Two part M11x hard drive question

I think you are not able to use 12.5m I mean I am sure.

Which is better HDD? Well the 500GB is going to be faster. About the same sequential read/writes but 500GB 7200 should have faster RA.

I've been reading up on this, and it seems the guys on notebookreview think a 12.5 will fit "snugly"... search "m11x 1tb fits" on google and hit the cache of the top link.

Anyway... I SURE hope it fits, since I bought the 1TB to go into mine... otherwise I guess I'll stuff it in an enclosure and kick myself in the ass since the WD passport 1TB are cheaper!

I don't know, if it does fit it will be really tight. I find the 500GB drive to be plenty for me, and keep most of my movies and such on externals connected to the Homegroup, which you can access wirelessly from the M11x.

I am interested in knowing if this 1TB would fit as well. Did the person happened to put up some pics or specs to back up her/his claim (thought)?

I doubt that it would fit myself seeing the internal pics of m11x. But then, as MB mentioned, if it would it is gonna be real tight.

cheers ...

Nope... and now the thread has been deleted for whatever reason. I can still read 3/4 pages via Google cache, but can't see page 4, where this guy could have been seen as a fraud or something, getting it deleted... not sure...

Well, since I bought both, I'll see if it fits and post pics of what I find out.

I couldn't find a definite yes/no (just speculation of no) on if a 12.5mm fits, so when I found someone claiming yes, I took their word! We'll see if that was naive or not!

Letting us know would be awesome. If so, I might even go that route, though 500GB is still nice.

Great stuff. Looking forward to your informative input and pics.

cheers ...

NOPE!

Doesn't fit, period.

First off, it doesn't seem to be an issue of the height pushing the caddy up and the bottom of the case not fitting... It's the height pushing the caddy up and not allowing the connectors to line up.

Follow me? On some laptops, there is a ribbon cable that connects the motherboard to the drive via an adaptor that usually mounts on the drive or caddy.

In our case, the connector is hard mounted on the motherboard, and since the drive is ever so slightly taller than the caddy, it causes the connectors to just barely not line up.

In other words, if the M11x had a ribbon cable, the 12.5mm drives MAY fit. I didn't even bother trying to put the bottom back on since there was no way of getting the connections going, so there's a chance the bottom wouldn't fit on correctly either...

Alright, I promised pics...

The original hard drive installed:
Attachment 19986

The original hard drive in the caddy... notice there is a tiny amount of "expansion" room above the drive... maybe it's for airflow?
Attachment 19987

Hard to see, but the 12.5mm drive causes the connectors to just barely miss each other:
Attachment 19988

The angle where they finally meet up! :P
Attachment 19989

The 12.5mm drive in the caddy:
Attachment 19990

Just for fun, tried in the wife's Studio 1535... her 9.5mm drive installed, showing lots of room for expansion AND a ribbon cable!
Attachment 19991

BUT it doesn't fit Turns out the shape of the Studio 15 case causes the drive bay to be wedge shaped, with the smallest height being 9.5mm (tallest height is over 12.5mm)... so this happens when you try to put the bottom back on:
Attachment 19992


So yeah... moral of the story is:
M11x ≠ 12.5mm

Newegg was having a deal today on the 9.5mm WD Scorpio Blue (same family as the 1TB, but with less platters) 640GB... $84.99 free shipping, so I purchased that one and will now go try to attempt to find a 2.5 enclosure that fits 12.5mm or a 3.5 enclosure and maybe get one of those SSD adaptors to throw it in.

In any case... just buy the 1TB WD external since it's the same drive, just $40 cheaper... and NO, you can't buy the external and break it open and take the drive out... there are no SATA connectors on it... the controller board is only USB.

Now that is an informative post, much better than the deleted one over there REP for pics and info

cheers ...

Thanks man!

BTW, as I was gathering info on what laptops DO fit a 12.5mm drive, I came across some new threads about the 750GB WD drive...

Apparently Newegg had the wrong specs listed on it, saying it was a 12.5mm...

Turns out it IS a 9.5mm drive, and Newegg fixed their specs.

So you can get a 750GB drive, but I'm doing fine with my 640GBs :P

Oh, I might wanna mention what laptops I noticed do and don't fit...

Apparently all the new unibody macbook pros fit (13/15/17) as well as the pre unibody macbook pro 17. The mac mini also fits.

Dell and HP models don't seem to fit.

All others (Acer/Toshiba/Sony/etc) seem to have hit or miss, with most of the newer ones accepting 12.5mm, apparently due to some SSDs being that big.

More of the good information

cheers ...