Toshiba MK1401GRRB Internals

The top of the drive reveals the drives small 2.5"� form factor with 15mm Z-height. The firmware for the model we are testing is 0102, among the other relevant information listed on the sticker.

The bottom of the drive shows that all of the components on the PCB are inward facing. This is for a number of reasons, from more effective thermal dissipation to also keeping fragile protruding components safe from possible rough handling during installation.

The drive features a standard 6GB/s SAS connection. SAS is much better suited for the enterprise space than SATA. SAS enables many more enterprise features and allows for longer cabling.

Once we remove the PCB, we can see that it lays nearly flush to the bottom of the HDDs metal shell. The PCB is mounted so closely that there is a clear plastic divider between the two. We can also observe the two holes in the plastic separator contain some bare metal with a thermal interface material applied. This TIM allows the Marvell processor and the motor controller onboard the PCB to dissipate the heat into the shell of the HDD effectively. Constructed to very high tolerances, the chips actually make contact with the body of the drive.

The inward facing components on the PCB include a Marvell drive controller, the motor controller and the 32MB DDR2 Winbond cache module. The Marvell and motor controller components also have spots on them where the TIM is placed between them and the shell of the HDD. In effect, the HDD case acts as a large heatsink.