The G50 DOES support a 12mm HDD!

Hi all. Thought I'd share a quick story.

tl;dr: You can use ONE 12.5mm HDD in the G50.

I work at Staples, and there was this 500GB portable SimpleTech HDD on clearance that I picked up for $27.50 + tax. Awesome, right? Yeah well moving on, we all know that today's portable hard drives are nothing more than 2.5" SATA notebook hard drives in enclosures. Most are 9mm in height, but some of the early 500GB were 12.5mm (including this SimpleTech one). We also know that most notebooks only support 9mm hard drives.

Which brings me to my G50vt. It has two hard drive bays, the first of which was filled with a 320GB hdd. The second one was empty and so I filled it with a spare hdd, but I wanted to replace it with this 500GB hard drive.

So, in my infinite wisdom, I thought I'd pop open the SimpleTech and put it in my computer, only to find to my dismay that it is in fact a 12.5mm drive.
Frustrated, I opened my computer anyway and tried to place it in the auxiliary HDD bay, to no avail. Then I realized the SATA connector on the primary HDD bay was a little bit lower than the auxiliary's, so I swapped the main hard drive to the aux bay and put the 12.5mm SimpleTech hard drive in the primary bay, and voila! It fits!

So now Vista reads that I have 724 GB of disk space to play with. Not bad for a screwdriver and $27.50, huh?


In the picture: On the left is the auxiliary HDD bay with a stock 9mm 320GB HDD (the foam is to wedge it into place and the tin foil is to make sure it's grounded, since I don't have a second HDD holder, lol)
On the right is the empty primary bay that supports 12.5mm HDD's.

Flippin sweet!
EDIT: Fixed the sizes (it's 12.5mm and 9mm).

 

You mean 3.5 inch HD? A standard desktop drive instead of a standard 2.5 inch notebook HD?

 

No a 12mm HDD as opposed to a 9.5 mm hdd.

The primary drive bay has space under it unlike the second drive bay which has part of the motherboard under it. I wasnt aware that 12mm HDD's where that common though.

 

I think they were more common before mainstream 9.5mm 500GB's hit the market.

 

sooooooooooo is there any advantage of the 12.5 mm

how dose solid stat drive works? Can we put it in g50v?

 

yeah u can put SDD on the g50

 

need another HDD as well. Today I took a look under the hood and remember your post.

But didn't get it, specially your picture confuse me.

So speaking in the view like you picture.
Original state:
Left Empty; Right Original HDD (320 with brackets)

Now you have:
Left Original HDD (320 with brackets) ; Right 12.5mm 2.5" 500 GB without brackets


Can you please confirm. Or you use the original one left without Brackets and the new 12.5mm right with brackets ??

Thanks.

The spare bracket (13GNPY1AM010-1) is kind of always out of stock That's why I try to find a way around.

 

Theoreticly this means that an WD VelociRaptor should also fit.

 

I saw this thread again in the Asus forum and was like, "Didn't I post something like this a while ago?" lol

It appears I took this picture halfway through my drive change, so there is actually NO BRACKET in this picture. The bracket ended up on the 500GB 12mm drive into the righthand bay.

So this picture is looking from the battery to the hard drives. The drive on the left is my 320GB (stock, 9mm) and it did come with a bracket (not pictured). On the right is the bay that will fit a 12mm drive (I have added my own 500GB, 12mm), and I used my single bracket on that one since there's more space to fill there.

You'll see I have my 320 wedged in with foam and tinfoil (to dissipate static charge). Works great, I still have the same foam in there. Anything you can do to keep the drive in place will be fine, as long as you're not thermally insulating the drive. The SATA connector does a lot by itself in terms of drive stability, so it's just a matter of keeping it plugged into that. I chose to wedge some foam against it.

So, to reiterate, in the pic the 9mm bay is on the left, 12mm bay on the right. I recommend using the bracket in the 12mm bay and getting creative with the 9mm one.

I hope this clears things up!


EDIT: @Sonicjet: Aren't Velociraptor drives encased in a giant 2.5">>3.5" heatsink?

 

Sorry for the necropost but this would mean that the G51VX-RX05 (BB) would be the same then...?

Here comes the storage I really want instead of the 320G stock drive!
Thanks again...

 

Yes, should be the same config! One 12mm drive, one 9mm drive.

 

Currently have my SSD in the foam bay and found the HDD cage online, but probably won't buy it now as it will not fit the larger HDD format?

BTW, we know duct tape by another name; hundred mile an hour tape, because that's how quick it disappears!

Sorry about the brightness, but here's a pic from my CPU change (barely) showing the drives...

 

I think the caddy should only fit on one side of the drive so it'll hold it in place regardless of size, if that's what you're concerned about.

Haha, dt certainly has a lot of uses.

re your pic: is your SSD foamed in place in this? It looks like there's nothing holding it in other than the SATA connector itself.

 

Foam only under atm, should I buy another cage to secure it? aranoid:
I'd appreciate you input on this dtdood...?

Luckily, it has only left home twice since installing the SSD...
Regards,
Dave

 

Found a cradle in Europe for the SSD, hopefully it will arrive soon before I travel... If so, might pick up a 640G HDD to put into first slot...

 

I think if it doesn't wiggle it should be fine, but make sure it's not only the connector holding it in place-- if that breaks then you lose the whole hdd slot!

 

A velociraptor drive wouldn't work - it would generate too much heat without the fancy space fins on it ... and it wouldn't fit with them attached.

 

Good find! Although 750GB 9.5mm drives are already out now I think with 1TB just around the corner!!

 

No, a velociraptor drive wouldn't work because there's no 12V power rail in the SATA connector for this laptop afaik. It wouldn't spin up.

1TB 12mm drives are already out, so theoretically you could do 1.75TB. Or 1.5TB in RAID

 

This is great news..

This means we can use Industrial Class Seagate Constellation 2.5, 12mm drives in Asus G50/73 laptop!

I wanted to buy it but when I found out that its too tall for 2.5 I gave up.. but if you did fir 12 mm in then this one will too.

You may ask.. what are advantages?
Industrial class Constellation drive is a tad bit faster but mainly, lasts 10x longer.. (at least so says parameters on the Seagate site/box).

Of course, obtaining industrial HDD's is a different story but there are few places to get em..

-Mel

EDIT:

Link: http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/enterprise-ssd-hdd/constellation#tTabContentSpecifications

Just make sure you buy the SATA one.. not the SAS one for servers

 

can anyone confirm this for the G51VX-RX05?
because asus site says in the specifications Dual HDD 2.5' 9.5mm.
I wanna buy a 1TB 12.5mm and I need to know if its possible to plug it in on G51VX.

 

Chassis is the same.

 

Mobo is different, but there is a difference in height between the two HD connectors. So you'll likely be in the exact same situation.

 

The bay under the touchpad can handle 9.5mm drives. The bay under the palm rest can handle 12.5mm 3-platter drives. You can also get a cd-rom drive caddy thing that converts your optical drive bay to handle up to a 12.5mm thick drive as well. So right now You can have up to 3TB in it if you remove the optical drive. 2 1tb 12.5mm drives and 1 1tb 9.5mm drive. And 1.5TB 12.5mm drive are right around the corner
Any G50V , G50VT, G50VX and G51j share the same chassis.

 

I wish it were possible, but from the datasheet, it looks like the Constellation drives use the 12V line and most laptops don't supply 12V through ESATA.