Vantec SSD/HDD Aluminum Caddy for 9.5mm ODD Laptop Drive Bay (MRK-HC95A-BK)

First off, the Vantec SSD Caddy is HIGH QUALITY... Way, way higher than the other SSD Caddies on Amazon...I recently purchased a new laptop with a 1TB HDD and before the laptop even arrived I planned on installing a Samsung EVO SSD so I purchased a 9.5mm Caddy from a brand called Protronix (also on Amazon) for $10.99. When I first opened the package for the Protronix ssd caddy I could tell the quality was absolute garbage. First of all the packaging was basically open, and the product itself had little scratches on it all over the place. It looked like it had been installed on a computer before. The instructions, if you can even classify them as instructions, were AWFUL. Also, the SATA plug on the outside was all wobbly and out of place, it definitely sounded broken. When I went to install it in my laptop, it would not show up in device manager, which confirms that yes it was in fact broken.So I purchased the Vantec Caddy and immediately I noticed the packing was super high quality, the instructions were MUCH better than the Protronix (although still some grammatical errors), and the quality of the product was night and day. The Vantec feels solid, well made, and nice and sturdy. It's also a screwless design, meaning you don't have to screw in the SSD, it just comes with a few rubber stoppers and place holders and it fits snuggly in the caddy. Very nice design.Both the Vantec and Protronix were made in China, however, the Protronix was obviously made in China. The Vantec was made in China but it is superior in every single aspect.In all, I would HIGHLYYYY, highly, recommend this caddy over any of the others on Amazon. The other ones on amazon all look exactly the same, so I imagine most sellers are just purchasing them and then rebranding it. It fit perfectly in my Laptop and installation was extremely easy.The rest of this review I am only writing to help others who run into the same problem with ACER Laptops... This was quite a headache for 2 days, but I must stress, NOT BECAUSE OF THE SSD CADDY, but because laptop manufacturers suck.So I did not want to open up my laptop because I didn't want to void the warranty. Also, it doesn't have a rear panel making everything easily accessible/upgradeable. So I just slid the caddy w/ the SSD into the optical drive slot, inserted a bootable USB with legitimate Windows 10 ISO but for some reason, it would not boot the USB. Not sure if this is a Windows 10 issue, or just the BIOS settings that ACER ships with their laptops but I had to change some BIOS settings in order to be able to boot from the USB.1st) You need to change your boot settings to Legacy, not UEFI. I think this is a Windows 10 issue, but no matter what format I made my bootable USB, I could not boot in UEFI.**UPDATE** - When I removed the 1TB HDD completely it let me boot in UEFI. You definietly want to use UEFI over Legacy. It's much quicker and visually the display looks much crisper and clearer.2) Obviously, change the boot order so that the USB is first.3) Just a recommendation, you should enable Windows Boot Manager (it is disabled by default) so that you can choose how you boot, but this is not necessary.So once I finally was able to boot the USB, I tried to install a clean version of Windows 10 without making any changes to the HDD. Again, not sure if Windows 10 or ACER BIOS settings, but I kept getting the same error "0x80300024". Basically, it was not letting me install Windows 10 on ANY hard drive other than the one in Bus 0 (the HDD). There was no way around this, and I searched for a solution for 2 days but nothing. Many people in other online forums said they just returned their laptops because they didn't want to open it up and void the warranty.The only solution is to open up the laptop, and put the SSD in bus 0. Once I did this, the installation worked perfectly. So I now have the SSD in bus 0, and the HDD in bus 1 (the optical drive slot). I have been told by a few friends that opening the laptop does not void the warranty but I am almost positive that it does. If there are any seals or stickers that you have to break to get in, then you are definitely voiding the warranty. My laptop didn't have that, but the screws had blue paint on them that strips off when you take the them out. Basically the manufacturer looks at these screws to see if you have tampered with the laptop, and if there is no pain on the screws they won't honor any warranty claims.In conclusion, very satisfied with this product. Installation of the caddy itself was extremely easy. Installing Windows on the SSD was a pain but that has nothing to do with the caddy.

Works as described, plug & play. Performance are great and it was easy to install. Would recommend

Excellent product. I would highly recommend this to anyone. This is a bit of a pain to get to seat into the the plug inside of the laptop, but I am chalking that up to laptop design not the product itself. Arrived exactly when it was supposed to. Great job to the seller!!!Note to seller. If they exist, I would highly recommend offering a properly fitting cover to match the laptop it is sold for. I have an ugly on the side of my laptop now but it's nothing that a lil good ol fashioned murican ingenuity can't solve!!!Note to buyer: It doesn't matter what caddy I bought, I would have had the same problem. This one is a definite must buy and I will be ordering many more in the future.

Horrible product! I got one to add a ssd to a laptop I have. I got the first one and it would only recognise the drive part of the time otherwise it would just freeze in diagnosing the connections a swich on the side fell out and it wouldn't recognise the drive again. I got a replacement sent and figured it was a fluke but the replacement didn't fall apart but still only recognised on about 25% of boots. And then had to pay 5 dollar shipping to send back the original? I wouldn't recommend this for anyone.

Works as advertised fit my laptop bay. Looks good .

Put a second SSD in my laptop and configured a Raid 0 array as the system drive . DEFINITELY faster start up and access. It's a great way to step up an older machine. I ran a back up and image on an older 160Gb spindle drive and have used it to rebuild the system on a once a month basis to start with a virgin registry. Works like a champ..

There are many caddies available on Amazon so I was in bit of a dilemma but I made the right choice selecting this. I bought this for my HP Pro Book 450 G1 with 9.5mm CD ROM Bay and I'm listing down the cons below.- 2 channel selectors (default set to BD from A,B,C,D) for different brands.- Comes with HDD activity light and it works.- Bumpproof, screw less , easy to setup.- Rugged construction, no wobbly parts, HDD/SSD stays in place right.- I looked into the circuit board and it's neat (unlike cheap Chinese smeared soldering)So far I did not face any issue with it and I highly recommend ventec caddies.

I bought this along with an SSD, doing an upgrade on my son's Acer laptop computer. I'd seen where someone else had used this with the same type of computer. This was for data transfer, and to test out the upgrade before cracking the case.On the plus side, the caddy seems well-constructed and fit the laptop perfectly. The molded vanity cover from the ODD filler panel fit perfectly. All 3 drives I tried fit easily.Unfortunately, the SSD I bought was not seen at all using this caddy. After trying all four different possible combinations of DIP switches and multiple attempts at re-seating the caddy and drive, I gave up and cracked the case. I also tried the internal spinning disk: again, multiple re-seats and just nothing. At this point I was blaming the laptop.I took a spare SSD that I had and tried that - lo and behold, it worked! I can't say what the issue was, as I'm not interested in cracking the case again and going through another round of testing. The first SSD worked internally just fine and worked well in an external USB case. The old internal spinner also worked just fine before removal, and in the same external USB case.So I'm none too thrilled with this purchase, as it did not meet my intended purpose. Maybe I'll return it.