2.5" 300GB Raptor drives in a notebook?

[EliteRetard]

Simple question, how come more high end laptops arent using the small raptor drive? I always see a dual HDD option with an SSD. No way Id want just a single primary SSD...not enough room. So anyway, if your going to spend that much cash for an SSD and then ruin the battery life with a storage drive, why not just get a quick decent sized drive like the raptor in the first place? Heck it would probably save money (and space).

 

[JaYp146]

It's not possible to remove the Velociraptor drive from the 3.5" heatsink and place it in a laptop. Not sure where I read that, but I know for certain it's been tried before ...

 

[TheStu]

Heat and Power, to be concise.

A large, say 500GB notebook drive, especially a 7200 RPM one doesn't eat nearly as much battery life as you might think, and when paired with an SSD, is a pretty good solution, especially since the SSD is basically invulnerable to shock damage (unlike the fast spinning Velociraptor).

 

[EliteRetard]

So Western Digital went through all the trouble of designing a completely new high speed 2.5" HDD instead of refining their 3.5" HDD...and then specifically designed it NOT to work in any 2.5" application? I know the heatsink can be removed, and I would think it would then be up to the OEMs to fit the drive in their laptops (or you'd think they could buy it heatsink free). And when you've got all these high end custom laptops and specialty chassis, quad core GPUs, and dual GPUs, they still haven't figured out how to fit a simple hard drive in?

Seeing as how the hard drive is still a limiting factor even in a desktop I can see it being an important and significant option for more than just gaming laptops. And since you can get the drive for under 200$ retail it shouldn't be much more than a 100$ upgrade option from a standard 320GB laptop drive. Unlike your 64GB SSDs which are usually more than a 100$ add on and a significant detriment to usability. SSDs currently really only belong in netbooks and such, where they don't have the power, and thus no need, to run large software programs.

It just makes absolutely no sense to build a 2.5" HDD for no reason. They had several generations of 3.5" HDDs that worked very well, so there was no heat issues or any other reason they needed to limit the size...actually I would think increasing the size of the drive would actually improve it, you could go with a single denser platter to reduce the complexity and cost of the drive and simultaneously reducing heat output and probably power used.

But again, I don't know...which is why I'm asking. Why cant it be done, why hasn't anyone figured it out? Or if it has been done, where?

 

[TheStu]

Originally posted by: EliteRetard
So Western Digital went through all the trouble of designing a completely new high speed 2.5" HDD instead of refining their 3.5" HDD...and then specifically designed it NOT to work in any 2.5" application? I know the heatsink can be removed, and I would think it would then be up to the OEMs to fit the drive in their laptops (or you'd think they could buy it heatsink free). And when you've got all these high end custom laptops and specialty chassis, quad core GPUs, and dual GPUs, they still haven't figured out how to fit a simple hard drive in?

Seeing as how the hard drive is still a limiting factor even in a desktop I can see it being an important and significant option for more than just gaming laptops. And since you can get the drive for under 200$ retail it shouldn't be much more than a 100$ upgrade option from a standard 320GB laptop drive. Unlike your 64GB SSDs which are usually more than a 100$ add on and a significant detriment to usability. SSDs currently really only belong in netbooks and such, where they don't have the power, and thus no need, to run large software programs.

It just makes absolutely no sense to build a 2.5" HDD for no reason. They had several generations of 3.5" HDDs that worked very well, so there was no heat issues or any other reason they needed to limit the size...actually I would think increasing the size of the drive would actually improve it, you could go with a single denser platter to reduce the complexity and cost of the drive and simultaneously reducing heat output and probably power used.

But again, I don't know...which is why I'm asking. Why cant it be done, why hasn't anyone figured it out? Or if it has been done, where?

If you can fit 150GB onto a single 2.5" platter, or a single 3.5" platter, the 2.5" platter will be faster since the data will be closer together. That was why they opted for the 2.5" size.

The fact that the default configuration has a .5" heatsink surrounding the drive, I think that heat is a major consideration.

SSDs are fast, perhaps not as fast as the Velociraptor (I have seen no benchmarks comparing them, mostly because I haven't gone looking) but still plenty fast. And yes, they do consume less power and generate less heat than a platter drive, especially the velociraptor.

If you are looking into mobile gaming powerhouses, particularly ones with multiple hard drives, desktop quad cores, and SLI/Crossfired GPUs, then you are looking at some significant coin... what is another $100 or so for the SSD?

And how is an SSD a significant detriment to usability?

 

[mooseracing]

Originally posted by: TheStu

And how is an SSD a significant detriment to usability?

Is there one out there that doesn't have the random write or read issue?



If I was going to build I would choose SAS over VR's. If I need the performance of VR's, you are still stuck with a SATA bottleneck, move to SAS and you can move alot more data.

 

[Liberator21]

It simply can't be done because even though the Raptor is a 2.5" drive, its actual thickness is too large to fit in any laptop drive bay without serious modification.

 

[Arcanedeath]

The Raptor is too tall its 11.5mm most standard laptops are 9.5mm if you find really old laptops sometimes they had 12.5mm height drives, but no modern laptop uses a hdd bay that will fit a raptor & deal w/ the heat either.

