HDD size and height
- Thread starter oscaryu1
- Start date
The_Other_One
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I don't know of any different heights. I mean some may be slightly taller or shorter than others, but not enough to make a difference. There are standards that basically need to be followed.
Unless different heighth and length specifications are by design of the manufacturer laptops/notebooks have far less room for headroom then you see in a desktop system. That should force all 2.5" drives to have a more universal fit unless like with older Dell cases you had to buy supplies from them only by way of custom fit. I would think that would be rare for drives. Drive accessories like HD coolers? That's a different story there.
This is why I mentioned HD coolers as being the 3rd party item except in certain cases where drive dimensions would be impaired in any way. The varyances are seen when one company wants you to buy their replacement drives only like seen with older Dell cases with their mounting pattern changed on old cases.
Those days for the most part have disappeared. The 3rd party items for customizing are always a different concern there whether desktop or laptop. The older models when first seeing larger capacity may have seen an extra platter then. Now you will start seeing the capacity but not number of platters increased with the newer drive designs. This allows manufacturers to stay within certain more universal type standards there.
Those days for the most part have disappeared. The 3rd party items for customizing are always a different concern there whether desktop or laptop. The older models when first seeing larger capacity may have seen an extra platter then. Now you will start seeing the capacity but not number of platters increased with the newer drive designs. This allows manufacturers to stay within certain more universal type standards there.
Read the dimensions of an 30GB Armada E500 HDD and I got it..The lower height on newer models out simply means that not width. Those will still go into the standard 3 1/2" bay. The design however does allow for more air flow around the drives themselves provided the quality of the brand is any good? WD and Seagate still seem to be the top contenders.
You started with the correct one at the top. But you may want to move Seagate up under it and above Maxtor and the others while some like the Quantum drives. Meanwhile a friend handed to me a Seagate drive like the type we were discussing that was thin for sure. The drive still sees the standard width for mounting a regular drive bay or cage.
I've never used a Quantum while some favored them. I've been running WD ide drives for some years now and expanding into large capacity sata drives since the need for that along with now seeing newer boards out with only one ide controller. The clicking sound heard on old drives is a sign they are about to fail soon. That is heard when the read/write heads start slapping against the drive platters.
The term "parking" a drive refers to a method to keep the heads elevated above the platters when the drive is not in use and the platters are not spinning. The air flow generated as the platters spins is what lift the read/writes heads off of the platters by a small gap. Most are like 3 nanometers for gap there. That's thinner then a sheet of standard 8 1/2" x 11" paper.
The term "parking" a drive refers to a method to keep the heads elevated above the platters when the drive is not in use and the platters are not spinning. The air flow generated as the platters spins is what lift the read/writes heads off of the platters by a small gap. Most are like 3 nanometers for gap there. That's thinner then a sheet of standard 8 1/2" x 11" paper.