Hi all.
:-)

I'm looking for some info on standard 2.5" HDD's for laptop computers.
I'm only familiar with standard 3.5" PC ones, so need a little push in the right direction here!
;)

Someone told me that laptop HDD's only run on one voltage: either 5v or 12v, but not both like a 3.5" drive.

If this is the case, why is this, and also if they do run on one voltage, how come the 3.5" ones need 5v and 12v????

A web-page(forget where) said that laptop drives spin slower then standard HDD's - about 4200RPM instead of 5400RPM for the 3.5" ones.
(we'll ignore the 7200RPM and some 10,000RPM drives on the market today for the purposes of this question, O.K.? ;) )

If laptop HDD's are slower by some 1200RPM over a 3.5" drive, why is this? I would have thought that it would have been even easier to get the smaller discs in these 2.5" drives up to speed and keep them there, then the bigger drives, so why the slower speed???

These Q's are all for my own interest - I have no complaints or problems with laptop HDD's, but I'm just curious as to the differences...

Thanks guys!
:)


MM.

Hmmm... I don't know about the voltage. I thought hard drives only used +5V, and optical drives use +12V, but again I may be mistaken.

As for the rpm's, well standard 3.5" desktop hard drives are 7200rpm right now. I don't think you can get a new 5400rpm anymore, but anyway... rotation speed requires extra wattage. Even tho it's easier with the smaller platters, laptops routinely run on battery power. The whole idea of a laptop is to keep a bit of fantasy that you can do something useful on the short battery life :p so joules are at a premium! Heck, the biggest battery hogs in a laptop are the drives. Anything that spins requires lots of power, relatively speaking.

Come to think of it, I think IBM recently came out with a 7200rpm laptop hard drive. I don't understand this push to make laptops nearly as powerful as a desktop. The battery life sucks, heat is a major problem, airflow sucks, the processor constantly changes speed, there's very little upgradability - I mean come on! You have to sacrifice something to make it portable! I used to want a laptop, now I want a tablet PC. Laptops these days are just desktop wannabees that get everything wrong. :rolleyes:

Speed = watts, which = current, which = faster battery drain!!!
Yep - I can see the logic in the slower speed now!
Ta!
:)

As for the heat - yes modern laptops get hot - too hot for my liking, which is why I have not got one of the modern ones, although, I do have an old 486 which is used a a basic Win3.11 machine for basic tasks and serial programming via COM1.

I also have a Pentium 75 machine, which, with a 6GB drive, makes a very nice little MP3 player for my car, complete with screen for easy playing of songs.

I don't use Windows on this laptop - only DOS and MPXplay.


MM.