List of disk drive form factors

Last updated

Since the invention of the floppy disk drive, various standardized form factors have been used in computing systems. Standardized form factors and interface allow a variety of peripherals and upgrades thereto with no impact to the physical size of a computer system. Drives may slot into a drive bay of the corresponding size.

Contents

Compared to flash drives in same form factor, maximum rotating disk drive capacity is much smaller,[ citation needed ] with 100 TB available in 2018, [1] and 32 TB for 2.5-inch. [2]

The disk drive size, such as 3.5-inch, is usually refers to the diameter of the disk platters.

List

Past and present HDD form factors
Form factor
(inch)
StatusDimensions
(Dimension in inches unless otherwise noted)
Largest capacityPlatters (max.)Capacity
per platter (GB)
LengthWidthHeight
3.5Current5.754.018.28mm, [3] 26.11 mm [4] or 19.99 mm [5] 32  TB (January 2024) [6] [7] 11 [8] (October 2024) [9] 3,200
2.5Current4.02.755, [10] 7, 9.5, [a] 12.5, 15 or 19 [11]
(all mm)
6 TB [12] [13] [14] [15] (May 2024)6 [16] 1,000
1.8Obsolete78.5 mm, [b] 71 mm [c] 54 mm5 mm [17] or 8 mm320 GB [18] (2009)2220 [19]
1.3Obsolete50.8 mm, [20] 43 mm [21] 36.5 mm [20] 10.5 mm, [20] 5.3 mm [22] 40 GB [23] [24] [25] (2007)140
1 (CFII/ZIF/IDE-Flex, "Microdrive")Obsolete42.8 mm36.4 mm5 mm12 GB [26] (2006)112
0.85Obsolete32 mm24 mm5 mm8 GB [27] [28] (2004)18
5.25 (HH)Obsolete8.05.751.62519.3 GB [29] (1998)4 [d] 4.83
5.25 (FH)Obsolete8.05.753.2547  GB [30] (1998)143.36
8Obsolete14.59.54.6252.0 GB (1989) [31] [32] Unknown
(at least 12)
Unknown
(at least 0.16)
8-, 5.25-, 3.5-, 2.5-, 1.8- and 1-inch HDDs, together with a ruler to show the length of platters and read-write heads SixHardDriveFormFactors.jpg
8-, 5.25-, 3.5-, 2.5-, 1.8- and 1-inch HDDs, together with a ruler to show the length of platters and read-write heads
A newer 2.5-inch (63.5 mm) 6,495 MB HDD compared to an older 5.25-inch full-height 110 MB HDD 5.25 inch MFM hard disk drive.JPG
A newer 2.5-inch (63.5 mm) 6,495 MB HDD compared to an older 5.25-inch full-height 110 MB HDD

IBM's first hard drive, the IBM 350, used a stack of fifty 24-inch platters and was of a size comparable to two large refrigerators. In 1962, IBM introduced its model 1311 disk, which used six 14-inch (nominal size) platters in a removable pack and was roughly the size of a washing machine. This became a standard platter size and drive form-factor for many years, used also by other manufacturers. The IBM 2314 used platters of the same size in an eleven-high pack and introduced the "drive in a drawer" layout, although the "drawer" was not the complete drive.

Later drives were designed to fit entirely into a chassis that would mount in a 19-inch rack. Digital's RK05 and RL01 were early examples using single 14-inch platters in removable packs, the entire drive fitting in a 10.5-inch-high rack space (six rack units). In the mid-to-late 1980s the similarly sized Fujitsu Eagle, which used (coincidentally) 10.5-inch platters, was a popular product.

Such large platters were never used with microprocessor-based systems.[ citation needed ] With increasing sales of microcomputers having built in floppy-disk drives (FDDs), HDDs that would fit to the FDD mountings became desirable. Thus HDD Form factors, initially followed those of 8-inch, 5.25-inch, and 3.5-inch floppy disk drives. Because there were no smaller floppy disk drives, smaller HDD form factors developed from product offerings or industry standards.

