a backup drive. But putting it in the media bay is as much hassle as putting the SSD in that in the first place.

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  • Yeah, i would go for second option unless you really need that HDD for capacity. Using an SSD will worth so much though.
    – Haplo
    Oct 26, 2014 at 12:23

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