Does anyone know . . .

[corkyg]

If there are any current laptops that have a modular bay that will accept a second IDE hard drive? Cost is not a factor. But it should have at least a 15-in display and a fast mobile or Centrino CPU.

 

[RonS]

Many Thinkpads have this option. The Ultra-bay design allows you to swap out battery, floppy, CD-ROM/DVD, or extra hard drive interchangeably. The 'A' series had two of these bays, so you could have up to three hard drives, plus two more in the dock if you wanted.

 

[sciencewhiz]

You can get adapters for the Thinkpad T40 and R50. The R50 has the 15" screen you want.

 

[thuned]

Most dells have a modular bay. And the centrino ones are D800 and I8600 I think.

 

[corkyg]

Thanks! These are all good inputs that merit further research. Most of the modular bays I see, however, swap out the CD/DVD drive. That won't cut it. That has to be there for booting when cloning drives independent of the OS.

The Thinkpad looks OK. Both the Gateway 450 and 600 series have the optional 2nd HDD/battery/floppy module.

 

[dnuggett]

Sager also offers models.

 

[jschuk]

Toshiba Satellite 5205 series allow you to have an internal HDD, one fixed optical drive, and another bay for a 2nd HDD, battery, optical drive, TV tuner, or card reader. I believe the same holds true for the Satellite P25 series (nevermind on the P25, doesn't fit your mobile or Centrino requirements).

 

[Frightcrawler]

i remember when dell used to have two modular bays on their inspirons. i still dont understand what happened. it was great when they had two bays.

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: Frightcrawler
i remember when dell used to have two modular bays on their inspirons. i still dont understand what happened. it was great when they had two bays.

I know what you mean. I liked it better with two bays. They removed them to save on weight I guess.