So I'm looking for 2.5" drives larger than 1TB for use in game consoles, laptops and such. The height isn't a huge deal, I'm aware that 3TB ones will be too big to fit in most laptops but 2TB ones should be 11.5mm.
Ideally we'd have a chart or something, but here goes.
Based on what I've heard from others - when it comes to portable external drives:
Can anyone comment with model numbers of portable externals you've gotten and whether they use SATA or have the USB port soldered directly to the PCB? I'd love to find a 2TB (or larger, for other purposes besides a laptop) that isn't Seagate, due to my personal bad experiences with Seagate drives almost always dying prematurely.
As far as drives actually sold as internals without the fluff of being in an enclosure...
Ideally we'd have a chart or something, but here goes.
Based on what I've heard from others - when it comes to portable external drives:
- Seagate portable externals are standard SATA drives in enclosures
- WD is almost always NOT that, and hasn't been for years. Their earlier ones were, possibly as large as 2TB.
- Toshiba is a weird one - they started out being SATA drives with an adapter, but later went the WD route.
- HGST used to make them as well before the WD/Toshiba buyout stuff. No idea if those use an adapter or not but I don't think they ever made them above 1TB anyway.
Can anyone comment with model numbers of portable externals you've gotten and whether they use SATA or have the USB port soldered directly to the PCB? I'd love to find a 2TB (or larger, for other purposes besides a laptop) that isn't Seagate, due to my personal bad experiences with Seagate drives almost always dying prematurely.
As far as drives actually sold as internals without the fluff of being in an enclosure...
- WD has the 500GB and 1TB portable series (also some older ones including a 750GB I think got discontinued)
- Seagate has 1, 2, 3, 4TB models to go along with said externals
- HGST has 500GB and 1TB models
- Toshiba I'm not too sure about.