Hard Drive Options for Latitude E4200?

I think the E4200 is a great machine, and I can probably get one cheap off Dell Outlet. My only real concern here is hard drive capacity. The standard options of 64GB or 128GB SSD aren't going to cut it for me... I'd want to have at least a 256GB SSD or one of the Toshiba 250GB 5400RPM 1.8" drives.

I know that the E4200 has a 1.8" hard drive slot, so a standard 2.5" notebook hard drive will not work at all. But its 1.8" slot should mean that regular 1.8" hard drives should work in it, no? Surely the computer can use either a 1.8" SSD drive or 1.8" hard drive.

Also, all SSD drives listed on NewEgg are 2.5"... where exactly do you find a 1.8" one? Again, Dell's 128GB option isn't going to cut it capacity-wise for me.

 

I'm curious about this too.

 

Wow, this one is actually interesting. If you take a look at the service manual:

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/late4200/en/sm/ssd.htm#wp1180023

The E4200 definitely doesn't use a standard 1.8" drive. I'm hesitant to say for sure that it's a PCIe SSD (like the ones in most netbooks), but that certainly seems to be a possibility. The other possibility is that it is a 1.8" SATA SSD without a metal shell (less likely I suppose).

Whatever the case you definitely won't be able to fit a conventional 1.8" HDD or SSD in there (maybe unless you made some modifications...?).

 

I find this sad... what a crappy limitation on an otherwise great laptop.

Even my netbook has space for a 2.5" hard drive, and the E4200's main competitor, the HP EliteBook 2530p, finds room for either a 2.5" hard drive or a 1.8" hard drive + Optical Drive.

 

I'm sure the 2530p is either larger or heavier as a result. It is all about tradeoffs, and Dell was targeting the ultraportable notebook market with the E4200.