8-inch

9.5 in × 4.624 in × 14.25 in (241.3 mm × 117.5 mm × 362 mm). In 1979, Shugart Associates' SA1000 was the first form factor compatible HDD, having the same dimensions and a compatible interface to the 8" FDD.


5.25-inch

5.75 in × 3.25 in × 8 in (146.1 mm × 82.55 mm × 203 mm). This smaller form factor, first used in an HDD by Seagate in 1980, was the same size as full-height 5+14-inch-diameter (130 mm) FDD, 3.25-inches high. This is twice as high as "half height"; i.e., 1.63 in (41.4 mm). Most desktop models of drives for optical 120 mm disks (DVD, CD) use the half height 5¼" dimension, but it fell out of fashion for HDDs. The format was standardized as EIA-741 and co-published as SFF-8501 for disk drives, with other SFF-85xx series standards covering related 5.25 inch devices (optical drives, etc.) [33] The Quantum Bigfoot HDD was the last to use it in the late 1990s, with "low-profile" (≈25 mm) and "ultra-low-profile" (≈20 mm) high versions.


3.5-inch

4 in × 1 in × 5.75 in (101.6 mm × 25.4 mm × 146 mm) = 376.77344 cm³. This smaller form factor is similar to that used in an HDD by Rodime in 1983, which was the same size as the "half height" 3½" FDD, i.e., 1.63 inches high. Today, the 1-inch high ("1/3 height," "slimline," or "low-profile") version of this form factor is the most popular form used in most desktops. The format was standardized in terms of dimensions and positions of mounting holes as EIA/ECA-740, co-published as SFF-8301. [34] SFF-8301 includes drive heights of 17.80, 26.10, and 42.00mm, but as of 2025, no drives are produced in 42mm height. Drives with heights not mentioned in SFF-8301 are manufactured, e.g. Seagate 19.99-mm-high drives [5] and a Samsung low-profile single-disc drive with a height of 18.288 millimetres (0.72 in). [3]

2.5-inch

2.75 in × 0.197–0.75 in × 3.945 in (69.85 mm × 5–19 mm × 100 mm) = 34.925–132.715 cm3. This smaller form factor was introduced by PrairieTek in 1988; there is no corresponding FDD. The 2.5-inch drive format is standardized in the EIA/ECA-720 co-published as SFF-8201; when used with specific connectors, more detailed specifications are SFF-8212 for the 50-pin (ATA laptop) connector, SFF-8223 with the SATA, or SAS connector and SFF-8222 with the SCA-2 connector. [35]

It came to be widely used for HDDs in mobile devices (laptops, music players, etc.) and for solid-state drives (SSDs), by 2008 replacing some 3.5 inch enterprise-class drives. It is also used in the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 [36] video game consoles.

Drives 9.5 mm high became an unofficial standard for all except the largest-capacity laptop drives (usually having two platters inside); 12.5 mm-high drives, typically with three platters, are used for maximum capacity, but will not fit most laptop computers. Enterprise-class drives can have a height up to 15 mm. Seagate released a 7 mm drive aimed at entry level laptops and high end netbooks in December 2009. Western Digital released on April 23, 2013 a hard drive 5 mm in height specifically aimed at Ultrabooks. [37]

Toshiba MK1216GSG 1.8" 120 GB hard disk drive with Micro SATA Micro SATA pin-out on Toshiba MK1216GSG 20131114.png
Toshiba MK1216GSG 1.8" 120 GB hard disk drive with Micro SATA


1.8-inch

54 mm × 8 mm × 78.5 mm [b] = 33.912 cm³. This form factor, originally introduced by Intégral Peripherals in 1991, evolved into the ATA-7 ZIF with dimensions as stated but with a total length of 71mm. Later, the micro-SATA interface made the total length 78.5mm.

1.8-inch drives with ZIF connectors were used in digital audio players, such as the iPod Classic, and subnotebooks. Later 1.8-inch drives were updated with a micro-SATA connector and up to 320GB of storage (Toshiba MK3233GSG). The 1.8-inch form factor was eventually phased out as SSDs became cheaper and more compact. [38] There was an attempt to standardize this format as SFF-8123, but it was cancelled in 2005. [39] SATA revision 2.6 standardized the internal Micro SATA connector and device dimensions.


