3.5" HDDs

[quartzz1]

are there many reasons to have low-capacity (under 2TB) 3.5" hard drives now?

So before SSD's came along, you wanted as fast a drive as possible for your windows, which 3.5" gave

I've just bought a couple of 1TB drives, 2.5", just for data storage. for a few reasons-

- 2.5" take up less room, which means I can buy two, one for backup, and fit them in a single 3.5" bay
- uses less power, produces less heat, possibly produces less noise
- possibly more rugged and resistant to movement? (at least laptop drives used to be designed to be slightly move-able)
- not much more expensive than 3.5"

the transfer rate for data (not booting up) is basically the same, at the moment mine are external on USB 2, so no need for high data transfer anyway. for the ten-terrabyters obviously 3.5" is still the drive

I'm thinking of buying an external 2TB 2.5" drive (possibly Lacie or Seagate), because my current external 2TB 3.5" drive (Hitachi "Simpledrive", about 8 years old, not used a tremendous amount..at all) is starting to make some odd seek noises, and SMART gives a "caution". is there actually any reason to buy a 2TB external 3.5"? bigger, heavier, and would need a seperate power cable?

edit, the only reason I can think, is if you want a 3.5 drive connected to an external docking station, where you can disconnect the USB from the PC, without having to power down the drive. But maybe someone can offer some insight, into whether or not external USB-powered 2.5" hard drives, 'power down' after a certain amount of idle time? in which case "powering down" by disconnecting the USB, wouldn't be any different

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Only reason would be cost. 3.5" drives tend to be slightly cheaper per GB, but this can vary an awful lot.

But maybe someone can offer some insight, into whether or not external USB-powered 2.5" hard drives, 'power down' after a certain amount of idle time? in which case "powering down" by disconnecting the USB, wouldn't be any different

From what I remember, external USB drives should respect the power down HDD time in power management. So you can set idle time manually.

 

[C1]

For an external drive, it is the enclosure that controls the drive's powering down and that is "built in." If you want the drive to remain spinning then use something like Softjock's "MDIS" (My Drive is Spinning).

Use of 2.5" drives have the advantages mentioned (ie, lower power, more shock proof, smaller physical size, etc.) plus also they are more versatile in that they can be used in desktop as well as laptop PCs.