[MW Forums]

Trans has introduced its Minixpress, an external portable hard drive that features two FireWire 800 ports, along with FireWire 400 and USB 2.0. more

[OwnedMac128Kin84]

"The enclosure is designed to accommodate a 9.5mm Serial ATA (SATA)-based hard drive."
When did we start using the height of the hard drive in millimeters to distinguish 2.5 inch hard drives from 3.5 inch hard drives?
I got confused after reading this article thinking about this possibly is a good enclosure to buy, but wanted to know what size drive it takes, since 9.5mm didn't immediately bring to mind what that is. Apparently, I will have to get on board with "9.5mm" is the "height" of a "2.5 inch 'wide' drive" distinction, which I used to simply think of as a "laptop drive," but even that distintion blurs nowadays, but the image of a 2.5 drive from a 3.5 drive is fairly clear. I went to the company's website from the link and even that took several clicks until I found a page for another hard drive that had both "9.5mm" for the height, and "2.5 inches for the width." In addition to going to a conversion website to verify the numbers!
So, okay, for future reference what is the "height" in mm for a 3.5 inch drive, that is commonly thought of a "desktop drive?" Or do I have to go repeat all those clicks until it sinks in that we have a new way of mentioning the drive size?

[heisetax]

Quote:

---

"The enclosure is designed to accommodate a 9.5mm Serial ATA (SATA)-based hard drive."
When did we start using the height of the hard drive in millimeters to distinguish 2.5 inch hard drives from 3.5 inch hard drives?
I got confused after reading this article thinking about this possibly is a good enclosure to buy, but wanted to know what size drive it takes, since 9.5mm didn't immediately bring to mind what that is. Apparently, I will have to get on board with "9.5mm" is the "height" of a "2.5 inch 'wide' drive" distinction, which I used to simply think of as a "laptop drive," but even that distintion blurs nowadays, but the image of a 2.5 drive from a 3.5 drive is fairly clear. I went to the company's website from the link and even that took several clicks until I found a page for another hard drive that had both "9.5mm" for the height, and "2.5 inches for the width." In addition to going to a conversion website to verify the numbers!
So, okay, for future reference what is the "height" in mm for a 3.5 inch drive, that is commonly thought of a "desktop drive?" Or do I have to go repeat all those clicks until it sinks in that we have a new way of mentioning the drive size?

---

2.5" drives come 9.5 & 12 mm tall. I haven't seen any of the 12mm tall 2.5" drives for awhile. The titanium & older PowerBooks would hold either height. My 17" PowerBook will only hold the 9.5mm drives. I have an early IBM 60GB 2.5" drive that is 12mm in height. That means that I have a harder time finding an external case for it.
3.5" hard drives are usually listed as half-height (about 1") or full-height (about 2"). Most 3.5" hard drives are half-height drives now. I purchased a used MDD PowerMac a couple of years ago. Inside it was a 10k rpm SCSI full height drive. That drive just takes up too much space for most external drive cases.
Normally you'll only find 9.5mm 2.5" & half-height 3.5" hard drives. But as with most things, there's always the exception. Just check what you have with what is being offered before you make any purchase. I do agree with you that they should have mentioned the 2.5" width factor at the same time as they say the drive height. I would have gone more fore saying something like 9.5mm 2.5" drive case.
Just think that if we had the 12mm 2.5" hard drives now we could have 150 GB 7200rpm, 240GB 5400rpm & 300GB 4200rpm hard drives to put in some Mac portables..
Bill the TaxMan

[OwnedMac128Kin84]

Thank you for the excellent explanation. I sure learned what I needed to know from your response! Appreciate it!