1.3-inch

51 mm × 43.8 mm × 10.5 mm. This form factor was used by HP C3013A, C3013B and C3014A, named HP Kittyhawk microdrive, introduced in June 1992.


1-inch

42.8 mm × 5 mm × 36.4 mm. This form factor was introduced in 1999, as IBM's Microdrive to fit inside a CF Type II slot. Samsung calls the same form factor "1.3 inch" drive in its product literature.

Toshiba MK4001MTD 0.85" 4 GB drive Toshiba microdrive.jpg
Toshiba MK4001MTD 0.85" 4 GB drive


0.85-inch

24 mm × 5 mm × 32 mm. Toshiba announced this form factor in January 2004 for use in mobile phones and similar applications, including SD/MMC slot compatible HDDs optimized for video storage on 4G handsets. Toshiba manufactured a 4 GB (MK4001MTD) and an 8 GB (MK8003MTD) version and holds the Guinness World Record for the smallest HDD.


Modern Usage

As of 2023, 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch hard disks are the most popular sizes.

By 2009, all manufacturers had discontinued the development of new products for the 1.3-inch, 1-inch and 0.85-inch form factors due to falling prices of flash memory, which has no moving parts.[ citation needed ]

While these sizes are customarily described by an approximately correct figure in inches, actual sizes have long been specified in millimeters. The older 3.5-inch form factor uses UNC threads, while 2.5-inch drives use metric M3 threads.

Notes

  1. Most common
  2. 1 2 This dimension includes a 0.5 mm protrusion of the Micro SATA connector from the device body.
  3. Measured on Toshiba MK1011GAH
  4. The Quantum Bigfoot TS used a maximum of three platters, other earlier and lower capacity product used up to four platters in a 5.25-inch HH form factor, e.g., Microscience HH1090 circa 1989.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hard disk drive</span> Electro-mechanical data storage device

A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with magnetic material. The platters are paired with magnetic heads, usually arranged on a moving actuator arm, which read and write data to the platter surfaces. Data is accessed in a random-access manner, meaning that individual blocks of data can be stored and retrieved in any order. HDDs are a type of non-volatile storage, retaining stored data when powered off. Modern HDDs are typically in the form of a small rectangular box.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">SATA</span> Computer bus interface for storage devices

SATA is a computer bus interface that connects host bus adapters to mass storage devices such as hard disk drives, optical drives, and solid-state drives. Serial ATA succeeded the earlier Parallel ATA (PATA) standard to become the predominant interface for storage devices.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Western Digital</span> American digital storage corporation

Western Digital Corporation is an American data storage company headquartered in San Jose, California. It has a decades-long history in the electronics industry as an integrated circuit and data memory technology developer. It is one of the world's largest computer hard disk drive (HDD) manufacturers, along with producing solid-state drives (SSDs) and flash memory devices.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CompactFlash</span> Memory card format

CompactFlash (CF) is a flash memory mass storage device used mainly in portable electronic devices. The format was specified and the devices were first manufactured by SanDisk in 1994.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Seagate Technology</span> American data storage company

Seagate Technology Holdings plc is an American data storage company. It was incorporated in 1978 as Shugart Technology and commenced business in 1979. Since 2010, the company has been incorporated in Dublin, Ireland, with operational headquarters in Fremont, California, United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology</span> Monitoring system in computer drives

Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology is a monitoring system included in computer hard disk drives (HDDs) and solid-state drives (SSDs). Its primary function is to detect and report various indicators of drive reliability, or how long a drive can function while anticipating imminent hardware failures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Disk enclosure</span> Specialized casing

A disk enclosure is a specialized casing designed to hold and power hard disk drives or solid state drives while providing a mechanism to allow them to communicate to one or more separate computers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Drive bay</span> Standard-sized area for adding drives or other hardware to a computer

A drive bay is a standard-sized area for adding hardware to a computer. Most drive bays are fixed to the inside of a case, but some can be removed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Western Digital Raptor</span>

The Western Digital Raptor is a discontinued series of high performance hard disk drives produced by Western Digital first marketed in 2003. The drive occupied a niche in the enthusiast, workstation and small-server market. Traditionally, the majority of servers used hard drives featuring a SCSI interface because of their advantages in both performance and reliability over consumer-level ATA drives.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Microdrive</span> One-inch hard disk format by IBM and Hitachi

The Microdrive was a miniature, 1-inch hard disk drive released in 1998 by IBM. The idea was originally created in 1992 by duo Timothy J. Riley and Thomas R. Albrecht at the Almaden Research Center in San Jose. A team of engineers and designers at IBM's Fujisawa, Japan facility helped make the creation of the drive possible.

