Connect 3.5" SATA HDD to Laptop directly over SATA into bay (not Firewire and USB)
 

Hi there

The connectors on the Laptops are the same SATA than the 3.5" drives.
Lovely, no more custom adaptors or such.

So what I want to do is connect a full Desktop HD, 3.5" to the port in the laptop that usualy runs the internal 2.5" SATA drive.
This should give a gigantic performance boost (2.5" drives run at 5000 rpms, the bigger ones at 7500 rpms) and capacity (2.5" high capacity drives cost a lot of money)

The problem is, that I will still need kind of a "sled" that lets me guide the cable into the HDD bay and possibly an inverter. I have searched and searched, but found this nowhere. Everywhere you look, people try to peddle you the USB and Firewire version of this. I do have such an adapter, but am sick and tired of the very slow speed of USB. It bottlenecks SATA down to a crawl. (I intend to use it with a brand new 1TB disk)

The power is no problem, I have an external power adaptor for the disk, because the laptop probably won't supply enough for a full 3.5" disk.

Thanks for any pointers

Markus

My hunch is that noone is going to sell HW to do this---it is not exactly a mainstream problem.

Can you first hook up the drive and confirm that it works? If you get past this step, then the physical modifications will be relatively straightforward.

I would not assume that the laptop cannot power the 3.5 drive---but you can check the specs.

Is the 3.5 drive going to be as rugged as a laptop drive? People no routinely carry their (running) laptops around. Conventional wisdom says don't move a desktop with the drives running.

According to my info, the specs are identical, SATA is the same on the laptop and on the desktop. Connecting the mobile 2.5" drive to my desktop has confirmed this assumption.

This modification is of course not for a laptop that you can move around. I will use it for gaming and R&D to see if it is a way to bypass the speed and capacity limits of 2.5" drives. HDD are the big bottlenecks, limiting performance on every computer even in their fastest incarnations. Moving parts are just so last century in a computer that is powered by light speed fast electrons.

I guess I take another approach than most people: I do go for maximum performance, not for look and feel. People love laptops and flatscreens because they look so neat and because they are so compact, not caring the they get total pig performance compared to a full size systems.
(Desktop systems can be easily customized, getting exactly what you need, components exchanged (standardisation) bought at extreme cheap price and even overclocked in a way that is extremely cost efficient and performance focused.

But definitely exciting that SATA has become the standard and the the old ATA system which needed two standards for the same (laptop/desktop) has been eliminated. Usually we get more "standards", not less. ;-)

Markus

These drives are not 1 TB but they are not outrageously priced either. I don't think anyone is making a 1TB drive in 2.5" format yet..


WD Scorpio Black 320GB HD-SATA 7200RPM 2.5LP FF 5-Year
http://www.provantage.com/western-di...t~7WND9022.htm

WD Scorpio Black 250GB HD-SATA 7200RPM 2.5LP FF 5-Year
http://www.provantage.com/western-di...t~7WND9024.htm

Seagate Momentus 7200.2 200GB SATA/300 7200 RPM 2.5 inch 16MB with G-Force
http://www.provantage.com/seagate-st...g~7SEGH02A.htm


If the drive is hanging out the side of hte laptop it's not very portable.. sound's lie you need a nice desktop system to hold the storage you are looking for imho.


are you looking for something like this ? Sata male to Female cable..
http://www.cpustuff.com/22-pin-male-...F36-p-342.html

Well, the 2.5" drives with 7200 rpms cost roughly double as much for the same amount of storage than the 3.5" equivalent. That is why I am driving at, kind of crazy to pay double as much for something you can get half price ;-)

But no, I am not looking for another desktop, I got plenty standing around and desktops are just not mobile at all. Desktops weight a ton (ever lugged one?), need a keyboard, a mouse, a monitor (there is no end to the stuff you need carry with you to make it go)

A laptop, even with the HD hanging out is transported easily, includes the above and plugging in the HD is done in 10 seconds.

Well, I will test the thing, see if you get more performance out of it than the 2.5" counterpart. I currently got a 2.5" 5000 rpm disk sticking in the laptop, should be interesting to measure the difference.

I will report back, when I know more...

The only issue that I got is that I cannot use a standard SATA cable, since I need a male - female one. Anyone know where I can get a SATA genderchanger converter?

Markus

yes the last link in my post... it's a combined SATA power and data cable with the same spacing as on the drives..

sorry, did not see the link. Thanks for the pointers.

Markus

Same Problem
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by browny_amiga (Post 3318719) ... The only issue that I got is that I cannot use a standard SATA cable, since I need a male - female one. Anyone know where I can get a SATA genderchanger converter? Markus

I know this thread is quite old but Im going to post since i saw browny_amiga is still active :)
I have the same problem as browny_amiga. I have a USB to SATA/IDE converter but the transfer rates are capped at 15 MB/s which is quite unsatisfactory. I also got a 2TB SATA Hard disk as a backup drive but transferring huge files is a pain with USB. I realized that I need a male SATA connector for the Laptop side. But all the cables have female-female ends :(

So browny_amiga, have you found a SATA male-female adapter..
The only solution I've come up with is using an old drive's connectors.. But unfortunately i only have my working DVD writer and without a hot-gun I don't trust my soldering abilities at that scale :D

Thanks

oops ... sorry I didn't see your link. Thanks alot.

A few things to think about. If your laptop have a eSata port, you can hook your 3.5" drive directly to the laptop (no USB/firewire needed), if it doesn't have such port you might want to see if it have USB 3.0 or firewire (800 would be better if available) since those connectors are faster than the normal USB 2.0, also consider using a SSD as primary drive and your 3.5" as backup drive. SSD's are incredibly fast (no moving parts).

any updates?
 

i had this idea couple nights ago, my laptop sits up out of the way (doesn't really get moved) external keyboard mouse tv (monitor)
so basically a desktop set up
and was wondering how this set up went?

cheers

With USB 3.0 and eSATA nowadays this approach isn't necessary any more.

Don't have either of them lol

And of corse power supply could be a problem but could use dc ups

Cheers

If you have one or more slots for ExpressCards you can easily install an add-on card for either eSATA or USB 3.0, they are pretty cheap and IMHO a magnitude's better solution than some hardware hacks.

Thanks, i completely forgot about the expansion card lol
i have ExpressCard 54, guick look on ebay and can get 2x USB 3.0 for under $10

cheers

Theoretically!
I would not jump to conclusions yet. Often, things don't deliver all that they promise. In the case of USB for example, USB 2 is terrible when it comes to reliability. I did backups like 3 years ago to Terabyte Drives connected over USB 2.0 and although the speed was terrible, there was another problem: USB kept disconnecting when transfering about a terabyte over it, sometimes it worked, but sometimes during the transfer, at 600 or 800 gb, it just disconnected and the whole backup went to hell. Needless to say, it always happened when I was gone and when I came back, the waiting for all for nothing.

Whenever people rely a lot on external USB drives, and expect them to perform flawlessly (as you initially would), I flinch.

eSata is by the way exactly the same as SATA, just a slightly different connector (for external)
And if USB 3.0 stands up to heavy use (transfering lots and lots of data over it), only heavy use will show ;-)

I'm cautious at that point.
Also, the transfer rates that USB (any version) states in the specs are not guaranteed, especially not constantly. That is why for example digital camcorders could never be used over USB 2.0, but only over firewire.

Of course with SDcards and fully digital video (no more streaming from MiniDV tapes) this point has become moot.