Think the 160GB 1.8" iPod Drive can be crammed in an Air?

[jflamm]

3 mm thicker

If Apple had made the Air 3mm thicker it could have accommodated not only the 160 but the new 5400RPM 120G drives that are coming shortly and will be an option in the ThinkPad X300.

What again is the advantage of being the thinnest?

 

[vendettabass]

Doesnt the iPod 160GB have 2x the 1.8 drives used in the MBA?

 

[hotdamn]

What again is the advantage of being the thinnest?

is that a rhetorical question?
because if not, then yes, the advantage of being the thinnest is being the thinnest.
also, you can use the front ledge to shave. yay!

 

[krye]

It won't fit. The single platter 80G drive in the Air is 5 mm thick. The double platter 160 is 8 mm thick. It won't fit. You have to wait for the single platter 120 G drives to ship later this year. Sorry.

Source:
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/33706/135/

 

[sparkstack]

are you willing to void your $1800 laptop's warranty?

Last i checked removing the bottom of the case doesn't void the warranty, and unless the OP has claws for hands i highly doubt he will break anything in the process of unplugging the original HD and plugging in the ipod HD. IIRC the iPod HD is thicker than the MBA drive though, but i don't know if the thickness quoted for the MBA drive includes the rubber case that surrounds it.

If i had a 120Gb iPod drive i would probably try it..

 

[shrtmkr]

My 2 cents is on, apple engineers designed this machine especially for SSD drives. So we will only see the 80GB HDD for rev a.

 

[clarkcamp]

HS082HB is the biggest drive at 5mm according to the Samsung Site. The 100+ drives are all 8mm. This drive has an 8MB buffer though. Most of the others are 2MB.

Guess we'll have to wait until the shrink the disks or make cheaper flash drives.

The search is on for 5mm drives!

I've looked everywhere and no one has the 5mm drives in stock. Oh well, ill just have to wait until I can get one until my MBA is back. If anybody finds one instock, let me know please.

 

[Jackhamma]

lol... found one...

http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/18/mtron-announces-a-1-8-inch-128gb-ssd/

not really sure if I want to spend almost as much money on an SDD than I did for my MBA... thinkin' about it... X.X

 

[Abstract]

My 2 cents is on, apple engineers designed this machine especially for SSD drives. So we will only see the 80GB HDD for rev a.

Bingo.

The use of HDD drives was probably always meant to be a temporary situation for this particular machine. The MBA was really meant to be used with an SSD drive. Maybe this is why it's capable of using a HDD drive at all. Maybe Apple was thinking of making it even thinner, but purposely made the casing large enough to fit an HDD drive, as it's still a necessary evil today. However, once SSDs become cheaper and more commonplace, the machine design could be updated to make it even thinner.

There could be a few more millimetres for Apple to trim off in the future.

 

[Insulin Junkie]

If they do bump up the specs of the MBA and decide to feature a 160GB HD it'd bring me a lot closer to considering one to be my next computer. It's primarily the HD size that's been the deal breaker for me so far.

Then again by the time I've gotten good wear out of this computer they're probably going to have 160GB SSD's by then, which is even better.

 

[itou]

Sigh so much for that idea. My poor 160GB is now scratched and slightly battered for the sake of curiosity.

Samsung Spinpoint HS161JQ 4200RPM, 2MB Cache, CE-ATA Interface (needed to be PATA ZIF to fit the macbook air)

so it doesn't work?? i'm confused.

 

[wywern209]

wow.. thread resurrection. no it doesn't work.

 

[reallynotnick]

wow.. thread resurrection. no it doesn't work.

But would the new ones work now that they are the 'thin' models? I assume the HDD is slimmer.

 

[crx7]

Yes it works

Swapped my 80gb for a MK1634C:

XBench results:
Results 58.99
System Info
Xbench Version 1.3
System Version 10.6.4 (10F569)
Physical RAM 2048 MB
Model MacBookAir1,1
Drive Type TOSHIBA MK1634GAL TOSHIBA MK1634GAL
CPU Test 121.54
GCD Loop 201.49 10.62 Mops/sec
Floating Point Basic 101.21 2.40 Gflop/sec
vecLib FFT 82.92 2.74 Gflop/sec
Floating Point Library 166.47 28.99 Mops/sec
Thread Test 122.03
Computation 121.44 2.46 Mops/sec, 4 threads
Lock Contention 122.63 5.28 Mlocks/sec, 4 threads
Memory Test 130.88
System 118.75
Allocate 148.35 544.81 Kalloc/sec
Fill 101.85 4952.06 MB/sec
Copy 114.90 2373.28 MB/sec
Stream 145.76
Copy 136.73 2824.09 MB/sec
Scale 138.75 2866.61 MB/sec
Add 158.62 3379.04 MB/sec
Triad 151.12 3232.76 MB/sec
User Interface Test 122.05
Elements 122.05 560.16 refresh/sec
Disk Test 19.04
Sequential 74.08
Uncached Write 74.85 45.96 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 73.46 41.57 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 71.20 20.84 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 77.05 38.73 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 10.93
Uncached Write 3.23 0.34 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 44.10 14.12 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 48.41 0.34 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 76.97 14.28 MB/sec [256K blocks]

 

[halledise]

I know its really too early to know for sure but I wonder if the 160GB Drive from the iPod Classic 160 could possibly be crammed into the MacBook Air. I hope that apple didn't slim down too much and just left the 160GB out due to supply reasons. I'd be tempted to swap the drive with my 160GB iPod drive if I could make it fit and if the interface was the same on both. 80GB is just too little space.

why bother?

old technology.

if you're stuck for space go for a 128gb SSD - I believe a 'Runcore' is the brand of choice.

 

[crx7]

Because the RunCore is $400+

 

[ouimetnick]

That's absurd. Apple isn't going to cripple their current machines just so that they have room to grow. They're going to offer whatever is readily available (taking into account cost and supply factors) and assume (correctly) that technology will have improved by the time they're ready to release an update.

I know this thread is old. Someone brought it back to life. I just want to say something about the above post. BS. Applr could have stick a USB port, more RAM, and an iSight camera into iPad. They could have put a speaker in the iPod touch when it first launched. They could have put MMS and video recording in the iPhone back in 2007. They could have put a Core i3, i5, or i7 in the 13" MBP. They chose not too, so they could add it later.