When are the 2TB Laptop Drives coming?

When will laptop storage reach single 2TB Drives?

 

The Samsung Spinpoint M9T is available.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...g-spin-point-2tb-9-5mm-2-5-inch-any-good.html
http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...-5mm-hard-drives-over-1tb-28.html#post9780384
http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...701142-2-5-9-5mm-hard-drives-over-1tb-22.html

 

Yes I have one of those Seagate 2TB external 2.5" drives that I liberated from its enclosure. It's really not hard, just have to pry the case off, remove some screws, sticky shielding tape and the connector. Also much cheaper than the bare drive, for some reason...

 

Yes, I noticed that too. Kinda odd, although the price disparity is a lot less than it was in the past. Matter of a few dollars now than tens of dollars before.

I had considered to buy one and open it and use it as an internal drive but was hesitant, because I've seen drives that had something other than a standard SATA connector that are in the external USB enclosures. I did buy an external one though, but use it as USB and nice to have a thin and light and cool running portable 2TB USB HDD.

 

Those are still SATA, however.

 

I'd be careful about cracking open some of those pre-built external hard drives. I've seen ones where the SATA connector was part of a integrated PCB that was part of the hard drive. I guess their presumption is they want you to pay more for an internal drive, then just buying an on-sale external and just ripping it apart.

 

Can you point us to the exact model you speak of? Thanks!

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Here is the one I've bought many of and never had any problems.

Amazon.com: Seagate Backup Plus Slim 2TB Portable External Hard Drive with Mobile Device Backup USB 3.0 (Black) STDR2000100: Computers & Accessories

However you can save a few bucks if you don't want the enclosure.

http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Momentus-SpinPoint-ST2000LM003-Notebook/dp/B00I8O6OQ4

 

Yeah I bought the STDR2000101, only difference is that it's silver. I paid $104.

 

No the point was that the 2.5" bare SATA drive was like $150 where the USB drive in the enclosure was like $100, and that was regular pricing not on sale.

 

Why can't the bare drives be configured on boutique builders' sites?

 

You would probably have to send them an email and ask them. Otherwise, you can purchase the bare drive and install it yourself.

 

There are at least four sources of these drives. I have posted my findings before:

That is a general concern with external 2.5" drives, but not with any that have an M9T in them.

 

Isn't the M9T the only 2TB 2.5" 9.5mm height drive available at the time of this posting?

Edit: Spoke too soon, there's also the Seagate STBD2000102, though Samsung's HDD business is owned by Seagate now.

 

I'm sure they are the same drive, with different labels.

I know for sure that the Samsung M3 portable 2TB and the Seagate Backup Plus Slim 2TB are the same drive in different cases. Both are made in China (in what I presume is the former Samsung HDD factory).

Some years ago Samsung produced a 3 platter 9.5mm thick drive in order to get the capacity one step more than the competitors and someone must have decided to reuse that technology.

John

 

Thanks for John Ratsey pointing out the Samsung M3 portable. That makes a total of 5 external drives I know of with the Samsung M9T inside of them. The M9T is available in 1.5TB and 2TB varieties. The 1.5TB version seems to be harder to find. The only difference between the drives is that the 1.5TB has 500GB of platter space disabled. If 1.5TB of storage is enough for you, you should probably just get the HGST (Hitachi) 5K1500 and not bother with the M9T.

1. Samsung P3 Portable 1.5TB or 2TB (smaller enclosure)
2. Samsung M3 Portable 1.5TB or 2TB (slightly larger enclosure)
3. Seagate Expansion Portable 2TB (slightly larger enclosure)
4. Seagate Backup Plus Slim 2TB (slightly smaller enclosure
5. Seagate Backup Plus Fast 4TB (2x 2TB drives)

These external drives really aren't meant to be opened. I have invariably broken some clips on mine, but they still hold together very firmly and work with any laptop SATA drive. In the case of the Seagate Backup Plus Fast, the enclosure features two drives that automatically puts them in RAID 0. If you want something super fast, you can put two HGST 7K1000 in there. All the single drive enclosures can run from the power of a single USB port. I don't know about the dual drive enclosure. It comes with a USB Y cable for extra power but I don't know if that is required or not.

That is correct, it is the only 2TB 2.5" 9.5mm drive. The 1.5TB M9T is one two 1.5TB 2.5" 9.5mm drives, the other being the Hitachi 5K1500.

 

Can the firmware be unlocked?

 

No idea. Here in China the 1.5TB version is about half the price of the 2TB version. About $60 for the bare 1.5TB drive vs $120 for the 2TB drive in an enclosure. It might be something worth looking into.

 

The Seagate Expansion Portable 2TB enclosure is extremely easy to open. I'm now running one internally and it's every bit as good as I'd hoped.

 

i configured a laptop on powernotebooks with 3x 1tb SDDs and 3x 2TB HDDs with an external BD burner. For a sweet 5 grand it was tempting it could very well handle multi booting and and all that power goes well with with a docking station and multi monitors. oh would be so nice if i could afford such things.

 

It's also possible that the platters in the lower capacity versions contain some defects which get mapped out during the manufacturing process.

Similar to Intel sorting its CPUs according to what works and what doesn't and then marketing them accordingly.

John

 

What's the warranty on the Seagate Backup Plus Slim 2TB?

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True, but it could also be like AMD CPUs during the Phenom II days - some indeed had defects, but core unlocking nonetheless meant that many people got a huge bargain.

 

2 years: Backup Plus Slim Portable Drive: Portable & External Storage Hard Drives | Seagate

Plus you can get a full replacement warranty from Amazon for $6.42 for two years.