Resolved 7mm vs 9.5mm hard drive

[kdog679]

Which size hard drive should I choose for my 2011 macbook pro? I'm looking at 2 crucial m4s right now, and one is 7mm while the other is 9.5mm. Same price. Are there any cons from choosing one or the other, such as use in an optibay? Thanks

 

[SDAVE]

Get the 7mm, or whichever is cheapest.

These are becoming the standard.

 

[snowman1]

If you plan to keep the SSD in the default hard drive area, either one will work. No special adapters are required for the 7mm drive. However, if you are putting the SSD in an optibay, the 7mm drive MIGHT require an adapter (I'm not sure about this, though, because I've never tried Optibay).

 

[PAPO]

I didn't know they made 7mm drives, I'd assume it'd be fine, but 9.5 will also be fine (it's what your current drive would be) so assuming they are both the same get the cheaper one like SDAVE said

 

[dusk007]

Even in an optibay it shouldn't matter.
If there are no screws to secure it in the optibay you just have to stuff something on top to make it sit tight. In any case it will just lie on the bottom, it definitely won'te need a fancy adapter just be a little loose.

Same prive it doesn't really matter. There might be some ultra thin notebooks that may only take 7mm in the future but I doubt it. Here is why.
9.5mm will still be standard for a long time because HDDs with two platters only fit in there and they are twice as big. SSDs will transition to 1.8" mSATA or blade style form factors in notebooks and in Desktop size doesn't matter.
7mm won't be more than a niche market for maybe 1-2 years and will then die out. If thinness is king they go for the blade SSD before taking a 7mm, since those are much smaller and cheap enough. If space of an HDD is needed people will want the 2 platter big drives and not those small 7mm drives.

 

[kdog679]

Thanks for all the advice guys! Will take it all into consideration when I purchase.

 

[ginkerbean]

not resolved yet for me!

I bought a 7.5mm Seagate hdd but it is not fitting correctly into the old space. am I missing something?

 

[robvas]

I bought a 7.5mm Seagate hdd but it is not fitting correctly into the old space. am I missing something?

You could stick a spacer (get creative) in there if you want. 7.5mm drives are made for thin laptops that won't hold a 9.5 drive. There are also even thicker 12.5mm drives but those are mostly externals.