They
said they were gonna do it, and now
apparently they have (or are at least really close to it): Fujitsu's gearing up for a Q3 launch of the first 200GB
2.5-inch drive, the MHV2200BT. We don't have any solid details on it (like whether it's the same 7200RPM 200GB drive
they were talking about before), but the Inq seems to think it'll take 1.6W of juice, have a 1.5ms seek time, and be
SATA with NCQ. You know what we think? That's an awful lot of storage for a laptop, and you couldn't get it to us fast
enough.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Josh @ Mar 28th 2006 11:14AM
That is so sweet...
John Laur @ Mar 28th 2006 11:15AM
I hope they produce a normal 44-pin IDE variant for those of us with older laptops, too. The upgrade market for these will be huge -- it's not often some aspect of computing sees a 250% increase (80GB to 200GB) in maximums inside of a year.
I constantly have to figure out what to shuttle around and/or delete from my laptop to keep some free space on my drive. I've held out from the 100GB drives on the promise of larger drives very soon, but I'd buy a 200GB drive in a heartbeat.
ptolomey @ Mar 28th 2006 11:16AM
1.5ms seek time?! is that a typo? My WD raptor is rated at 4.5 ms read, and my 15k rpm fujitsu is rated at 3.5ms seek time (read), how is a 7200 rpm laptop drive to get a 1.5ms seek time rating? Still, it is prety sweet, other than the fact that I see no reason to have so much storage on a laptop (if you backup files onto a laptop, you're asking for it).
Taylor @ Mar 28th 2006 11:30AM
This is gonna go right inside of my macbook :-D
Jordan @ Mar 28th 2006 11:40AM
Taylor: Hope that goes better for you than my friend's 12" PowerBook. It is a pain in the butt to replace the drive in that thing! I could not believe that you had to remove some of the F-keys to get the keyboard off!
Samuel McConnell @ Mar 28th 2006 11:40AM
Anyone know how easy it'd be to get inside of a MacBook to put one of these beauts in? I have the stock 80GB 5200RPM drive in there and it's just...small. Definately too small to dual-boot with Windows XP.
Santiago @ Mar 28th 2006 11:57AM
now for alienware to put two of these in their RAID notebooks. that will be the icing on the cake.
BobMac @ Mar 28th 2006 12:20PM
This is exactly what I need to replace my desktop with a notebook. I can't buy that MacBook Pro I want, because the drive is just too small.
Dan @ Mar 28th 2006 12:22PM
Replacing the hard drive on the 15" Aluminum Powerbook (nearly identical to the current 15" MacBook Pro) isn't that difficult, assuming you have the proper tools. I just did it a few weeks ago.
I recommend this tool kit from OWC -- http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer%20Technology/TOOLKIT/.
And follow the directions available here --
http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/54.0.0.html
djdole @ Mar 28th 2006 1:16PM
@Santiago
I'd agree, two of these in raid would be sweet for a notebook. But not from Alienware, they suck when it comes to reliability in their hardware.
And you may as well forget about it if they come out with a new version of the product you bought.
Alienware hardware may be fast, but it's crappy quality hardware.
Computers aren't supposed to be disposable (read, one use then unusable), and definately not if they cost as much as AW's pcs/laptops.
Personally, I'll never buy from AW again.
Zack @ Mar 28th 2006 2:18PM
The site says it's 4200RPM... Bleh! Also, it seems that no one out there knows what speed notebook drive run at. Everytime someone posts about their drive they come up with some random number, "I have a 4900RPM drive!" Standard notebook drive speeds are 4200RPM, 5400RPM, and 7200RPM. One last thing, if you're thinking about this new drive for your notebook, it's SATA, only the very very very newest notebooks are using this.
MacCrazy @ Mar 28th 2006 4:26PM
My PowerBook is eagerly anticipating this beauty! A 7200RPM drive and 200GB - lovely.
Michael Geary @ Mar 28th 2006 8:52PM
Guys, besides being SATA, this is a 12.5mm high drive. It's not going to fit in any recent laptop that takes 9.5mm drives.
(And MacCrazy, even though it won't fit in your PowerBook, it isn't as fast as you'd hoped either--it's 4200RPM.)
Alex @ Mar 28th 2006 11:23PM
I agree that 1.5ms response seems a bit too fast. Even the new Raptor 150GBs aren't that fast.
Dave @ Mar 29th 2006 4:22PM
Will this fit in my iPod? :)
wim @ Oct 9th 2006 8:37AM
I want this in my macmini!