Perpendicular recording, also known as conventional magnetic recording (CMR), is a technology for data recording on magnetic media, particularly hard disks. It was first proven advantageous in 1976 by Shun-ichi Iwasaki, then professor of the Tohoku University in Japan, and first commercially implemented in 2005. The first industry-standard demonstration showing unprecedented advantage of PMR over longitudinal magnetic recording (LMR) at nanoscale dimensions was made in 1998 at IBM Almaden Research Center in collaboration with researchers of Data Storage Systems Center (DSSC) – a National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering Research Center (ERCs) at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU).

A hybrid drive is a logical or physical computer storage device that combines a faster storage medium such as solid-state drive (SSD) with a higher-capacity hard disk drive (HDD). The intent is adding some of the speed of SSDs to the cost-effective storage capacity of traditional HDDs. The purpose of the SSD in a hybrid drive is to act as a cache for the data stored on the HDD, improving the overall performance by keeping copies of the most frequently used data on the faster SSD drive.

Heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) is a magnetic storage technology for greatly increasing the amount of data that can be stored on a magnetic device such as a hard disk drive by temporarily heating the disk material during writing, which makes it much more receptive to magnetic effects and allows writing to much smaller regions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">HGST</span> Computer storage device manufacturer

HGST, Inc. was a manufacturer of hard disk drives, solid-state drives, and external storage products and services.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Travelstar</span> Brand of hard disk drive

Travelstar was a brand of 2.5-inch hard disk drive (HDD) that was introduced by IBM in 1994 with the announcement of the Travelstar LP. At 12.5 mm high with two platters, they were available in 360, 540 and 720 MB capacities. Initial models were industry-leading for small form factor HDDs in terms of areal density, data transfer rates and shock tolerance (500g).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of hard disk drives</span>

In 1953, IBM recognized the immediate application for what it termed a "Random Access File" having high capacity and rapid random access at a relatively low cost. After considering technologies such as wire matrices, rod arrays, drums, drum arrays, etc., the engineers at IBM's San Jose California laboratory invented the hard disk drive. The disk drive created a new level in the computer data hierarchy, then termed Random Access Storage but today known as secondary storage, less expensive and slower than main memory but faster and more expensive than tape drives.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Solid-state drive</span> Computer storage device with no moving parts

A solid-state drive (SSD) is a type of solid-state storage device that uses integrated circuits to store data persistently. It is sometimes called semiconductor storage device, solid-state device, or solid-state disk.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Seagate Barracuda</span> Series of hard disk drives produced by Seagate Technology

The Seagate Barracuda is a series of hard disk drives and later solid state drives produced by Seagate Technology that was first introduced in 1993.

NVM Express (NVMe) or Non-Volatile Memory Host Controller Interface Specification (NVMHCIS) is an open, logical-device interface specification for accessing a computer's non-volatile storage media usually attached via the PCI Express bus. The initial NVM stands for non-volatile memory, which is often NAND flash memory that comes in several physical form factors, including solid-state drives (SSDs), PCIe add-in cards, and M.2 cards, the successor to mSATA cards. NVM Express, as a logical-device interface, has been designed to capitalize on the low latency and internal parallelism of solid-state storage devices.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">SATA Express</span> Computer device interface

SATA Express is a computer bus interface that supports both Serial ATA (SATA) and PCI Express (PCIe) storage devices, initially standardized in the SATA 3.2 specification. The SATA Express connector used on the host side is backward compatible with the standard SATA data connector, while it also provides two PCI Express lanes as a pure PCI Express connection to the storage device.

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