why don't they make 5.25" hard drives?

[draggoon01]

have a reason ever been stated why there needs to be 2 drive sizes? at 5.25", hard drives would probably double in current sizes

or conversely, since smaller is preferred by most, why don't they make all drives 3.5", although it may be too late for that because of proliferation of cd's and dvd's

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

Why should a hard drive occupy a 5.25" bay? Is there a need?

 

[sharkeeper]

why don't they make 5.25" hard drives?

Because we don't get enough snow. (to strap them on our feet! )

Seriously, search for Quantum Bigfoot and Packard Bell.

Cheers!

 

[Accord99]

Difficult to make a 5.25" HD spin fast. Most HDs >7200 rpm already only have 2.5" platters

 

[ravedave]

I'm going to go with accord, its because the difference in rotation speed from the center to the outside.

Heh I had a bigfoot 8GB 4500RPm.. damn it was slow.. I coulda gotten a 4GB 5700, shoulda gone that route.

I think what they really need to do is introdce 2 readwrite heads, located opposite of each other.

 

[draggoon01]

Originally posted by: ravedave
I'm going to go with accord, its because the difference in rotation speed from the center to the outside.

Heh I had a bigfoot 8GB 4500RPm.. damn it was slow.. I coulda gotten a 4GB 5700, shoulda gone that route.

I think what they really need to do is introdce 2 readwrite heads, located opposite of each other.

or use the 2 platters to make internal raid...

 

[Viper96720]

Speed imagine how much slower reading from the inner to outer tracks would be.

 

[oldfart]

I have an awesome 5 1/4" Quantum Bigfoot 1.2 Gig 3600 rpm drive if you need one!

 

[JustAnAverageGuy]

Why don't they make all drives 3.5 ? Because CDs are bigger than that.

 

[Kazi]

Why waste a 5 1/4 on a HD when you could put another DVDRW in there... or inner cooling resovour (sp)?

EDIT: Not really, they make burnable 3.5 disks.. or something similar hehe (Mini Disks)

 

[sharkeeper]

I have an awesome 5 1/4" Quantum Bigfoot 1.2 Gig 3600 rpm drive if you need one!

They fit in the channel of clay pigeon throwers you know!

Cheers!

 

[TRUMPHENT]

5.25" hard drives were popular once. I have two, a 4.3GB and a 19.2GB. Compaq put a gazillion or so into their consumer grade computers. TigerDirect sold servers with BigFoot drives hooked up to a raid card. That says something, just not sure what.

My 19.2GB is used for ghosting OS's. I would store it in my Lian Li case but the front bezel doesn't fit with it. It sits patiently on my closet shelf until I need it. It was blazing fast when I got it. Now, it is my emergency backup hard drive of last resort.

Today, they make great paperweights and conversation pieces. You could develop your own style of martial art and use the BigFoot as a defensive/offensive weapon. I got a special, onetime employee deal on my 19.2GB, for $125. It was akin to theft at the time. The original mfr suggested retail was $399. It has outlasted almost all my other hardware.

 

[LordOfAll]

Because on one hand there is a need for speed (smaller sized HD) and on the other hand you need optical capacity. even blue laser dvd format is less than 20 gig.

 

[Maetryx]

I have a 1280MB SCSI hard drive that is 5.25" FH (full height, takes TWO 5.25" bays). I got it in 1993 or so. It still works.

 

[sharkeeper]

I have a 1280MB SCSI hard drive that is 5.25" FH (full height, takes TWO 5.25" bays). I got it in 1993 or so. It still works.

Elite 47's here in external enclosures used for log files. These drives are huge. Dropping one on an unprotected toe is quite unwise...

Cheers!

 

[McCarthy]

Wait a sec guys....maybe I'm missing something really basic about physics, but...

If you have a bigger drive you have bigger platters. The relative speed increases as you go outward, which is why we see drives having their highest transfer rate on the outer tracks. Assuming you had the same hub size a larger platter would give an even bigger different from inner to outer tracks, but the outer tracks on a 5.25" drive even at a low rotation speed (say 5000 rpm range) would be better than that of 3.5" drives at 7200rpm. With some smart partitioning utility that allowed you to set the outer tracks as C: System and inner as D: MP3&PR0N a low rpm 5.25" drive could achieve both high transfer rates and, assuming same platter density, huge capacity. Or same capacity with fewer platters, which have to be more expensive to manufacture than the cast aluminum case that makes up the HD body.

Seek times wouldn't benefit though, so while you could have a low rpm/high transfer rate drive it's seeks would be poor. In the end that, along with consumer expectation of 3.5" HDs because of their universal installation ability regardless of case would seem to me to be the primary factors. Transfer rate wouldn't, again, unless I'm missing something.

 

[Sid59]

current hdds aren't getting bigger in physical size, the platters are getting denser.

 

[stevewm]

Originally posted by: ravedave
I'm going to go with accord, its because the difference in rotation speed from the center to the outside.

Heh I had a bigfoot 8GB 4500RPm.. damn it was slow.. I coulda gotten a 4GB 5700, shoulda gone that route.

I think what they really need to do is introdce 2 readwrite heads, located opposite of each other.

Adding another read/write head assembly to a hardrive would increase the complexity and cost of that hardrive 10 fold. No to mention it would just introduce another point of failure. It would be a engineering nightmare to design such a drive....

 

[tenoc]

Also factor in that the mass of the disk increases 140% along with the area.

Harder to speed up and slow down, harder to make the disk.

The trend is to smaller and more efficient, not larger and harder to control. (Except for SUVs and such, of course.)

 

[MDE]

The seek times (inner to outer tracks) would be horrible on a 5.25" drive.