2.5 HDD For desktop?

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smc805

Limp Gawd
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Mar 5, 2015
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What's up everybody?

My build is still a work in progress, and I'd like to add some additional mass storage without killing my bank account too badly. My case is an NCASE M1, and room is already pretty tight. Without boring everyone with the nitty gritty, I'm wondering is there any reason why one shouldn't just use a 2.5" HDD vs 3.5" HDD for a desktop system? Is cost the only factor? Are laptop drives not as good for longterm on times?

Thanks!
 
is there any reason why one shouldn't just use a 2.5" HDD vs 3.5" HDD for a desktop system? Is cost the only factor?
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Higher cost, lower sequential performance and smaller size.

Are laptop drives not as good for longterm on times?
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My anecdotal evidence says laptop drives are more reliable and last longer then desktop drives. However I said anecdotal for a reason its not like I have tens of thousands of each. More like 200 or so 3.5 inch drives and a few dozen 2.5 inchers.
 
drescherjm said:
Higher cost, lower sequential performance and smaller size.



My anecdotal evidence says laptop drives are more reliable and last longer then desktop drives. However I said anecdotal for a reason its not like I have tens of thousands of each. More like 200 or so 3.5 inch drives and a few dozen 2.5 inchers.
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I'm seeing 750gb 7200 rpm 2.5" drives for less than $100, which to me in my admittedly limited experience seems pretty good. And that amount of storage would solve my problems (I have a slew of data on a 2tb drive I used to use for Linux that's been partitioned all over the place, and now I'm using it for my windows system so I just want to get the data off of it and start fresh).

In your experience though you're already an order of magnitude beyond the drives I've personally owned
 
drescherjm said:
Higher cost, lower sequential performance and smaller size.



My anecdotal evidence says laptop drives are more reliable and last longer then desktop drives. However I said anecdotal for a reason its not like I have tens of thousands of each. More like 200 or so 3.5 inch drives and a few dozen 2.5 inchers.
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I have similar anecdotal experience. There are occasionally some pretty fast 2.5" drives, you just have to be selective. I have a Samsung that's pretty fast, though it's currently sitting on a shelf.
 
If you are paying attention to the stats and are sure to get a 7200rpm 2.5, then you should not be able to discern a real world difference in performance compared to its 3.5 brother.

The primary difference at that point is price/gb.

In my sff system, I run a 2.5 sad for os and apps and a 2.5 hdd for storage. I've run that setup for almost three years and I have never felt limited by the 2.5 hdd.

If it solves your problem, I say go for it! However, if you are going to be running an is and apps off of it, there are some affordable ssd options that are light years ahead in performance and also 2.5
 
TheHobbyist said:
If you are paying attention to the stats and are sure to get a 7200rpm 2.5, then you should not be able to discern a real world difference in performance compared to its 3.5 brother.

The primary difference at that point is price/gb.

In my sff system, I run a 2.5 sad for os and apps and a 2.5 hdd for storage. I've run that setup for almost three years and I have never felt limited by the 2.5 hdd.

If it solves your problem, I say go for it! However, if you are going to be running an is and apps off of it, there are some affordable ssd options that are light years ahead in performance and also 2.5
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This is perfect!! Thank you! I had read some reviews on Newegg that made it appear as though 2.5"hdds didn't have the same lifespan or didn't tolerate being on as long as a "normal" hdd would. Hard to say though sometimes people's reviews aren't the most coherent or correctly diagnosed.

Anyway, I have a 480gb SSD right now for my apps and Windows, but it is quickly getting clogged up with recorded video and music/photos what-have-you. My case already doesn't have the best ventilation because of where it is, and its not exactly huge to begin with, so a hard drive the size of an SSD would be amazing.

Again, thanks for the insight!
 
smc805 said:
This is perfect!! Thank you! I had read some reviews on Newegg that made it appear as though 2.5"hdds didn't have the same lifespan or didn't tolerate being on as long as a "normal" hdd would. Hard to say though sometimes people's reviews aren't the most coherent or correctly diagnosed.

Anyway, I have a 480gb SSD right now for my apps and Windows, but it is quickly getting clogged up with recorded video and music/photos what-have-you. My case already doesn't have the best ventilation because of where it is, and its not exactly huge to begin with, so a hard drive the size of an SSD would be amazing.

