Anyone have a 2TB 2.5" SATA drive?

[ka jowct]

I didn't know they even existed until today. A WD external arrived here yesterday (not mine) and I thought initially that there might be two drives in the compact enclosure. But apparently there are a couple of 2 TB 2.5" drives, too tall to fit into most laptops. A nice chunk of compact backup space, though.

[kj4btkljv]

I don't have one, but wow. That's a lot of space for a drive so small.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6822236187

Jeff

[gabester]

I didn't think there were 2.5"-sized 2TB drives either. I'm reasonably sure that I heard about 1.5TB drives either shipping or being available in the the not-to-distant future - I think they would have had to be 12.5 mm in height (many laptops, particularly Macs, need 9mm or slimmer.)

2TB seems like it would be paired 1TB drives... esp. looking at how thick some of those external enclosures are.
g=

[Lew Zealand]

Inside the case the 2TB 2.5" units are 4-platter 15mm height SATA drives.

Not much different from a 4-platter 3.5" drive, only smaller with half the storage space. The only advantage to these units over a 3.5" drive is for bus-powered external use. The problem with that is: how often do you need 2TB of space to be hot-swappable?

[ka jowct]

Lew Zealand wrote:
Inside the case the 2TB 2.5" units are 4-platter 15mm height SATA drives.

Not much different from a 4-platter 3.5" drive, only smaller with half the storage space. The only advantage to these units over a 3.5" drive is for bus-powered external use. The problem with that is: how often do you need 2TB of space to be hot-swappable?

I'd be inclined to get the bare drive and pop it into one of the OWC mini enclosures that can be AC powered. It would be a lot more portable than any enclosure I've seen for 3.5" drives. The Western Digital external is bus powered and smaller than the OWC Mini. But I'd rather have the option of AC power and FW 800, even if the enclosure is slightly larger. I think the WD drive is USB 3, but I don't have anything with USB 3 ports.

[Lew Zealand]

ka jowct wrote:
[quote=Lew Zealand]
Inside the case the 2TB 2.5" units are 4-platter 15mm height SATA drives.

Not much different from a 4-platter 3.5" drive, only smaller with half the storage space. The only advantage to these units over a 3.5" drive is for bus-powered external use. The problem with that is: how often do you need 2TB of space to be hot-swappable?

I'd be inclined to get the bare drive and pop it into one of the OWC mini enclosures that can be AC powered. It would be a lot more portable than any enclosure I've seen for 3.5" drives. The Western Digital external is bus powered and smaller than the OWC Mini. But I'd rather have the option of AC power and FW 800, even if the enclosure is slightly larger. I think the WD drive is USB 3, but I don't have anything with USB 3 ports.


I've thought about doing the same thing for the FW800 advantage (no USB3 here yet, either) but I just don't know if these 15mm drives will fit in the OWC enclosures. The 1.5TB 12.5mm high units fit in the OWC cases as they sell these already installed but I don't know if the cases have that extra 2.5mm of clearance for these tall boys.

[Bill in NC]

IIRC, the 2.5" 1.5TB external drives had a special controller board with only a USB port, not a standard SATA connector.

I suspect that's the case with the 2TB external drive as well, so it can't be dropped into another SATA enclosure.

Not to mention it all these are 15mm high - does that fit into any recent Mac laptop?

[ka jowct]

Bill in NC wrote:
IIRC, the 2.5" 1.5TB external drives had a special controller board with only a USB port, not a standard SATA connector.

I suspect that's the case with the 2TB external drive as well, so it can't be dropped into another SATA enclosure.

Not to mention it all these are 15mm high - does that fit into any recent Mac laptop?

I wouldn't get a USB-only external from WD for that reason. But the bare drives are available at Newegg and presumably elsewhere, although not yet at OWC. Maybe someone from OWC can chime in and let us know whether those drives will fit into the Elite Pro Mini enclosure.

They would fit very few laptops: I wonder if any currently shipping models can use them. With the trend toward thinner and lighter machines, it seems unlikely. This seems more like a nifty thing to have for portable storage.

[Bill in NC]

And with SSDs already dropping past $0.50/GB, will they overtake the HDD for all 2.5" applications?

[steagle]

Lew Zealand wrote: I've thought about doing the same thing for the FW800 advantage (no USB3 here yet, either) but I just don't know if these 15mm drives will fit in the OWC enclosures. The 1.5TB 12.5mm high units fit in the OWC cases as they sell these already installed but I don't know if the cases have that extra 2.5mm of clearance for these tall boys.

I can confirm that the OWC Elite Pro Mini was NOT designed to accomodate 15mm drives. That didn't stop me from trying though I took a 1.5TB drive from a Seagate Expansion enclosure and was able to get it into the OWC enclosure, but I really had to force the tray into the body. It resulted in the enclosure getting scraped pretty good on the inside from the screws holding the drive in. Also, it caused the enclosure to bulge a little bit and because of the lack of any headroom, it got very hot to the touch. It still worked 100% fine and you couldn't really tell at first glance there was a 15mm drive in there.

The reason I would not recommend this is because when I tried to take the drive out, I literally had to destroy the OWC enclosure in the process. The two pieces were forced together so tight, it took a good ten minutes just to get them separated and by that point, I had done too much damage to use the enclosure again. (Stupidly, I thought I could fit the 15mm drive inside the killer Oyen Digital MiniPro enclosure, but was mistaken.) So don't make the same mistake I did!

If you're looking to accomodate a 15mm drive externally, I found an enclosure that seems to do the trick - it's not very pretty, but it will get the job done. Here's the link: http://delock.tragant.com.tw/index.php?p=3&prono=42492