 

[Luminair]

man the stupidity this thread launched head first into is stunning

there are answers to all of your questions, and good reasons for the way things are

> I would think increasing the size of the drive would actually improve it

lol you are wrong. why didnt you consider the possibility that you were wrong at the start, rather than crazily ranting

suffice it to say the velociraptor is derived from enterprise drives that share the same physical characteristics

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: EliteRetard
So Western Digital went through all the trouble of designing a completely new high speed 2.5" HDD instead of refining their 3.5" HDD...and then specifically designed it NOT to work in any 2.5" application?

Typical enterprise solutions use 2.5" drives, so this is partly what the VelociRaptor was designed for. Many don't know, but the VR is actually available without the heatsink. As mentioned, it is too thick to fit into most notebooks, but again that's not what it was designed for.

Besides 2.5" becoming the standard for enterprise drives, reducing the platter size also serves to reduce the seek times plus makes it easier to spin at higher RPMs.

 

[EliteRetard]

Originally posted by: Luminair
man the stupidity this thread launched head first into is stunning

there are answers to all of your questions, and good reasons for the way things are

> I would think increasing the size of the drive would actually improve it

lol you are wrong. why didnt you consider the possibility that you were wrong at the start, rather than crazily ranting

suffice it to say the velociraptor is derived from enterprise drives that share the same physical characteristics

So by asking a question and specifically stating that in fact I do NOT know, Im a crazy stupid ranting idiot? No offense, but I think the only stupidity in this thread was yours. You also seem to have forgotten to mention any of the "answers to my questions" and the "good reasons" for the way things are.

Anyway, I still have the same question, and nobody has really answered it...unless your all telling me that a little 2.5" HDD takes up so much more space uses so much more power and puts out so much more heat than a pair of high end GPUs in SLI that it cant ever be used in a laptop.

Seems to me, if they can fit quad core desktop CPUs and a pair of high end GPUs in a laptop, one of the OEMs (such as clevo?) should have been able to figure out how to make the minor change in the chasis that would allow the use of this drive. Its been out for like a year.

But hey, I could just be stupid...or retarded (maybe both?).

 

[IlllI]

well you were basically calling Western Digital stupid for what they did. heaven forbid they make it for other reasons other than what you want it to be

 

[EliteRetard]

I dont recall saying Western Digital was stupid. I did mention the fact that it would be stupid to invest in a completely new manufacture/design for no reason. I didnt really know there would be servers utilizing such a drive. Still, itd be nice to see this drive in a laptop.

Another point that I mentioned, and someone else touched on, was the drive size/platter density. I can see how two platters of the same storage capacity but different sizes would change seek times...but what they werent taking into account, and what I was sort of pointing to, is the fact that every major manufacturer has 300GB 3.5" platters. In my mind a single platter design, especially at 10K RPMs, would be the more durable/reliable design as well as being easier/cheaper to manufacture. 1 3.5" 300GB platter vs 2 2.5" 150GB platters (or even 3 100GB platters?) Along those lines I could also see a single platter reducing heat and power usage because youve got less moving parts and complexity and more area for heat dispersion. I dont know for sure, this is just what I was thinking.

And that was a portion of my argument...it seemed to me that if you couldnt use the drive in a laptop (and I couldnt think of any other uses) and the 3.5" form factor was a little better overall (especially since theyve already had a reliable design all set and ready to go) that its was rather retarded to go to a smaller design. I still think its a little retarded it wasnt designed for laptop use as well, but oh well. Its still close enough that any major OEM SHOULD HAVE BEEN ABLE TO CUSTOM FIT IT.

Heck I think they have 500GB platters now, in those 2TB drives...so getting the drive to function properly with a single 300GB platter should be easy even at 10K RPMs. I think they need at least a 600GB 3.5" drive like right now...there is no reason they couldnt or shouldnt, and there is no reason it should be so overpriced. I think 300$ for a 600GB 10K drive would be plenty fair (and not a cent more!). Leave the 2.5" 300GB version at 200$. Youve always had to pay a premium for a smaller drive.

If they dont have such a drive ready, Im telling em right here right now they NEED to get an 800GB 2 platter 10K RPM drive out in a few months. SIZE MATTERS. If theyre over 6 months out, they NEED to make it 1TB. Its retarded that they cant even make a drive half the size of currently available HDDs.

 

[Colt45]

They should make it 15K RPM while they're at it, and sell them for $25.

 

[unfalliblekrutch]

As has already been said, it's 2.5" so that it can have higher data densities and 2.5" is not some random new size they invented. Many drives are already 2.5" in the enterprise market. Yes, it just so happens that 2.5" is also the size of most laptop drives, but that doesn't mean it makes sense for a laptop maker to invest money designing a new laptop around it. Perhaps the OEMs and/or ODMs decided it wasn't worth it to design one because the demand would be very low for such a laptop

 

[corkyg]

Power consumption and heat dissipation in a confined notebook case would be seriously difficult and expensive. And, it would add considerable weight and cost. At this point in time, not practical.