I’ve recently replaced the hard drives in my Toshiba test laptops with 120GB SSD drives. The speed of the SSD’s is fantastic, but the larger sized models are still a little pricey, so I’ve ended up with limited storage.

On the other hand I have a DVD drive that I never use.

Replace the unused DVD drives with some nifty HDD caddies. The caddies allow me to add a second (removable) hard drive to the laptop and I have all the speed of SSD with as much storage as I want. I can even use the original hard drives (the ones I just replaced with faster SSD’s) in the caddy.

These caddies are made to fit specific model laptops, and use the internal SATA plug to connect. The bezel from the original DVD drive can even snap on to the front of the caddie so that everything fits neat and flush. The activity light shows blue and flashes red when the drive is in use.

Now – before you go racing out to purchase one of these: check that your laptop is using a SATA DVD/Blue-ray drive. Most newer laptops have the internal SATA connections and can use these caddies.

You can use the extra drive as storage space, or for backing up your laptop.

The caddy is a great way to boost your laptops’ storage without having to carry USB hard drives around, and it gives you plenty of space to take photos or movies on the go.

You can also use the second drive as a backup, in case the first drive fails. Swapping the hard drives in the caddie is as easy as changing a DVD, so it makes a rotating backup system very easy – you just have two backup drives and switch them every week or so – keeping one copy of your files and photos at home while the current backup drive travels with your laptop.

Prices vary depending on the laptops make and model, but can range from as little as $20 up to $100. The benefits far outweigh the costs when it comes to carrying your data, or having room to store your music, videos and photos.