Computer Hope

Hardware => Hardware => Topic started by: bluecollar on June 06, 2011, 05:06:34 AM

Title: physical dimensions of hard drive
Post by: bluecollar on June 06, 2011, 05:06:34 AM: :-\

I have an HP / Compaq Presario C700

I hope to upgrade to 500Gb hard drive,

I have been looking for a bargain priced one,

I saw there was a 1Tb hard drive for sale because "It was too big to fit in the laptop purchased it for",

I then wondered if this laptop would have any issue with physical size,

I did consider the external option,
But I learned of "partitions" - this would give us a bit of a safety net with a new internal,

I could use the old hard drive for external storage

I didn't have any luck with the HP website,

The current hard drive is showing as 80Gb?
Only have 11Gb left after 3years

Thanks
Title: Re: physical dimensions of hard drive
Post by: Carbon Dudeoxide on June 06, 2011, 05:16:55 AM: I don't understand what you are saying.

Laptops like the Compaq Presario C700 use 2.5-Inch hard drives. The C700 specifically uses the SATA interface.

As long as the new hard drive is a SATA 2.5" hard drive, it will work in the laptop.
Title: Re: physical dimensions of hard drive
Post by: Salmon Trout on June 06, 2011, 02:16:17 PM: Quote from: bluecollar on June 06, 2011, 05:06:34 AM
I saw there was a 1Tb hard drive for sale because "It was too big to fit in the laptop purchased it for",

The use of the phrase "fit in" makes me think it was a 3.5 inch drive purchased in error (laptops take 2.5 inch drives). This is such an elementary error that I wonder if he might have meant that the laptop was an older one and the BIOS did not have LBA support and hence could not see a disk bigger than 137 (decimal) GB or 127 (binary) GB. Sometimes this can be got around sometimes not. However the C700 does not have this limit.

(http://img.tomshardware.com/us/2005/04/21/the_2/hd-25-35.jpg)
Title: Re: physical dimensions of hard drive
Post by: Computer_Commando on June 06, 2011, 02:29:22 PM: Too big to fit could also mean the drive was too thick to fit in the caddy and/or opening. This only applies to laptop drives. Early drives were 12mm thick, later ones 9.5mm.
"2.5 inch" drive: (2.75 in x 3.945 in x 0.374 in = 69.85 mm x 100.2 mm x 9.5 mm)
Title: Re: physical dimensions of hard drive
Post by: Salmon Trout on June 06, 2011, 02:58:55 PM: Quote from: Computer_Commando on June 06, 2011, 02:29:22 PM
Early drives were 12mm thick, later ones 9.5mm.

But 1 TB drives are pretty late historically aren't they?
Title: Re: physical dimensions of hard drive
Post by: Computer_Commando on June 07, 2011, 02:15:59 PM: Quote from: Salmon Trout on June 06, 2011, 02:58:55 PM
But 1 TB drives are pretty late historically aren't they?
1TB laptop drives are 12.5mm thick.
Title: Re: physical dimensions of hard drive
Post by: Salmon Trout on June 07, 2011, 02:48:43 PM: Quote from: Computer_Commando on June 07, 2011, 02:15:59 PM
1TB laptop drives are 12.5mm thick.

So far, but there are plenty of 750 GB laptop drives that are 9.55 mm high.