Question Additional SATA SSD drive

[Tactical Geek]

Hi,
I'm new to the forum.

I just purchased a refurbished Toughbook CF-54 Mk3 with a DVD drive, 256 GB SSD M.2 card and 16Gb ram running Win10 Pro.
Is it possible to install an additional SATA SSD drive into the HDD/SSD side bay and have the laptop recognize it and work with it as an additional storage area without a conflict with the SSD card?

TKS,
Tactical Geek

 

[lvt]

I don't know about the SSD/HDD side bay but you can use a HDD caddy like this to add any SATA drive to the laptop (it goes to the DVD bay).

 

[Tactical Geek]

LVT, tks for the reply.
Unfortunately, that would mean that I would have to remove/replace the DVD drive which is not an option for me. On the right side of the unit toward the front, there is a bay for a HDD which right now holds nothing but a dummy. My primary drive is an SSD card in M.2 format and I just wanted to know if I could put a 2nd HDD/SSD in the HDD slot without affecting the primary drive or the computer operation. I wanted to do this so that I had additional storage for documents, etc.

 

[lvt]

LVT, tks for the reply.
Unfortunately, that would mean that I would have to remove/replace the DVD drive which is not an option for me. On the right side of the unit toward the front, there is a bay for a HDD which right now holds nothing but a dummy. My primary drive is an SSD card in M.2 format and I just wanted to know if I could put a 2nd HDD/SSD in the HDD slot without affecting the primary drive or the computer operation. I wanted to do this so that I had additional storage for documents, etc.

If there is a dedicated slot for HDD then of course you can install extra drive (HDD/SSD) in it.

After installing the second HDD, if the M.2 is not the primary drive (just in case), you can enter the Bios and set the M.2 as boot/primary drive again. Nothing changed on the M.2, it's just the order of drives that might be changed when a second HDD is present.

 

[Tactical Geek]

TKS, I kind of figured that would be the case. I wasn't sure since I own several CF-28's and Panasonic did some weird stuff with configuration on that model.

Now I feel more confident of not having any conflicts.

 

[lvt]

TKS, I kind of figured that would be the case. I wasn't sure since I own several CF-28's and Panasonic did some weird stuff with configuration on that model.

Now I feel more confident of not having any conflicts.

As you have more than one drives, you should clone your primary drive (containing the OS) to the first partition of the second drive from time to time (like a monthly backup). In case the first drive crashes or is damaged, you can boot from the second drive, very useful when you are far from home/office.

Requirement: the second drive must be larger than the current M.2, for example of you have a 1TB HDD, the first 256GB (same capacity as the M.2) will be reserved for the above task.