Again, thanks for the insight!
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If it's purely for storage purposes, you can get 3tb "green" drives for in the $70-80 range if you're patient enough to wait for a sale. Heck, I've been seeing 5tb external drives drop into the $110 range.
 
smc805 said:
This is perfect!! Thank you! I had read some reviews on Newegg that made it appear as though 2.5"hdds didn't have the same lifespan or didn't tolerate being on as long as a "normal" hdd would. Hard to say though sometimes people's reviews aren't the most coherent or correctly diagnosed.
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I think a big part of that is 2.5" drives are often used in laptops which get moved around and bumped a lot and potentially even dropped. Such an environment is hard on any rotational drive and on average they would have a shorter lifespan.

In a desktop system, none of these concerns apply and a 2.5" drive should be just as reliable as a 3.5" drive. It is also worth noting that at the enterprise level where reliability is generally important a lot of rack-mount servers and some storage arrays use 2.5" drives due to their smaller physical size. (Of course those drives are typically SAS drives instead of SATA with much better warranties and higher price tags to match.)
 
wbo said:
I think a big part of that is 2.5" drives are often used in laptops which get moved around and bumped a lot and potentially even dropped. Such an environment is hard on any rotational drive and on average they would have a shorter lifespan.
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That's a really good point. I neglected to put together that the majority of reviews I had read must have been for laptops... which yeah, someone isn't going to say that they treated their laptop like trash and then all the sudden one day it wouldn't work. Of course its the hard drives fault! Lol.

Thanks
 
Tsumi said:
If it's purely for storage purposes, you can get 3tb "green" drives for in the $70-80 range if you're patient enough to wait for a sale. Heck, I've been seeing 5tb external drives drop into the $110 range.
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Thanks! I'll definitely be keeping my eyes peeled. So far I've seen a WD Black for $60, but that was a 750GB drive. Though presumably pretty decent speed at 7200 rpm
 
Sweet! Thank you!

My only concern would be for launching and or working with movies... Would that be bogged down significantly by less than 7200rpm?
 
Depends on a multitude of factors. High density 5400 RPM drives (like 3tb drives using 1tb platters) can have better performance than low density 7200 RPM drives (like 1tb drives using 400gb platters) (numbers are made up, but you get the idea), especially in sequential, due to how much closer the data is. It also depends on the application and how much information they need to load.

As for working with movies, what do you mean by that? Do you mean video editing? I would look at hard drive reviews and compare their sequential performance.
 
Why not get a SSD and save space and performance, or get a VelociRaptor and remove the icepack? They are thicker than normal 2.5", but not by much.
 
BlueFireIce said:
So why not get a bigger one or another one?
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Too expensive at this time, probably. And if he's storing video, you're going to want a low $/GB ratio. You can get a 6TB HDD for the same price as a 1TB SSD.
 
Tsumi said:
As for working with movies, what do you mean by that? Do you mean video editing? I would look at hard drive reviews and compare their sequential performance.
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Yeah sorry. I'm getting into recording game clips and GoPro videos and editing them.
 
BlueFireIce said:
So why not get a bigger one or another one?
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Just too expensive. I have a SFF PC and would like to keep things inside neat and tidy, and as much as I'd love to have SSDs all over the place, they are (right now) too expensive for me. Also, my motherboard only has 4 SATA ports, so I need to take advantage of them as best I can.
 
Armenius said:
Too expensive at this time, probably. And if he's storing video, you're going to want a low $/GB ratio. You can get a 6TB HDD for the same price as a 1TB SSD.
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He said working with videos, which means he is going to want speed, if he is just storing video, performance is not an issue at all.
 
Wondering if the WD Black2 would be a good option. They're on sale right now @ Newegg
 
BlueFireIce said:
He said working with videos, which means he is going to want speed, if he is just storing video, performance is not an issue at all.
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It depends. If it's really just splicing and putting together clips, especially for leisure purposes, hard drive performance isn't really a necessity. And if it is, simply put all the files being worked on on the SSD before working on them. Move them, including the finished video, off the SSD to the storage once finished.

smc805 said:
Wondering if the WD Black2 would be a good option. They're on sale right now @ Newegg
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I will say no. Get one or two high capacity 3.5" drives. The Black2 is specifically targeted towards those who wants a small SSD plus large storage HDD in one at the price of a small SSD + large storage HDD, and are limited to one bay.
 
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