Putting two physical hard drives in a single 2.5" bay?

Posted by dgw on Super User See other posts from Super User or by dgw
Published on 2012-11-28T08:43:24Z Indexed on 2012/11/28 11:06 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 153

Filed under:

hard-drive

|

raid

|

raid-1

My crazy brain came up with this ridiculous idea. "Why can't I have a single 2.5" drive device that actually contains two independent hard drives? I want RAID 1 data mirroring and the security of having redundant drives. This is a thing that must exist!"

To be clear, I am not asking if I can somehow shoehorn two 2.5" drives into a single bay, replace an optical drive with an additional HDD, or anything like that. What I have in mind is a single 2.5"-form-factor device that houses two independent hard drives, with separate housings (likely) and distinct controllers. Probably all they'd need to share is the power & SATA connections.

Probably no such thing exists, but because I know there exist hard drives the physical size of a stack of postage stamps (roughly), I have to ask.

© Super User or respective owner

Related posts about hard-drive

Move smaller hard drive to partition on a larger hard drive

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
My parents bought a new hard drive for a laptop that I've owned for several years. It's much larger than the current one, so I plan on splitting it up to dual boot it with Ubuntu. I have no problem with partitioning a drive (I always keep a LiveCD handy), but my question is this: how can I go about… >>> More
Using an ATA-100 Hard Drive with a Thermaltake BlacX External Hard Drive Dock

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
Is it possible for a Thermaltake BlacX HDD Dock to connect to and recognize an ATA-100 Hard Drive? I know that the specifications for the BlacX say that it only supports SATA & SATAII, but I was hoping for one of three things: 1) for it to still work even though it isn't supported 2) for there… >>> More
Copy the contents of one hard drive partition to anohter hard drive partition

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I have made a C++ program which can copy the whole hardrive partition to another hardrive partition, but now I am looking forward for the program which can only copy the contents of one hardrive partiton to another hardrive partition. >>> More
backup hard drive image on external hard drive for Windows 7

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
Hello, I am looking for a backup tool for Windows 7, that will allow me to backup my laptop’s hard drive on an external hard drive as an exact image. In a case of a problem with the main hard drive, I would like just to swap the drives and to continue to work using the backup hard drive. Thanks >>> More
Copy the contents of one hard drive partition to anohter hard drive partition

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I have made a C++ program which can copy the whole hardrive partition to another hardrive partition, but now I am looking forward for the program which can only copy the contents of one hardrive partiton to another hardrive partition. >>> More

Related posts about raid

Booting from integrated RAID controller when another RAID controller is installed in a PCIe slot

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I have a GA MA785GT UD3H motherboard with Windows Server 2008 R2 installed on a RAID1 using the on-board RAID controller. I have now installed a RocketRaid 2680 controller and set up a RAID5 for all my data to be stored on. Unfortunately I now cannot boot from the RAID1 anymore, the PC is trying… >>> More
Onboard RAID vs Software RAID

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
My motherboard, an Asus M4a79t Deluxe, advertises RAID 0/1/5 capabilities. My limited understanding is that onboard RAID is better than software RAID. Is this necessarily true? Is an onboard RAID controller closer in performance to a software controller or a dedicated hardware controller? >>> More
RAID-1 and regular drive removal (using RAID-1 as a backup measure)

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
Is using mdadm's RAID-1 of 2 partitions (one on laptop's internal HDD, one on external HDD) a good idea. I want the system to work as RAID-1 if both drives are present, work as regular volume (degradad RAID-1) if external HDD is unplugged and quickly resync when I plug external HDD again. Questions: Is… >>> More
Explain difference in SQLIO numbers for RAID 0 versus RAID 5 over 6 disks

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
When using the SQLIO benchmark tool on a 4-core Dell server with 6 15k 450GB (fast) drives, RAID 0, we found the max throughput was 2MB per second. But when configured as RAID 5, we get 30 MB per second. It seems that the RAID controller, Dell Perc 5i integrated controller, is maxing out the… >>> More
RAID 5 RECONSTRUCT with RAID Reconstructor

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I have Dell Poweredge server 2600 with Raid 5 in 3 hard drive Scsi 36gb each, it was fail to boot sinc the third drive is offline. I attached Sata card adapter to Sata hard drive and install OS SERVER 2003 to it, downloaded drivers for Raid and everything goes fine when I use recovery data software… >>> More