Why won't the Hard Disk Drive Caddy I've bought fit my 2.5" Hard Disk Drive?

If you've removed your Hard Disk Drive (HDD) from you laptop to recover some data or to reuse the Hard Disk Drive to create your own portable storage solution then beware if you have a HDD that is 12mm thick. The thickness of the HDD is important when chosing any external HDD case or HDD enclosure because the HDD cases are designed to provide a "snug fit" around the HDD to stop them rattling around inside the HDD Case.

The vast majority of laptop Hard Drives are 9.5mm thick. As a consequence most Laptop HDD cases are designed to accomodate 9.5mm Hard Disk Drives. If you have a HDD that is 12mm thick then please ensure you double check the specification of the HDD caddy before you buy because if you do buy a HDD case designed for a 9.5mm HDD then you simply won;t be able to slide the HDD inside the Caddy. The connections will fit on the HDD but the HDD itself will not slide into the body of the caddy.

Conversley if you have a 9.5mm Hard Disk Drive be careful to select a HDD enclosure that is designed (as most of them are) for a standard 9.5mm HDD. if you do buy a 12mm HDD caddy then whilst your 9.5mm HDD will fit inside the case it will not be held in place tightly and over time this will create pressure on the IDE connectors and could ultimately damage the HDD interface leading to the failure of the HDD.

If you're not sure which Laptop Hard Disk Drive you have but need a solution to recover the data then you could consider a cable solution. The benefit of these is that they fit any HDD irrespective of whether they are laptop 2.5" or destop 3.5" and irrespective of whether they are IDE or SATA and it make no difference how thick the HDD is.

  Smart-Drive 2.5" IDE Hard Disk Enclosure

Mobile Disk 2.5" HDD Enclosures (HD206)

Rock 2.5" (SATA) Caddy - USB 2.0 & eSATA

USB 2.0 IDE & SATA Cable (with Power Supply)